Weekend Watch: Dipping a Toe in Pool B
by Jac Coyne | Lacrosse Magazine Online Staff | Coyne Archive | Twitter
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| Guy Van Arsdale (above) and Colorado College
only have to worry about Pool B for one year - the Tigers will
be in an AQ league next spring - so they've decided to worry about
the business at hand and accept whatever fate the committee may
have for them. © Charlie Lengal |
The math equation is pretty simple, but the result will be
traumatic.
Four contenders – three bids = one very unhappy team.
Welcome to the 2010 race for a trio of men’s Division III
Pool B berths, which go annually to those teams not affiliated with
a conference or members of a league that do not have enough members
to earn an automatic (Pool A) bid to the NCAA tournament.
Unlike years past, we have a week left before the bids are unsealed
and we do not have any teams that we can label as locks. We have
four teams – Denison, Ohio Wesleyan, Wittenberg and Colorado
College – that all appear to have the goods to receive an
invitation, but none that can claim they’re in.
“I’d like to think that we’re deserving, but
that’s not up to us to know,” said Denison coach
Michael Caravana.
“If we win these games this weekend, we’ll be under
consideration, and that’s probably the most we can
say,” said Colorado College’s head coach Guy Van
Arsdale. “But if we lose one, we know we’re
done.”
“We have kind of put ourselves in a pretty good
situation,” said Ohio Wesleyan’s Sean Ryan. “If
we do what we’re capable of doing on Wednesday, we’re
helping our cause even more.”
“We just don’t know,” added George Harris,
Wittenberg’s skipper. “It’s all in the hands of
the committee. It’s exciting times and it’s all new to
me. It’s a fun environment around here just to be in the
conversation.”
What makes it difficult for the coaches to pinpoint who has the
upper hand is the circular nature of how the primary
criteria can be applied, which has been magnified this year with
the four teams overlapping in certain areas.
Ohio Wesleyan has the strongest strength of schedule, but has a
head-to-head loss to Denison. Denison has a key win over Lynchburg
and a strong regional record, but a head-to-head loss to
Wittenberg. Colorado College has a win over Wittenberg and a shiny
record, but a weak strength of schedule. Wittenberg has the Denison
win combined with the Colorado College loss.
It’s enough to make your head spin, but Caravana and Ryan
have been through one of these rodeos before. As the flagship
programs of the NCAC, which has long-standing hegemony over the
Pool B proceedings, Denison and Ohio Wesleyan are used to crunching
the numbers.
For Ryan and OWU, it’s all about jacking up the SOS.
“I think it was 2008 when the College of Wooster was 11-2 and
we were 10-4 and we got in the tournament because of the strength
of schedule,” said Ryan. “They had the better in-region
winning percentage, but the strength of schedule was the difference
in that selection. The one thing that it has really taught us is
for our non-league games we have to play Lynchburg, Washington
& Lee and Salisbury.”
Caravana has been on the selection committee before and, while the
criteria has changed slightly since he last served, he understands
the machinations that can take place, like a committee member
getting thrown off the call because his team is contention for a
bid. While the directives from the NCAA are standardized across all
sports in Division III, changing out even one person can make a
difference.
That’s why for Caravana it’s all about racking up the
victories.
“I think you’ve got to look at wins. You have to win
enough,” he said. “The criteria are still in-region
winning percentage, head-to-head and strength of schedule. If you
lose so many games, you’re going to put yourself in a
difficult situation. And then who are our wins against?
You’ve got to hope that the teams you beat do
well.”
Van Arsdale and Harris are neophytes to the Pool B game. Because of
the unfamiliarity, they worry less about what is going on with the
committees.
Not only is Van Arsdale in his first year as head coach of Colorado
College, but his Division III experience – he was the head
coach at RIT for 12 years – was back in a different era of
the NCAA tournament. Faced with the task of reshaping a new team,
Van Arsdale also didn’t have the extra time to waste
trying to decipher the nuances of Pool B.
