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InsideLacrosse is certainly reporting it:
http://insidelacrosse.com/news/2011/04/22/breaking-michigan-mens-lacross...
I have my thoughts on this "breaking" news on my lacrosse blog, Great Lax State. Summary: not so breaking (which nothing will really be until there's an actual announcement).
This is great news. I'm very excited to see how the team does in D-1. I'm looking forward to this.
Quick question, I see they're adding womens lax, but does Title 9 come into effect for the year that we have mens and not womens lax? What is the rule on that?
One of the ways to comply with Title IX is to show "growth" (or "progress", whatever the wording is) in the area of equality, so having concrete plans to add the women's team later on - as long as it's not way down the road - is within compliance standards.
The teams would have the same number of schoalrships available next year, the women's team just wouldn't begin competition until the following year.
It would be awesome if next year were the start date. Absolutely awesome.
Everything I've heard from OMG INSIDERZ SOURCEZ lately indicates that will be the case.
Of course, that will make it much tougher to compete in the short term, unless they can convince some key seniors (i.e. Yealy, Freid instead of going to St. Johns) to stay for one more year and ease the transition.
There were certainly rumors that the timeline for the men jumping to D-I status was being accelerated, and now there's more fuel to the fire.
I will now take advantage of this time to brag on my niece who plays at Duke -- 2011 all-ACC (with three other Blue Devils), and a finalist for the 2011 Tewaaraton Award (with two other Blue Devils). Now back to your regular programming :)
Go Blue!!!!
Congrats to Coach Paul and the program.
If they are really shooting for varsity next year, the questions raised are huge!
1) Recruiting - lax recruiting is pretty much done for next year (and much of the year after) at the elite schools.
2) Schedule - I would guess that a number of interesting opponents would be interested in having M on their schedule - home or away - next year. Maybe my beloved Blue Jays will come back to Ann Arbor for a real game?
3) Conference affiliation - ECAC to be with OSU?
Anyway, this is awesome news!
I have a post drafted at Great Lax State (I've been expecting this move for a while, obviously) about who I think might be on the schedule. Once an official announcement is made, I'll publish it within a couple days. As a teaser, OSU, PSU, and ND would probably all be on the schedule (for obvious reasons), along with I assume a lot of ECAC teams (particularly Bellarmine), plus a couple big-name teams, including, yes, Hopkins.
During year 1 Hopkins would be anatural as the only permanent indie out there. I'm not crazy about the idea of the ecac - too big - leaves less room to schedule interesting games against hop, acc, cuse.
Let's not go too crazy, man, one or two of those games a year for starters is enough. Gotta save room for some wins.
....but I am sure you would agree that there are two upsides to this: Michigan gets D1 lax, and expats from lax schools can hope for their alma maters to come to town!
They won't be in the ECAC in year 1. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if the ECAC dissolved or switched up membership, and (as mentioned elsewhere in the thread) it became a modern-day GWLL.
I'm curious about this too. Don't have Tim's insiderz sourcez but it seems to me the ECAC is the likely landing spot. That would be a tough place to start though. Scheduling also makes me curious. Can't wait to see who'd be on the schedule. I imagine a game with UDM would be a guarantee and I start grad school there in less than a month so I'd be really excited for that.
edit: I'd also bet that conference affiliation would wait a year. I know Marquette is starting off with one year as an independent and then joining the Big East full time the year after.
Most first-year programs aren't eligible for the NCAA Tournament (I believe), so they'd almost certainly play an independent year before joining a conference - like every recent addition to D-1.
I think the ECAC is a solid bet for the conference they land in (unless the teams that don't put the "East Coast" in "East Coast Athletic Conference" decide to split with Fairfield and... Quinnipiac(?) and form a technically-new conference with most of the same members). They'd probably play a lot of ECAC teams in year 1 to prepare, etc.
I forgot to mention them above, but I bet UDM would also be on a first-year schedule (again, for obvious reasons, plus Holtz's relationship with Paul from being the former MSU coach).
