As a Hopkins grad/fan, I often look at their schedule and cringe. That said, I hope they only swap out one of the tough ones, not 3 or 4.

They are going to get the benefit of the doubt come selection time, and one of the things that makes them special is that murderer's row schedule.

I'm sorry Christian I'm going to strongly disagree with you here, the Johns Hopkins Lacrosse program presents itself as the nation's preeminent college lacrosse program and their schedule should reflect that. College football and basketball have prostituted themselves for television and polls and I hope college lacrosse never does. When I look at Hopkins' 3-5 record I know there are no wins over Little Sisters of the Poor or West Virginia Body & Fender in there. The only one of Hops' looses that I look at closely is the Hofstra loss and the only win that is a no brainer is Albany.

I know it probably brings a tremendous disadvantage for JHU at tournament seeding time but I like the Hop at 3-5 better than I like:

# 1 Dook: wins over Bucknell, Vermont, Presbyterian, Lehigh, Colgate, Harvard and Dartmouth. That schedule has more padding than the average middle school girl's bra.

#3 UVA: wins over Stony Brook, Vermont, VMI and Mount St. Mary's.

#4 G-town: wins over St. John's, Mount St. Mary's and Fairfield.

#5 Cornell: wins over Caninsus, Denver and the rest of the mediocre Ivies.

#2 Syracuse plays a schedule of teams with long lacrosse traditions and the ability to beat the Orange (e.g., Army and Hobart) and in my book are the number 1 team right now.

Pietro and his men should hold their heads up high and say, so what we're 3-5, we also don't play patsies and we're proud of it.

I agree with Dave. Why should Hop water down its schedule? Isn't that why recruits come to the Hop - to be the best and play the best? It sounds like Petro is getting a little lazy - instead of working harder to recruit, they'll just play more patsies.

Incredulous and Dave, you guys are being way too obtuse. Hopkins could drop at least one or two very tough teams and still have the toughest schedule in the country. I'm not seeing the rewards for playing Syracuse-Virginia-North Carolina-Duke-Maryland-Navy all in a row. Even replacing one of those games with a smaller program would be a benefit to the players and coaches.

Frankly, the Hopkins-UNC series has run its course. It was interesting in the 1980s and early 1990s but if Hopkins is going to keep Duke, there's no reason to keep Carolina, too.

The game is changing. And Hopkins needs to keep up with it.

If Hopkins had been able to win even one of their OT games, I don't think that we'd be having this discussion.
That having been said, they have a brutal schedule every year. There's no shame in playing a Vermont or a Sacred Heart every once in a while.

I'm an alumnus and I'd like to see the schedule take on a few northern teams and Ivies. Cornell, Brown, Harvard, Army, 'Bart. These would be great games - and they're not gimmes. We could keep the schedule integrity without descending to Dook-like levels of creampuffery.

While Hopkins may think they are the best, they aren't. There fans are snotty and if they never win another game, I couldn't be happier. They think they are the sports premier program when they have clearly have been left behind by UVA, Cuse Princeton and maybe Duke (if they keep it up).

Having an annoying band doesn't make you a good team.

One thing for sure is that it is quickly getting harder and harder to find an "easy team" to play. With the growth of the sport at the youth and high school level,in both public and private schools all over the country there are more and more fantastic players with the goal of playing at the college level, waiting to be recruited. They can't all play for the top ten programs so the 2nd and 3rd tier programs are rising rapidly. It pretty much reflects what is happening with college admissions in general. Have you looked lately at what the average SAT scores of what once was a 2nd or 3rd tier academic institution? the trickle down affect...

It is a shame that JHU is thinking about watering down their schedule. One of
the great things about lacrosse is that the top national teams actually play
each other, unlike football, etc. But now that making the tournament and
winning the tournament is everything, people will adjust to that end.

Who won the title last year, big guy? Not the hoos and certainly not cuse. Having moronic posters doesn't make you a good team.

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