Finishing Sectionals/Moving on to Regionals

Our story continues as Sectionals is postponed due to the 5-day Noreaster that we suffered through this week. What was left to play was our game with Northeastern for 2nd place in the section and the recently changed bracket(we got our 6th bid back during the week.....) with BU, MIT, BC, and Brandeis vying for the 6th spot to regionals. According to the SRT, MIT beat BU for 5th and Brandeis beat BC, so BU will play Brandeis for 6th...sometime this week? Good luck to both teams. So we hosted Northeastern on a beautiful day out at the Wellesley Campus. It was good to catch up with Coach Adams and we talked about how wide open the region was (more on this later).

The game started off very close and patterns developed that would continue throughout the game. We received and had some success working down the field. NU was playing a poachy clam that was mildly disconcerting and we ended up turning it in their end zone. They came back and scored to break us for 1-0. We manage to tie it up, but our execution is rough. Lots of drops, errant passes, etc. Maybe this could be as a result of NU's junk D, but I felt at the time that it was more a function of our execution. NU goes up a couple of breaks, and we crawl back to 4-4. We are having some success with our zone and getting some short fields to work with. NU, however, is having a very good day on O. They are effective with their break marks plus dump swing. We seem to be struggling to even take away what we are trying to take away...plus they are taking what we give them as well. We get the turn, but we drop the disc in the end zone. We get the disc again on the line, but we can't convert. NU puts up a couple of big passes and goes coast to coast for the 5-4 lead. Then....the wheels came off the train. Our execution errors give NU extra possessions, and their O just seemed to crank up a notch. They go on a 3-0 run to take half. Second half is more of the same. NU closes the game with an 11-1 run to win 15-5. Ouch. NU played very well and while folks were giving them some crap at Sectionals about playing HAPD(maybe they are just smart), their offense was as good as any I have seen all season. Congratulations to NU for taking 2nd place in the Section. I wish them the best of luck in two weeks. I think NU has to realize that we need to look for positives in the game. Stuff to build on. A chance to reassess our process goals. I feel confident that they won't take it as disrespectful when I say that most of our turns were either execution or unforced errors. I think with a bit more offensive efficiency that the game is a much closer affair.

So moving onto Regionals. Lots of work to do in the next couple of weeks. I guess the thing to talk about is seeding...and this is going to be a bear to seed. Here is just a sampling at some of the "problems":

-Harvard having a "poor" Yale Cup(with 8 players) then beating Northeastern at Sectionals on their way to finishing 4th. Lots of data here to underseed them. With Lucy and Ellen on the field...watch out.
-BU potentially finishing 6TH in the section. There is a first round game I don't want to have.
-Wesleyan losing a bunch of games at Yale Cup, then winning the section.
-The format at Yale Cup basically makes any kind of analysis using final placement useless.
-Dartmouth having a "weak" start of the season.
-Yale having a great Yale Cup then losing two games at Sectionals on their way to a second place finish.
-Williams losing many close games at Yale Cup....wins their Section easily.

So, my attempt at seeding is a based on a ranking of strength, supported, as much as possible, by data. Specifically, head to head and, importantly, record against common opponents. I think the later is one that gets overlooked. There will be little previous years results and little to no final placement at Yale Cup as part of the ranking.

1)Tufts-only real blemishes are the Yale Cup loss to NU and an Ultimax loss to Williams in March. Beat everyone else and beat NU at Sectionals. Clearly deserves the 1 seed.
2) Northeastern- loss at Sectionals to Harvard, but has a better Record Against Common Opponents(RACO)(4-2) than Dartmouth (2-4), Head to head win over Wesleyan and better RACO (6-4) than Willams (3-6). As Sectional winners, these 3 teams seem to have the only claims on the 2 spot.
3) Dartmouth- head to head wins over Yale,Wellesley, and Williams. Better RACO(4-1) than Wesleyan(3-4).

Now it gets hard. I think the 4 teams vying for the 4-7 slots are: Williams, Wesleyan, Yale, and Wellesley. No one else, based on Sectional results, can really be considered for these slots. Williams, with head to head losses against Yale and Wellesley combined with with a worse RACO (1-4) than Wesleyan plus the fact that Wesleyan must be seeded higher than Yale, is pretty much locked in at 7. So, for the 4-6 slots, I think there is a line of reasoning that goes: Yale has a head to head win over Wellesley, the Wesleyan sectional win is an "upset"...put Wesleyan at 4, Yale at 5, Wellesley at 6. My problems with this analysis are: 1) it doesn't use all the data, 2) it overweights the Yale head to head win, 3) it underweights Yale's two loss sectional performance, and 4) it overseeds Wesleyan from a strength point of view. Looking at RACO as a data point, I think a better gauge of Wesleyan's strength can be obtained. Wesleyan has a worse RACO against Tufts, NU, and Wellesley, but a better RACO against Williams. In other words, I think it is hard to argue that Wesleyan deserves a 4 seed from a point of view of a strength ranking. So that results in:

4) Wellesley
5) Wesleyan
6) Yale
7) Williams
8) Brown- Head to head over Williams was a forfeit. Williams has a better RACO(2-2 vs 1-3). Head to head win over Harvard
9) Harvard
10) Conn College- Quality win over Yale. Better RACO than MIT
11) MIT
12) BU--if they beat Brandies and qualify..if not then Vermont
13) Vermont or Brandeis
14) Bowdoin
15) Middlebury
16)UMF