1) agreed. There is too much pushing the calendar forward but this ties into number 2
2) Yes, the fact the number of games can be determined by what type of events in the fall you do makes it really weird. Let teams play 2 get togethers in the fall and then set a number of games (or events for tournaments) and not let teams play a mish mash of a number of games. There was a time the season didn't start until the 1st weekend in March. Now teams are playing games as early as the first weekend in February.
3) Relying solely on RPI is a mistake but no one had issues with it when the ACC was getting 5 teams into the tournament and the Ivy was only getting one team. Given that 2 Ivys made the FF and played Maryland about as tough as anyone, it seems to me they got the field right.
4) This is never going to happen. The NCAA wants to have the FF and Championship game on TV. If they don't do it by Memorial Day weekend, lacrosse would never make it on ESPN (or would be shuffled off to ESPN+) because ESPN will be showing baseball and softball tournaments. I don't disagree with premise. Though maybe with Juneteenth now being a holiday, they can match the final four and championship game with that weekend.

We played Maryland much tougher than the Ivies.

Quint thinks Duke would have have been a more competitive matchup up as well. Cornell had no business being within 6/7 goals of Maryland. Move that game a day back and Maryland wins by 10.

The Ivies got an extra handjob from Donna for scrapping the season last year. Fuck her, and fuck the Ivies. I hope Kevin, Dino, and Gait take scalps.

...is that usually the ACC's out of conference record is much better than what the Ivy League's was this year. The league's RPI was built almost exclusively on beating each other up.

And I'm really surprised to see that from you. SIX Ivy league teams was the right amount? Two more than got into the Ivy League Tourney? Seriously?

And then you're going to cite that 2 Ivies made the final four as a confirmation that the field was set properly?

Defend Havard over ND.

I fully conceded that the relying mostly on the RPI is a mistake and has resulted in teams that likely shouldn't have been in the tournament in 2022 and earlier. My alma mater in 2016 and 2017 are probably prime examples.

RPI is composed of a team's top 10 RPI games. All ND had to do was schedule one more game and it would have pushed out one of either the 1st SU game or the Marquette game out of the RPI calculation for ND. ND had two free Saturdays weekends where they didn't play.

Should ND have gotten in? Yes.

Did ND hurt itself by not scheduling at least one game? Yes.

But, your points on the Ivy don't support your argument. The ACC, which year over year is the best conference, has had times when all 5 or 6 (when it was a 6 team conference) get all their teams into the tournament. All of those times were based on the RPI. Not all of those teams played in the 4 team ACC tournament. For example, in 2013, 5 of the 6 ACC teams made the NCAA but there was only a 4 team ACC tournament. My point with the FF was that only 3 teams came within 5 goals of MD - Cornell, Princeton (didn't make the Ivy playoffs) and ND - this year. Cornell played awful in the 1st half but made it a game in the 2nd half. The demonstrated they could play. The Ivy went 9-5 in the tournament. (1 win and 1 loss was an Ivy match-up). Otherwise, 2 of their 4 other losses where to MD.

If you want to point to a team that shouldn't be their point to OSU. If ND beats OSU earlier this year, ND is probably in and OSU is out.

Enough with the rest.

You posted you thought they got the field right. Then you said ND should have gotten in.

Several Ivy League schools + OSU lost in the first round.

IIRC, Notre Dame ended up with a higher RPI than either Ohio State or Harvard, even though they made the cut and ND did not. Prior to ND jumping both schools in RPI in the final week, all we heard was that RPI would keep ND out. Seems the Selection Committee already had made up its mind, and was just looking for any justification they could find to keep ND out.

And definitely more accurate than the selection committee

He really clung to the notion of RPI and SOS being more important criteria, and I was arguing that the fact that the committee left the No. 4 team in the polls out of the field would have caused months of columns and cable talking head content in any other sport.

The committee needs to leave some wiggle room for accounting for an eye test. Sticking to "criteria" too closely leads to 6 teams from one conference getting in.

-- As suggested, I think a team should get away from scheduling the maximum (hello, Duke) or minimum (hello, Irish) on their schedules. Suggesting a mid-point certainly would be a prudent idea.

-- As for "objective" criteria, just what are these: RPI? SOS? Polls? Some weighted combination thereof?

-- And then there probably should be another element to it:
“We may need to recognize that we need a subjective, human-based element to the selection criteria.”
— Lars Tiffany (UVA Coach)

Running off winning streaks at the end of the day could be considered, as could taking the #1 team to the limit, as ND did.

Working on the criteria is something that requires working with other teams and institutions. ND can help its case with scheduling.

And IIRC, they played the same number of games as ND. Under those circumstances, I'm not entirely comfortable saying that playing only 12 games was fatal to ND, but it certainly didn't help. Playing 12 left ND with very little margin for error. ND should have scheduled an additional two games even if those games dropped overall SOS. I think 10-4 would have looked much better to the Committee than 8-4.

are those that actually watch ALL the teams, how they play, how they match up, and how they are currently playing. Consider what your "expert" partners - those broadcasting the games are saying. Also when you play in almost unplayable weather as we did when we lost to OSU, that should be a consideration - all those factors RPI apparently doesn't "see" (although according to RPI, we should have been in anyway).

You'll never convince me that the committee even watched any games.
I am biased, but I saw enough games to know the selection and seedings were biased towards the Ivey league.

One obvious matchup that should have been an indicator - Syracuse lost in overtime to Cornell. ND beat that same Syracuse team 22-6 and 18-11.