New Poll Predictions for 11/16

[joecct]

Re: New Poll Predictions for 11/16

Did you mean "decreasing"?

I'd say the SUNYAC, especially if the last two to three years the gap has been decreasing between the top teams and the rest of the pack. There are no longer easy games anywhere on the SUNYAC schedule for any team. You better come to play or you're not going to take the full two points you expected to get coming in.

You will now experience what the Interlock has gone through. When you don't have a league of haves and have nots, you get one and only one bid.

[PrezdeJohnson09]

Re: New Poll Predictions for 11/16

You will now experience what the Interlock has gone through. When you don't have a league of haves and have nots, you get one and only one bid.

We usually only get one bid anyways .

I think the only time recently that the SUNYAC got two bids was in 2007 when Fredonia and Oswego went.

[Ozz]

Re: New Poll Predictions for 11/16

Did you mean "decreasing"?

I'd say the SUNYAC, especially if the last two to three years the gap has been decreasing between the top teams and the rest of the pack. There are no longer easy games anywhere on the SUNYAC schedule for any team. You better come to play or you're not going to take the full two points you expected to get coming in.

I agree and disagree...I think the national perception about the SUNYAC is that the gap is widening. The percetpion is that its a foregone conclusion that Oswego will meet Plattsburgh for the championship year in and year out. When has another SUNYAC team received national recognition? I think Geneseo had a sniff of the rankings for a couple weeks a couple years ago. Fredonia rode a hot goalie to a SUNYAC championship a couple years ago. Other than that this conference has been about Oswego and Plattsburgh.

Now what I will agree with you about is the level of competition rising. Walking into a rink with the idea that two points is going to be easy is foolish. I think the competition underneath the top two tier teams is incredible. It's almost a coin flip every week when deciding amongst the other teams.

[93GreatLaker]

Re: New Poll Predictions for 11/16

Did you mean "decreasing"?

I'd say the SUNYAC, especially if the last two to three years the gap has been decreasing between the top teams and the rest of the pack. There are no longer easy games anywhere on the SUNYAC schedule for any team. You better come to play or you're not going to take the full two points you expected to get coming in.

The stats do not support this theory. Over the last two years Platty and Oswego are a combined 49-4-3 against the rest of the SUNYAC. That is 49 times out of 56 (88%) that the big dogs have taken the full two points against the rest of the league. The gap is huge and is certainly not decreasing, especially with Geneseo not having been a factor the last two years.

Take a look at who has met in the league championship the last two years and how easily they got there. Oswego/Platty have outscored their opponents 22-4 in the playoffs during this time. The rest of the league has lost ground.

[PSUChamps2001]

Re: New Poll Predictions for 11/16

The stats do not support this theory. Over the last two years Platty and Oswego are a combined 49-4-3 against the rest of the SUNYAC. That is 49 times out of 56 (88%) that the big dogs have taken the full two points against the rest of the league. The gap is huge and is certainly not decreasing, especially with Geneseo not having been a factor the last two years.

Take a look at who has met in the league championship the last two years and how easily they got there. Oswego/Platty have outscored their opponents 22-4 in the playoffs during this time. The rest of the league has lost ground.

Are you kidding me?? Gone are the years where you walked into Brockport, Cortland, and Buff State and if you won by less then 6 goals it was a moral victory for the opposing team. Dereks not saying that the said teams will beat OSU/PSU on any given night, because 9 times out of 10 they won't...but those 9 games will be a lot closer then 10-15 years ago....

[PrezdeJohnson09]

Re: New Poll Predictions for 11/16

The stats do not support this theory. Over the last two years Platty and Oswego are a combined 49-4-3 against the rest of the SUNYAC. That is 49 times out of 56 (88%) that the big dogs have taken the full two points against the rest of the league. The gap is huge and is certainly not decreasing, especially with Geneseo not having been a factor the last two years.

Take a look at who has met in the league championship the last two years and how easily they got there. Oswego/Platty have outscored their opponents 22-4 in the playoffs during this time. The rest of the league has lost ground.