“I’d say that I’m just boning up now,” said
Van Arsdale, with a laugh. “We felt like we needed to prepare
our team as best we could and make the most of the season, and then
let those other things take care of themselves. I’ve been
doing this for 27 years and I always felt that when it comes to
tournaments, you play your way in or you play your way out. The
only people we can count on is ourselves, so we focused on us. Our
schedule is what it is.”
This is also a one-year issue for Van Arsdale and Colorado College.
With the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) having
already received the green light from the NCAA for an automatic bid
in 2011 when eight teams come online, the Tigers will be more
concerned about dipping their toes in Pools A and C, not Pool
B.
Wittenberg’s Harris doesn’t get too caught up in trying
to figure out where his program stands in the order of contention
because the Tigers still have a huge game remaining. On Wednesday,
Wittenberg travels to Ohio Wesleyan for the season finale and if
they win, the Tigers will be undefeated and outright NCAC
conference champs.
“I think it would be tough to say no to the top team in the
NCAC for a Pool B slot,” said Harris. “It’s fun
the way things have happened and how it will come down to May
5.”
If they don’t win that game, Harris will probably sit down
over the remaining three days until Selection Sunday, slowing
crunching the numbers in an attempt to figure out who has the math
in their favor and who is going to be the remainder.
Keep Up with the Conference Tournaments
Below are the conference tournament clearinghouses for the
various divisions that I cover.
- Men’s
Division
- Women’s
Division III
- MCLA
Division I
- MCLA
Division II
Pressure Zone
Players who must make a difference for their teams
this weekend.
Leslie Buckingham,
Midfield, Lynchburg
Buckingham struck for a double hat trick against Roanoke,
helping the third-seeded Hornets upend the defending ODAC champions
and advance to Saturday’s conference title tilt against
Washington & Lee. She’ll need to mirror that performance
against the Generals if Lynchburg wants a chance at punching its
ticket. In the regular season meeting between the two teams W&L
stifled Buckingham, holding her to just one goal in an 11-5 win. If
she allows the Generals to shut her down again,
it’ll be W&L raising the hardware.
Brady Burton,
Attack, Denison
Just how good is Burton? We’re going to find out on
Saturday when the senior and the rest of the Big Red travel to No.
1 Stevenson for a non-conference game to polish off the season.
Likely matched up with Evan Douglass, the Mustangs’ stud
close defender, Burton will be able to prove that he is an elite
player or just another very good player. With the situation in Pool
B, this game has some urgency for Denison, so first team
All-American is on the line for Burton.
Eliot
Grow, Midfield, Brigham Young
The senior scored four goals and set up a fifth in the
Cougars 14-11 loss to Colorado on Monday, so you can’t blame
Grow for the setback. But it’s obvious that LM’s
Preseason Player of the Year needs to put the entire team on his
back and do it all – face-off wing man, man-up, man-down, and
generating offense out of the midfield – when the two teams
meet again on Friday in the RMLC semifinals. If not, it could end
up being his last game in a BYU uniform.
Max Hjelm, Attack, Haverford
Haverford goalie Joe Banno did his part in the first meeting
with No. 5 Dickinson, making 20 saves, but the ‘Fords offense
was too squirrelly in the 9-8 loss to the Devils (did you see what
I did there?). Hjelm did manage two goals and a helper, but he
needs to double that output if he wants us to take his All-American
credentials seriously. If he’s content with a middling
performance, Haverford bows out of the Centennial tournament as
well as the NCAA tournament hunt.
Cat Ruggiero, Goalie, Union
Here we are: the Dutchwomen’s season finale on the
road against their biggest rival and No. 1 team in the country. All
five of Union’s losses have come by one goal and three of
those were in overtime, so Ruggiero must make sure she has one
focus for 60 minutes in order to give her team the opportunity to
pull the upset. The junior has been excellent all season –
6.36 GAA and 61.4 save percentage – and if she meets those
marks, the Dutchwomen win.
