Lax Vegas Lines Releases 2017 Regular Season Over/Unders.

(Ed. Note: For entertainment and informational purposes only! #WeDoNotEndorseGambling!!)

For the first time ever (or at least that I could find) Lax Vegas Lines released over/under lines for regular season wins for the top 20 teams in D1. I have some thoughts below but first let’s take a gander at the goods!

I think Mr. Smith from The Matrix said it best.

Before we go on, shout out to Lax Vegas Lines for putting in work! This was released at 9:15 tonight and as you can see from the Tweets below, the banter has already begun!

It’s going to be a great deal of fun following along this year and seeing how all these teams stack up by the end of the regular season. Here are some of my initial thoughts regarding the lines.

The oh boys.

• Brown - 11 wins. The Bears are coming off one of the best seasons in program history, however, they also lost a ton of talent from last year’s amazing squad. Moreover, former head coach Lars Tiffany and former assistant coaches Sean Kirwan, and Kip Turner, all moved down to Virginia in the offseason as well. Brown still has the reigning Tewaaraton winner in Dylan Molloy, but he’s coming off an injury from the end of last season and there are a lot of questions as to who else will be able to shoulder the offensive burden this year. Brown’s been hot the last two seasons, but before 2015, the Bears won 8 or fewer games from 2010-2014. I could see the Bears coming back to Earth this year as they try to fit in a bunch of new faces on offense and get accustomed to new head coach Mike Daly.
• Notre Dame - 8 wins. You have to go all the way back to 2005 for the last time Notre Dame finished the regular season below .500. Since then few coaches can match the level of success coach Corrigan has enjoyed at South Bend. Nevertheless, this is going to be unique season for the Fighting Irish as they’ll only play 11 regular season games this year. Additionally, it’s not like Notre Dame has a cupcake schedule in 2017. They play 5 top 10 teams from Inside Lacrosse’s Top 20 Media Poll and #15 UVA and #18 Marquette. Notre Dame should still have a strong season, but given their tough schedule and the limited number of games, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that they catch one or two Ls in the first half of the season, which would leave little room for error in the home stretch.
• Duke - 11 wins. Much like Brown, Duke is another team that will have a lot of new faces in important places in 2017. Gone are Myles Jones, Deemer Class, Case Matheis, and Chad Cohan, who were the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 6th in scoring last year, respectively (229 combined points). Coach Danowski is a special coach, but Duke caught 6 regular season losses last year, and things could be equally bumpy this year.

Over and beyond.

• Johns Hopkins - 8.5 wins. Despite the loss of standout defenseman Patrick Foley for all of 2017, I still see Hopkins having a strong season this year. Former HITTER Ryan Brown is no longer at Homewood, but Hop will have several big time players in 2017 who missed all or parts of 2016, including star midfielders Joel Tinney and Connor Reed. JHU will need to fix their defense (the Jays gave up a Petro-era worst 11.60 goals/game in 2016), but their offense should be able to carry them this season. Additionally, a good number of their toughest games (Navy, Loyola, Syracuse, UVA, Rutgers, and Penn State) are at home this year which should help their cause.
• Richmond - 8 wins. While the Spiders have a very arduous out of conference schedule, (games versus Duke, Marquette, UNC, and UVA), I believe they’ll get over 8 wins this year. Richmond will probably be favored versus its first three opponents in 2017 (Fairfield, UMBC, & Mount St. Mary’s) and as long as they take care of business early on, they have a good chance at starting the season 3-0. Moreover, while Air Force and High Point should challenge Richmond for the SoCon title this year, the gap between the Spiders and the other five teams in the conference is still pretty wide. If the Spiders win the games they are supposed to and steal one or two games versus the non-conference big boys, they could get double digit regular season wins this year.

Let us know some of your sleepers and stay aways in the comments section.