The more I look back at this the more I'm at odds.

I think the overall competition of the SUNYAC is much higher than it used to be. After Plattsburgh/Oswego it's an all out war and I think you could put the 7 teams in any order and it would look fine.

The SUNYAC used to have about four tiers. It used to be Platty/Oz and then Geneseo/Fredonia then Potsdam/Buff State and then Cortland/Brockport. For the most part that's the way things shook out most years. Brockport and Cortland used to have some pretty atrocious teams with a blip on the radar screen every so often.

Now as far the top two teams. Yes they continue to beat the other teams however, the score margins are starting to decrease, especially this season. I think Plattsburgh and Oswego are more vulernable than they have been in quite some time. Sure they are still the favorites but they both still have major questions.

Will Oswego be able to keep this pace up? Remember the last time they had a hot recruiting class that fanned big time down the stretch in the big games as Freshman?

Plattsburgh doesn't have near the offensive scoring depth they have had the past few seasons and they have issues at goaltender right now.

Can you go down the line and point out weaknesses in every SUNYAC team, sure can. I just feel that overall the SUNYAC has become a better conference in the past few seasons. They are starting to win OOC games against the ECAC west teams after getting owned by them in previous years.

Do i think Plattsburgh and Oswego are the odds on favorites to meet in the SUNYAC title game again? Of course. But it wouldnt surprise me in the least bit if one of the teams in the new second tier (which is the entire conference now) got hot at the end of the season and beat Platty or Oswego in the conference semifinals.

I think you're right the gap between the 2nd and third place teams in the conference has widened as there is no Geneseo or Fredonia waiting to pounce on Oswego/Plattsburgh for a slip-up like there was between 2005-2007. But the gap between the third place team and the bottom of the conference has decreased a lot making the conference overall stronger and making Oswego and Plattsburgh work harder EVERY night and weekend for the two points than they had to in previous years.

[Ozz]

Re: New Poll Predictions for 11/16

I think you're right the gap between the 2nd and third place teams in the conference has widened as there is no Geneseo or Fredonia waiting to pounce on Oswego/Plattsburgh for a slip-up like there was between 2005-2007. But the gap between the third place team and the bottom of the conference has increased a lot making the conference overall stronger and making Oswego and Plattsburgh work harder EVERY night and weekend for the two points than they had to in previous years.

VERY well said...You put into words what my mind was telling me. I think my brain is mush today!

[93GreatLaker]

Re: New Poll Predictions for 11/16

Are you kidding me?? Gone are the years where you walked into Brockport, Cortland, and Buff State and if you won by less then 6 goals it was a moral victory for the opposing team. Dereks not saying that the said teams will beat OSU/PSU on any given night, because 9 times out of 10 they won't...but those 9 games will be a lot closer then 10-15 years ago....

11 years ago Platty outscored its SUNY opponents 94-42, last year it was 81-25. Yeah, a lot has changed in the last 11 years, you have me convinced.

[Michael]

Re: New Poll Predictions for 11/16

11 years ago Platty outscored its SUNY opponents 94-42, last year it was 81-25. Yeah, a lot has changed in the last 11 years, you have me convinced.

Yeah and it's not like last year's Cardinals were that much better than any other Plattsburgh team.

[PrezdeJohnson09]

Re: New Poll Predictions for 11/16

11 years ago Platty outscored its SUNY opponents 94-42, last year it was 81-25. Yeah, a lot has changed in the last 11 years, you have me convinced.

Last year's Cards team was arguably the best team in the country on paper and on the ice for most of last season. They were an absolute juggernaut.

Lets wait and see how THIS year's Card's team does in terms of blowing opponents out of the water night in and night out. I dont think you're going to see it often. They simply lost way too much and having seen the increase of competition in the SUNYAC first hand the last four years, it's going to be a very interesting year for New York public school hockey.

[one_to7]

Re: New Poll Predictions for 11/16

Last year's Cards team was arguably the best team in the country on paper and on the ice for most of last season. They were an absolute juggernaut.