Katie Stewart, Midfield, Bowdoin
If Bowdoin is going to beat Tufts on Friday night and take
another big step towards an NCAA tournament berth, it’ll be
all about goals. While the Polar Bears are considered one of the
more athletic teams in the NESCAC, they still don’t have
enough defense to slow down the Jumbos. They’ve got to
outscore them. That’s where Stewart comes in. The sophomore
is a dead-eye shooter out of the midfield and will have to match
the four goals and two assists she amassed against Bates if Bowdoin
picks up the win.
Robert Tonnessen, Goalie, RIT
As Tonnessen goes, so go the Tigers. When he has huge games,
like he did in the overtime loss to Cortland with 19 saves, RIT can
play with anyone. When he's mediocre, like he was against
St. John Fisher (6 stops), the Tigers lose. While this game
won’t do much shuffling of the Empire 8 tournament
deck, a win makes RIT a contender in the at-large race. Keep your
eyes on the net Saturday.
Slides & Rides
- As much as Wittenberg coach George Harris and Colorado
College head man Guy Van Arsdale want to play down the various Pool
B scenarios with their players, they know it’s a lost cause.
With forums, chat rooms and all sorts of numbers available in an
instant, it’s only natural that the players try to figure out
their fate on the web.
“It’s tough because there is so much to read out
there,” said Harris. “You can tell them and tell them,
and they’ll nod their heads, but once they leave the field we
know with the technology there’s only so much we can
say.”
“As with all kids, they look at the numbers and permutations.
Some of the older guys were able to educate me a little more about
how it worked,” added Van Arsdale. “I don’t think
anyone has a real firm grasp on it. There’s a lot in there
and there is a lot that goes into the mix.”
- There’s no doubt that No. 9 Geneseo’s loss to
Brockport on Wednesday is a killer for the Blue Knights' at-large
chances. But instead of talking about how Genny “blew
it,” let’s give a little love to Brockport. The Golden
Eagles raced out to a 3-0 lead that they would never lose and
rode a 16-save performance from goalie Kyle Crosley to an 11-7
victory. Brockport is one of the usual also-rans in the
SUNYAC, but with a win over Potsdam on Saturday the Eagles will
qualify for the conference tourney, where they’ll likely meet
Geneseo again in the semifinals. At 8-5 and with the Knights and
Cortland standing in their way, Brockport is likely going nowhere
after May 8, but for one afternoon they played like a Top 10 team.
That's something to build on.
- I’m a NESCAC guy to begin with, but I feel like I can
objectively say that there is no better women’s lacrosse
conference tournament at any level than the NESCACs playoff. Of the
eight teams that qualified for the tourney, which begins Sunday,
seven of them will be ranked. And the likely eighth seed defeated
Middlebury. There are six teams I could see earning the AQ and as
many as four picking up NCAA bids when it’s all over next
weekend.
- President Barack Obama hates lacrosse. I kid, I kid, but because
of the Commander-in-Chief, the Michigan men’s lacrosse team
was aced out of a couple of days of practice leading up to the CCLA
tournament. With Obama giving the commencement speech at UM, the
secret service wanted to use the football turf practice field
– which also happens to be the practice field for top-ranked
Michigan – as its de facto helicopter pad. This entailed
taking down eight humongous field light stanchions and putting the
Wolverines lacrosse team on ice. It won’t matter though as
even the leader of the free world can’t stop Big Blue from
winning the CCLA auto-bid.
- The MCLA selection committee will announce its decisions for the
national tournament in Denver on Sunday evening or Monday morning.
This has the potential to be, top-to-bottom, the best championship
in the history of the association in both divisions. When things
are wrapping up with the final conference championships on Sunday
afternoon, I’ll release my projected field for Denver. After
the official selections come out, I’ll have a bracket
breakdown dissecting the selections and how it was done.
