frank
Junior
Posts: 211
Reg: 11-22-04
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12-10-04 03:25 PM - Post#1081
It's interesting to see how different schools handle the issue of playing games during their reading/exam periods, and what type of opponent they have scheduled after the layoff. Yale has the shortest layoff (11 days) and returns against Boston College. Penn has the longest layoff (23 days) and returns against Villanova. Princeton took by far the wimpiest after-layoff approach, scheduling D-III Haverford. Here's a list of all of the Ivies:
Yale, 11 days, at BC.
Cornell, 12 days, Bucknell.
Dartmouth, 12 days, at Columbia.
Brown, 13 days, Holy Cross.
Columbia, 17 days, NC State.
Harvard, 17 days, at Cornell.
Princeton, 19 days, Haverford.
Penn, 23 days, at Villanova.
Princeton and especially Penn are longer than the others, was this purposeful?
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internetter
Postdoc
Posts: 3400
Loc: Los Angeles
Reg: 11-21-04
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Re: Weird Scheduling, Again
12-10-04 04:04 PM - Post#1082
In response to frank
Columbia has an unplanned break in its exam/reading period, as the Hofstra game was postponed until Dec. 22.
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Anonymous
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Re: Weird Scheduling, Again
12-10-04 05:37 PM - Post#1083
In response to frank
Quote:
Princeton took by far the wimpiest after-layoff approach, scheduling D-III Haverford....
Princeton and especially Penn are longer than the others, was this purposeful?
Prior to the layoff, Princeton will have played Duke, Temple, Syracuse and Rutgers.
Penn will have played Providence, Wisconsin, Temple and La Salle.
Yale will have played Wake Forest and UMass.
Harvard will have played Notre Dame.
Dartmouth will have played Stanford.
Cornell will have played St. Bonaventure.
Brown will have played Rhode Island.
Columbia will have played no one from a major conference.
I think that, exam schedules aside, Princeton and Penn earned a longer layoff and/or an easier return game by virtue of having already tested themselves outside the League.
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Phil
Freshman
Posts: 75
Loc: Princeton
Reg: 11-21-04
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Re: Weird Scheduling, Again
12-10-04 06:37 PM - Post#1084
In response to frank
In PU's case the reading period starts on Jan 3rd and finishes on the 22nd so I don't see how the lay-off could have been much shorter? PU plays on the 2nd and 24th 
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Anonymous
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Re: Weird Scheduling, Again
12-10-04 08:39 PM - Post#1085
In response to Phil
Where Princeton is concerned, you can't argue with the wisdom of scheduling a D-III game after exam break and prior to the start of the Ivy schedule. Look at the records Princeton has posted out of the gate in the first half of the Ivy season dating back to 1987-88 (17 seasons) --
2003-04: 6-1
2002-03: 5-2
2001-02: 5-2
2000-01: 6-1 (played the first 2 Ivy games before the break)
1999-00: 5-2
1998-99: 7-0 (played the first 2 Ivy games before the break)
1997-98: 7-0
1996-97: 7-0 (played the first 2 Ivy games before the break)
1995-96: 6-1 (played the first 2 Ivy games before the break)
1994-95: 5-2
1993-94: 5-2
1992-93: 4-3 (played the first 2 Ivy games before the break; also played LaSalle after the D-III game)
1991-92: 7-0 (played the first Ivy game before the break)
1990-91: 7-0 (played the first 2 Ivy games before the break)
1989-90: 6-1 (played the first 2 Ivy games before the break)
1988-89: 6-1
1987-88: 5-2
That's a 99-20 (.832) mark. Only twice in 17 years did they lose the first game after the D-III game, and both losses were to Penn.
I suppose you could argue that this record isn't much different from their overall Ivy record, but the fact is that it works for Princeton. They usually have the longest layoff in the Ivies between games during exam period (this year is an exception for some reason) and it's reasonable to expect them to schedule an easy game to get back into the swing of things.
You could argue that the D-III game, because it doesn't count in the RPI, hurts Princeton when it comes to tournament seeding time. I don't think that's the case. Playing a D-III game takes it entirely out of the RPI equation, but if Princeton played a traditionally weak D-I school (like, say, Rider or FDU), that game would count in the RPI and it would most likely just drag the ranking down.
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Anonymous
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Re: Weird Scheduling, Again
12-11-04 03:48 AM - Post#1086
In response to
I don't really like the D3 game, but it makes sense because of the Princeton academic schedule. Almost every school has December exams and most leagues are not yet in league play, so coming off the layoff a December-exam team can pretty easily schedule a non-league game and can even find an opponent that also is coming out of an exam layoff if it wishes.
Princeton and Harvard have exams in January. When they come out of the 2+ weeks off every other team in the country has been playing twice each week for a month and every league but the Ivy League is deep into league play. Back when there were independents, I can remember Princeton playing DePaul and St. John's coming out of break and often, but not always, struggling because of the layoff. Once all the independents worth playing joined leagues, Carril started scheduling the D3 tune-up game. In all honesty, I'm not sure how useful it is. In most years, the starters are not challenged, do not play for long, and several bench players set new career highs.
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Anonymous
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Re: Weird Scheduling, Again
12-11-04 04:16 AM - Post#1087
In response to
Yale-BC, Bucknell-Cornell, and Holy Cross-Brown are games in which both teams are coming off exam break.
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