Lets wait and see how THIS year's Card's team does in terms of blowing opponents out of the water night in and night out. I dont think you're going to see it often. They simply lost way too much and having seen the increase of competition in the SUNYAC first hand the last four years, it's going to be a very interesting year for New York public school hockey.

A couple points:

A close league doesn't necessarily mean it's a better league, you can see that all over the sports world. Teams that are close together, inconsistent, hard to pick who's going to win a given game.... but they'd still get absolutely destroyed by a better league.

In the SUNYAC you've got plattsburgh, then oswego, then.... everyone else. Geneseo and fredonia had some spurts over the last few years, but ended up falling back into the pack with everyone else.

Second point, plattsburgh still has one of the best defenses in the country, so even if they're not scoring as much, they should be able to throttle other teams' offenses.

Scoring Defense:
  1 Amherst                     28      41      1.46
  2 Adrian                      29      49      1.69
  3 Plattsburgh                 28      54      1.93
  4 Manhattanville              25      50      2.00

And in their non-oswego games, plattsburgh has outscored their sunyac competition 18-5. Granted they haven't played fredonia yet, but if you stretch those numbers out to a full season, they'd finish scoring 63 goals and giving up 17-18. It's hard to call that anything other than total domination.

[93GreatLaker]

Re: New Poll Predictions for 11/16

Yeah and it's not like last year's Cardinals were that much better than any other Plattsburgh team.

Fair enough, lets go back to the season before then, where Plattsburgh outscored its SUNY opponents 75-32, and 2nd place Oswego (who didn't even make the NCAA tourney) outscored its SUNY brethren 76-32. If you cannot see the domination in league play of these two teams over the last two years, you are blind.

[PrezdeJohnson09]

Re: New Poll Predictions for 11/16

Fair enough, lets go back to the season before then, where Plattsburgh outscored its SUNY opponents 75-32, and 2nd place Oswego (who didn't even make the NCAA tourney) outscored its SUNY brethren 76-32. If you cannot see the domination in league play of these two teams over the last two years, you are blind.

I know they have been dominant. I'm talking about how the rest of the conference has gotten better though. Sure their results havent been there against Plattsburgh and Oswego yet but I think those days are coming.

The season is young. I'll be willing to bet by season's end both Oswego and Plattsburgh will have mutiple losses to SUNYAC opponents outside of themselves.

Will they finish 1-2 again? Probably...but every week these two teams are going to be challenged far more than they have been in recent years from the third to ninth place teams in the conference.

[one_to7]

Re: New Poll Predictions for 11/16

I know they have been dominant. I'm talking about how the rest of the conference has gotten better though. Sure their results havent been there against Plattsburgh and Oswego yet but I think those days are coming.

The season is young. I'll be willing to bet by season's end both Oswego and Plattsburgh will have mutiple losses to SUNYAC opponents outside of themselves.

Will they finish 1-2 again? Probably...but every week these two teams are going to be challenged far more than they have been in recent years from the third to ninth place teams in the conference.

Fredonia won the sunyac championship a few years ago. Geneseo won it twice a year or two before then.

But you're saying this year platty and wego will finish 1-2, yet be challenged far more than in recent years, how does that make sense?

[Dyce]

Re: New Poll Predictions for 11/16

While I understand both Prez's argument on paper in terms of talent, and that made through aggregate scores posted by others, I think the easiest (and perhaps, fairest) way to gauge things right now is to simply look at the W-L. The rest of the SUNYAC gets a combined 28 shots at Plattsburgh and Oswego over a given season, and 8 of those have already been played in this one. The balance of the conference is 0-8, and only Plattsburgh's opener versus Geneseo yielded a result as close two goals. Granted, there's still plenty of hockey to play, but neither the Lakers nor the Cardinals are particularly prone toward faltering as the season progresses; in fact, Plattsburgh is (arguably) right behind Middlebury in their historical tendency to do just the opposite. No matter how solid the theoretical grounding for a tighter conference, I see no reason not to respect the status quo until the results on the ice indicate otherwise.