Only seven shopping weeks until Selection Sunday on May 6th, which means things are really going to start heating up from here on out. We are moving into the heart of conference play, the the NCAA should bless us all with their first RPI of the season within the next week or two, and we’re really starting to see a separation from the elite teams (top 8-9 teams) and everyone else. Things are starting to get hectic out there.

Congrats to Albany Great Danes for repeating as the #1 team in the College Crosse Top 20 for the second week in a row, and the third time in the last four weeks. Much like last week, the Danes captured all 11 #1 votes in our Poll for a clean sweep of the top spot. Maryland holds tight at number two, while Duke & Denver come in at three and four, respectively, this week.

Just to review our pollsters for anyone new to our blog, this year we have Jack Goods (The Buffalo News), James Simmons (Troy Nunes), and Caroline Darney (SB Nation & Streaking The Lawn) voting alongside Chris, Marisa, Ryan, Adam, Jake, & myself. Additionally, we asked new writers Dan & Skyler to join us in voting for the remainder of the regular season, which gives us a total of 11 voters in our Poll.

You can find our official College Crosse Top 20 Poll for this week directly below (Numbers within ()s indicate the number of 1st place votes a team received). I’ve included the previous two Top 20 Polls in the columns on the right so you can see the changes side by side. Additionally, this week I added an Aggregation graph of our poll and the other major polls out there. You can find the Aggregation directly below the Top 20 Poll.

Moreover, below the Aggregation graph you can find our ballots for this week’s Poll. (#Transparency) Also, Jake has blessed us with some comments about his picks and you can find them below the ballots graph. Finally, the last graph on this page contains our Week 6 Elimination Pool picks. Chris and Jim are now out of the Pool, which leaves only seven players left!

College Crosse Top 20 Poll For March 20, 2018.

Aggregation

College Crosse Ballots.

Comments

Jake

1. Albany: The Danes proved there’s no offense they can’t score on, absolutely destroying Vermont.
2. Maryland: Terps came out mad after a loss last week and dominated Villanova from start to finish.
3. Duke: Offense looked a little shaky at times this weekend, but the Blue Devils keep on rolling. They’re the favorite as ACC play starts next week.
4. Notre Dame: Irish offense looked great for 5 minutes and then mediocre for the next 55. Corrigan has to play Garnsey from start to finish for this team to win in May..
5. Denver: Pioneers turned it on in the second half to roll over Ohio State. Baptise did Baptiste things..
6. Villanova: Nova did not look like they belonged on Maryland’s level on Saturday, but the offense still showed signs of being the best in the Big East.
7. Yale: Elis won a thriller against Cornell. Morill and Reeves combined for 10 points; they might have the most underrated offense in the country.
8. Rutgers: A huge week for the Scarlet Knights, grabbing 2 big W’s over Lehigh and Syracuse. The offense is clicking, thanks to future All-American Jules Henningburg
9. Loyola: ‘Hounds pulled away from Navy in the second half thanks to the Pat Spencer show, but I still want to see more when he doesn’t have the ball.
10. Johns Hopkins: Blue Jays played a great 4th Quarter to beat Delaware. This is the nastiest and best Hop defense in awhile.
11. Lehigh: They looked like a legit great team against Rutgers. Their defense makes me think they can win the Patriot League.
12. Penn: They should have been ranked last week. Consider this a bit of an overcorrection for that. They looked tremendous in beating Princeton in every area of the field.
13. Robert Morris: Bobby Mo keeps on rolling. If you keep winning, you’re gonna keep moving up. A great second half to beat a solid Sacred Heart team.
14. Virginia: Still too many unforced errors and defensive breakdowns to be a top team. Going to come down to UNC at the end of the year to try and stop the 18 game ACC losing streak.
15. Army: The less said about their 5-3 win over Holy Cross the better. But a win is a win.
16. Vermont: Albany is Albany, but they looked terrible and clearly overhyped. If not for other losses, they’d have fallen out of the Top 20.
17. Georgetown: I’ll give them a mulligan for the bad game against Drexel. Losses happen. But if they can’t beat Marquette and hang with Loyola this week, they’re not legit.
18. Syracuse: Orange got whooped in the second half against Rutgers. With Duke and ND next, it’s time to panic about their tournament hopes.
19. Cornell: Big Red almost had it in the 4th Quarter over Yale. This team has runs where they look like a legit great team. Should make the Ivy Tournament..
20. Towson: Tigers made it close and then took the lead against Duke. Defense may be rounding back into form. Still see them as the CAA favorite.

Elimination Pool

While I LOVED the idea of Chris being the only one eliminated from the Elimination Pool, it was not to be, as our man Jim fell last week. Only seven players left.