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In the interest of transparency, here's how I voted in the Inside Lacrosse media poll this week. Some brief explanations follow the ballot.
| RANK | TEAM | PREVIOUS | CHANGE | RANK | TEAM | PREVIOUS | CHANGE | |
| 1. | Notre Dame | 1. | 11. | Marquette | 13. | +2 | ||
| 2. | Syracuse | 2. | 12. | Army | 14. | +2 | ||
| 3. | Maryland | 3. | 13. | Stony Brook | 18. | +5 | ||
| 4. | North Carolina | 4. | 14. | Brown | 11. | -3 | ||
| 5. | Denver | 6. | +1 | 15. | Princeton | 12. | -3 | |
| 6. | Cornell | 5. | -1 | 16. | Georgetown | 16. | ||
| 7. | Duke | 7. | 17. | Loyola | 17. | |||
| 8. | Yale | 10. | +2 | 18. | Ohio State | 20. | +2 | |
| 9. | Albany | 9. | 19. | Towson | NR | +2 | ||
| 10. | Virginia | 8. | -2 | 20. | Fairfield | NR | +1 |
- New this week: Towson and Fairfield. Dropped out this week: Johns Hopkins and Navy. Also seriously considered: You? The teams that are in the conversation for the back portion of the top 20 are just as likely to knock off a top 15 team as they are to show up at the field with a bus engulfed in flames.
- Johns Hopkins: This the first time this season that the Jays haven't appeared on my ballot. All season long I've looked at Hopkins -- like any other team -- and made an assessment on the Blue Jays based on the idea that in 100-game series there weren't too many teams that would beat Johns Hopkins more than 50 times. At 4-6 with two halfway decent but not exceptional victories (against Villanova and Navy), I finally couldn't keep fighting the tide. I went back and forth on whether to slot the Stags or Jays into that final spot on the ballot and decided to get Fairfield the nod. It's just . . . I'm struggling to continue to give Hopkins the benefit of the doubt based on tough losses against solid teams. Something needs to start flashing for the Blue Jays.
- Stony Brook: I gave the Seawolves a push and a pretty sizeable one at that. We'll see if that holds up, but two America East teams in the top 15 is both scary and interesting.
- Marquette:
The Eagles were the beneficiary of both Brown and Princeton losing. This may be high for Marquette, but the team's coming schedule should fix any issues associated with a too high ranking at the moment. [Ed. Note: I messed up. For whatever reason I didn't put Marquette's midweek loss to Bellarmine into my update workbook. There's no other excuse: I messed up. It happens.]