I'd thought about the possibility of a Western Conference (basically a revival of the GWLL I guess) but do you think the teams would put in the effort? To me it seems like a simple concept: take the old GWLL minus Quinnipiac (which is in the NEC now) and Notre Dame (Big East) and add Michigan and UDM and maybe Penn State and you have a new Western conference. The rest of the ECAC shouldn't have much trouble finding a new home, since Fairfield and Loyola are in the MAAC in real life anyway.
as an extremely casual Lax fan (I will watch it if I see that its on, don't really go looking for it) I think this is awesome. I dont know a whole lot about the sport and the nuances therein but its a fun sport to watch and I'm excited to follow the growth of this program from the ground up!
where do they play
can they use the new soccer field/stadium? or do they use the girls field hockey field
any chance of a B1G conference forming?
1) They currently play indoors at Oosterbaan Fieldhouse. They wouldn't play there with a D-1 promotion.
2) They might use the soccer field or Big House as a temporary field while a dedicated stadium is built (or they could permanently reside on the soccer field).
3) Ohio State and Penn State are the only current Big Ten members with lacrosse, so it would require 3 more teams to make the jump before that's possible. Depending on how things shake out with Michigan, you might see Big Ten lacrosse within 10 years.
I've heard that Elbel Field is about to become completely a turf field including the parking lot area where the marching band practices. I've heard that bandied about as a possible site for the lacrosse team. Have you heard any similar rumors? Would that be feasible in your opinion?
I have a friend on the team and even last year he was mentioning a permanent field that might go in Elbel. He was telling me it would be a pretty large operation with stands, their own weight room and offices. It's much need, IMO. The current lax offices are in the basement of the CCRB, that won't do for a D1 team.
As a student, I would hate for them to take away Elbel. There are very few options for student recreation already. Taking away that field from students would eliminate the best field available for student use.
As long as there is still room for the girls to lay out in the summer time, I am all for this.
As far as I know, Rec Sports plans on turfing at least a field area on Elbel as soon as they can get the funding.
Tim- since they would want to have the indoor facility for early season games (think nd and 'cuse) would glick be hardened for lax use?
There had been talk a while back that they'd be able to play a game in Glick this year. Obviously that hasn't happened, and Glick isn't approved for "hard ball" sports - practice or competition.
It may be possible that they would do something (i.e. put nets in front of the north and south windows) to allow for an early-season lacrosse game in there, but I haven't heard anything about it.
Glick would actually be an awesome venue from a spectator standpoint, with much more space between the edges of the field and the exterior bounds. The north-end balcony would be a super-sweet viewing angle as well.
If just one more Big 10 school would add lacrosse, I would be in favor a a 4 team league like the ACC. Michigan State is the logical choice given they previously had a D1 program. Northwestern, with it's strong women's program, could add a men's team. I just don't see any other Big 10 school adding lacrosse anytime soon.
I doubt it would ever happen, but I really like the idea of an ACC-Big 10 lacrosse conference with 7 teams. Without question, it would be the strongest conference (conference = 6+ teams) in all of college lacrosse.
6 of the 7 schools are strong academic public universities with big time athletics. US News ranks UVA #25, UM #29, UNC #30, PSU #47 and OSU and UMD #56 academically among all 250+ national universities. Duke is among the elite schools at #9. All 7 schools place a premium on athletics. All 7 are very big on non-revenue sports. Out of 283 schools in last year's Director's Cup final standings, these 7 schools all finished in the top 10% with UVA #3, UNC #7, OSU # 8, Duke #10, PSU #11, UM #25 and UMD #28. That shows a big-time commitment to all sports.
The 4 ACC schools would all be at the top of the conference, but PSU, OSU and UM could catch up quickly. Those 3 schools in particular are athletic super powers and have the resources to make any of their non-revenue sports among the best if they so chose. PSU decided to go that route a few years ago with wrestling and in a few short years they are national champs. They are going that route with lacrosse with the hiring of Tambroni and a new state-of-the-art lacrosse facility is in the works. Tambroni will have the Nittany Lions in the top 10-15 in a few years.
Distance/geography would be a bit of an issue, but many conferences have that same issue. Look how far ND is from the rest of the Big East. Same with Denver and Air Force in the ECAC and Jacksonville in the Metro. PSU to UMass is a long trip in the CAA.
