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NCAA Lacrosse Rankings: College Crosse's Weekly Ballot (Week 12)

None of this matters with the tournament starting this week, but here's how I voted.

By Hoya Suxa
Winslow Townson

In the interest of transparency, here's how I voted in the Inside Lacrosse media poll this week. Some brief explanations follow the ballot.

COLLEGE CROSSE WEEKLY MEDIA POLL BALLOT: WEEK 12
RANK TEAM PREVIOUS CHANGE
1. Loyola 1.
2. Duke 2.
3. Denver 3.
4. Notre Dame 5. +1
5. Syracuse 6. +1
6. Johns Hopkins 4. -2
7. North Carolina 7.
8. Pennsylvania 9. +1
9. Maryland 8. -1
10. Virginia 11. +1
11. Cornell 10. -1
12. Drexel 17. +5
13. Albany 18. +5
14. Harvard 12. -2
15. Fairfield 13. -2
16. Yale 14. -2
17. Hofstra 15. -2
18. Bryant 16. -2
19. Lehigh 19.
20. Princeton 20.

Some brief notes on this:

  • New this week: None. Dropped out this week: None. Also seriously considered: Penn State and Army. I ended up sticking with Lehigh and Princeton at the back of the poll. The Nittany Lions and Black Knights could sneak into the run after the NCAA Tournament plays out -- I'm not sold that simply shuffling deck chairs will be appropriate in the year-end poll -- and after I've had a chance to let the full thrust of the season sink in. I'm not sure what the back end of the entire poll will look like -- Army and Bryant were in the last two positions last week -- but I'm okay with what's detailed in the table.
  • The Big Shuffle: I moved Albany and Drexel up five spots each and made a corresponding two-drop move for each team -- in a block -- that were ahead of the Danes and Dragons. I may have Drexel higher than they should be, but I'm okay with that: The tournament will adjust Drexel accordingly if the Dragons don't come correct next weekend. I had been slow playing Albany and decided to take off the restrictor plate (for now). I briefly considered breaking Bryant free from the block move, but decided to keep the Bulldogs in the stream's flow after reevaluating what I did to Bryant last week (which was probably making an aggressive decision to essentially not move the 'Dogs after they had an uneven week).
  • None of This Matters: The selection committee's work is done; my ballot will not influence its decisions (and they're not supposed to look at the polls anyway). Consistently, I don't care how the selection committee created the bracket relative to how I think teams stack up against each other. These are two vastly different pursuits.
  • Punishment/Reward: The only team that received a notable reward this week for winning was Drexel, and as noted above their push may have been aggressive; there were no notable punishments for losing. The conference tournaments this past week were all great, and the relatively static nature of my ballot reflects that. These teams kind of are what they are, and there was no reason to take a big swing at anyone (Albany being a notable exception).

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