Again, there is little chance this could happen. But it is fun to think about. Welcome to D1 Michigan!
There's been a lot of message board speculation about which other Big Ten schools might add lacrosse. I'll have a full post with my thoughts once Michigan makes the official announcement.
That said, there is a 0.0 chance a Big Ten Lacrosse Conference is formed with any fewer than 7 teams. B1G teams need to have an auto-bid possibility. They simply don't have the lacrosse history of the ACC schools.
...that the B1G would feel like collaborating with another conference. I don't think that most Laxpower posters get the way the B1G works. Unlike many of the current lax conferences, the B1G doesn't do "partial members. Also doubt any other B1G schools have any plans for lax. I assume you'll have more to say about that?
You're obviously right about the B1G never doing a partial member, but that wouldn't preclude M/PSU/OSU from getting together with the four ACC schools.
I don't know how likely this is, but it wouldn't have to be a high level partnership, it could just be seven separate schools coming to form a conference. It would be like getting Minnesota and Wisconsin to join M/MSU/OSU in the CCHA, in order to have all of the members together (before B1G Hockey was announced, obviously).
...wouldn't help us or them. As Tim said, we need an autobid conference, as it will be a while until we are in a position to get an At Large bid. For the ACC schools, teaming up with comparatively lower RPI schools just ruins the RPI-raising fest that is the current ACC lax tournament. The ACC schools are quite happy with their 4-member non-autobid conference, as the currently non-autobid tournament usually ends up getting all 4 members at large bids to the NCAA tournament by raising everyone's RPI and SOS.
I wasn't meaning to raise a value judgement about whether it was a good idea or not, merely saying that it could be possible because the two conferences don't have to be formally involved.
Obviously it seems like there is some strong reasoning why combining with the ACC might be a bad idea; I don't know, I don't follow lacrosse. Just bringing up the point that it could happen.
Already have the acc/B1G challenge going in hoops. One day when the B1G wouldn't get killed by the acc that kind of arrangement could be interesting for lax. Conference play is still a (relatively) new development in lax - they are mostly about providing autobids so that we see some variety in the tournament. Big East forming a lax conference (and having 'cuse agree to join it!) was probably the biggest development in conference play yet.
Anyway - your comment was fine - I wasn't jumping on you!
I don't think any other Big Ten schools have current plans to add the sport, but somebody like Michigan State (who has had varsity lacrosse as recently as 1996) might strongly consider it when their MCLA team suddenly finds itself without its biggest rival (and one of their few games that actually generates revenue for the program).
Somebody like Wisconsin, who will have a natural rival in Marquette (D-1 in 2013) or Northwestern, who obviously rules the women's lax world, might be interested in joining if it looks like there's a possibility of a Big Ten Conference forming.
Go Blue! This would be amazing! I think they could get some good wins next year! I hope this goes through - Coach Paul and Dave Brandon deserve a ton of credit and should be commended. This will be great for the sport.
Gone will be the two games/weekend schedule. D1 teams play fewer games per year than Michigan has been playing as an MCLA teams (Well, except for Duke - somehow they play more games than anyone else...)
I can see them playing two games in a weekend once in a while, like on a trip to Maryland, but not most weekends like they do now.
I am new to Lacrosse scene, but I find it interesting when a varsity sport is to be added, and also found it interesting that is spite of already having 2 schools in varsity status and the popularity of Lacrosse by B1G schools (unlike ice hockey), there seems to be a consensus that the B1G will not adopt Lacrosse as part of its representative varsity sports. I've actually seen a big following on ESPN with even the club sports so the B1G can't say there is no market. The more I dug into it the more I found how "diverse" the B1G schools with their Lacrosse teams are in conference participation both at the varsity and the club level.
When Michigan Lacrosse makes the official jump, it's difficult to assume what conference they will play, though it makes sense that B1G should be planning to add Lacrosse and I believe given the success of B1G schools in Div-1 Lacrosse, a conference is the only thing that is stoping B1G schools from making the jump. Maybe the delay in the official announcement is "what conference will Michigan play"?
|
|
Mens' Lacrosse |
Women’s Lacrosse |
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|
|
Club |
Varsity |
Conference |
Potential B1G |
Club |
Varsity |
Conference |
|
|
Illinois |
X |
|
GRLC ² |
Y |
X |
|
WCLL |
|
|
Indiana |
X |
|
GRLC ² |
y |
X |
|
WCLL |
|
|
Iowa |
X |
|
GRLC ² |
Y |
X |
|
|
|
|
Michigan |
X |
|
CCLA ¹ |
Y |
X |
|
WCLL |
|
|
Michigan St. |
X |
|
CCLA ¹ |
Y |
X |
|
WCLL |
|
|
Minnesota |
X |
|
UMLL ³ |
y |
X |
|
NCWLL |
|
|
Nebraska |
X |
|
GRLC ² |
y |
X |
|
CPWLL |
|
|
Northwestern |
X |
|
Central ⁴ |
y |
|
X |
ALC |
|
|
Ohio State |
|
X |
ECAC ⁵ |
Y |
|
X |
ALC |
|
|
Penn State |
|
X |
CAA ⁶ |
Y |
|
X |
ALC |
|
|
Purdue |
X |
|
GRLC ² |
y |
X |
|
WCLL |
|
|
Wisconsin |
X |
|
GRLC ² |
Y |
X |
|
WCLL |
|
|
|
¹ Central Collegiate Lacrosse Ass. (CCLA) 8-Team Div-1 Conference of MCLA-Men's Collegiate LaCrosse Association |
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² Great Rivers Lacrosse Conference (GRLC) 13-Team Div-1 Conference of MCLA-Men's Collegiate LaCrosse Association |
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³ Upper Midwest Lacrosse League (UMLL) 6-Team Div-1 Conference of MCLA-Men's Collegiate LaCrosse Association |
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⁴ Central Conference, 8-Team Conference of Great Lakes Lacrosse League (GLLL) |
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|
|
⁵ ECAC Lacrosse League (ECAC) 7-Team Div-1 Conference of ECAC-Eastern College Athletic Conference |
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|
⁶ Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) 7-Team Div-1 Conference |
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|
All information derived from laxpower.com |
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Title IX, man. You can't "make the case" for B1G lacrosse without acknowledging it. It's really, really hard for a school with a football team to spend the money on lacrosse. Michigan will be the first I-A team to add lacrosse since Notre Dame thirty years ago. The lack of a B1G conference to play in isn't what's stopping these schools.
...look at how long it has taken to create a B1G hockey league, and that was with 5 long established programs in the upper midwest - one of the major hotbeds of hockey in the USA. (when you think Michigan/Minnesota for hockey, the equivalent for lax might be Maryland/Long Island) The B1G's footprint contains more United States hockey talent than any other major conference does, and it is only now getting into the hockey business.
Don't hold your breath for a B1G lax conference. Like hockey, it would only happen when there would be 6 teams and an autobid, and it has a lot farther to go than hockey ever did.
I had thought about how long it a hockey B1G conference took to form. I remember that it was not long after PSU announced that they forming a D-1 Varsity team that the B1G announced the formation of a conference. It's sort of like having a "if you come, they will build it" philosophy. My point is that AD's see the potential revenues from a sport like Lacrosse could bring into the stagnant spring sports (no offense to baseball, softball, etc.). If you look at the popularity of the sport at the national level, it could rival revenue resources from other "action-filled" sporting events. So athletic departments with operating budgets in the black AND with both successful men's and women's Lax club programs will be looking at Michigan's example.
I realize that it's difficult to think that in an era when schools are cutting programs, there is an argument for some schools to add programs. I looked at the success of Michigan, MSU, IL, and WI, all club programs in the top 50 of the MCLA and women's top 50 of their respective WCLA. I have to think that along with Michigan, these B1G schools operating athletic dept's. budgets are in the black will look at this closely in the years to come and I would not be surprised if these other B1G schools follow suit.
With two men's and three women's BiG schools already with NCAA Div-1 varsity programs, the addition of the fore mentioned schools to varsity status is very viable and will meet the minimum requirements for the B1G Lax formation.
The comparison to the hockey B1G conference had some relevance in this case, but I think the comparison is apples to oranges since Lax is more national than a regional sport AND there's just as many women's teams as men's; so title IX is not as big issue as with hockey. The B1G and BigTenNetwork has to be evaluating this, just like Brandon with all his business-savvy/branding-approach did.
You are hugely, wildly overestimating the potential of lacrosse as a revenue sport. Lacrosse a national sport? No way. It's even more regional than hockey. ND's appearance in the finals last year was the first time that'd happened with a team from a state not bordering the Atlantic. The sport is totally, totally dominated by teams from about five states.
"Top 50" in the MCLA means jack. U-M is a colossus in the MCLA - three-time champion going on four - and they'll find themselves at the bottom of the NCAA. If they can beat PSU or OSU in their first couple years I'll be shocked. The 25th-best team in the MCLA would be totally, hideously uncompetitive in the NCAA. This means nothing.
Rival revenue sources from other sports? Not even remotely close. 98% of schools can't even get their baseball teams revenue-neutral with 30, 40 home games. Lacrosse, you get maybe seven home games, you get 2,000 fans in the best of best-case scenarios unless you're a superpower, and tickets are cheap. One season of home games won't pay for three scholarships.
Sorry, but you are at least 20 years ahead in your reckoning.
that raises an interesting question is the BTN and its quest for programming.
Certainly, ESPN is gambling that broadcasting lax will at some point pay off, while the WWL has not made the same calculation regarding college hockey. (how much of this has to with the fact that pro hockey is much more popular than college, and the reverse is the case wth lax?) Of course, ESPN is using an already exisiting infrastructure for a good many of their broadcasts - their local Baltimore affiliate WMAR - note that ESPNU doesn't have nearly as many broadcasts from upstate NY as in the Batlimore area. This likely keeps their cost a little lower.
However, as much as the BTN is hungry for programming, I doubt that there are enough revenue generating possibilities from lax to increase the payouts to member schools sufficiently to fund lax.
Another factor to remember is that most B1G schools would have to add more than 2 more teams - few institutions are in as good shape as Michigan re: Title IX and have more work to do.
As far as I know (which you may interpret to mean: "this is not speculation"), the Michigan Athletic Department is counting on men's lacrosse to be revenue-neutral after initial startup costs. Sure, it may be a different situation than most Big Ten schools, but that's the plan at least in Ann Arbor.
I'm guessing that either includes fundraising and donations or excludes scholarships in their reckoning? Probably the former.
Definitely the former.
Fundraising has been one reason behind the delay, of course. I think they've reached their target, but now there's some foot-dragging by some of the higher-ups about adding two new sports in a still-crappy economy.
....IL seems to be using reactions to their story effectively to elicit further information about the future of Michigan lax.
First the quotes from OSU and PSU re: scheduling (esp. OSU as Tim related above.) Now, they have some good quotes from CoachT at Denver re: ECAC.
Seems as if they are getting some good confimation of their story, even without official word from M.
Finally, see these posts from the collegelax.us thread on the story:
http://www.collegelax.us/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=13912#p146280
and
http://www.collegelax.us/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=13912&start=30#p146377
The second one is JP very carefully saying nothing about the story - just addressing a question about the initiative to build a lax facility.
The Tierney quotes were from his presser yesterday. I had them up yesterday afternoon:
I hadn't realized your lax blog was so developed until this big news hit. Nice site!
I'm interested in seeing who else who this IL story gets to speak on the record. Its pretty amazing that although the Michigan athletic dept. has been silent, all sorts of people they might be speaking with re: scheduling, conferences, etc. has been quite willing to comment openly.
I'm super-curious about whether it's lacrosse people (JP, the Director of Operations Joe Hennessy) talking to these people, or Michigan's Athletic Department.
It would certainly provide a lot of clarity about how close this is to happening.
Games at Oosterbaan with a 40 in a brown paper bag were definitely some of my undergrad highlights. I wouldn't be surprised if they tightened up security, like they did at baseball games, and stopped allowing people to bring in whatever they wanted as long as it was cloaked in the entirely obvious brown paper bag.
