College Lacrosse Thread

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by VPI97

F THE CUSE

Go anyone else!

Suck it, turkey boy.

[Young Drachma]

Yeah, bumping this one because there wasn't a point in creating a new one.

Watching this Hopkins-Maryland QF briefly and I have to say, that it was immediately apparently how badly college lacrosse needs a shot clock. Man, just the few minutes I watched were brutal.

[BishopMVP]

Start of a new season. UVa and especially Syracuse are a little lower than normal, but mostly the usual suspects up in the top 10... except for defending champion Loyola.

They did add a version of a shot clock this offseason. After a stall warning, instead of keeping it in the box, teams have a 30 second shot clock (that can be eliminated with a shot on goal.) I like it more than a pure shot clock, but it really depends on the ref being man enough to make the call with Petro or Tierney dropping 20 F-Bombs in his ear that get picked up by the TV mics. They also added a few more rules to help push transition and tried to crack down on sticks a little.

The other recent news that's probably a bigger story is that after years of limited growth, blamed largely on Title IX (and we can argue over the merits of that), a number of teams have jumped in recently, including Michigan, Marquette, Richmond, Furman, BU and now UMass-Lowell.

Originally Posted by Chubby

It's going to take a long time before the final four isn't some mix of the "same elite", it's just the way it is with lacrosse still being regional. The same high schools produce the talent in the same area of certain states and they all want to go to the same schools.

Ehh... I think it's more the academics and demographics than a regional thing, and Syracuse is the one traditional elite team being hurt the most by that. Lacrosse has exploded in recent years at the HS level. Philly and Boston have caught up to Upstate, LI, and Baltimore in terms of D1 guys produced, and there are very good teams (not a ton of them, but a few) in places as far flung as the suburbs of Orlando, Dallas, San Fran, San Diego, Seattle and Denver. And the elite kids I know almost all have some combination of the following 10 schools in their sights - the 4 ACC schools, Hopkins, G'Town, ND, Princeton, Harvard and Yale. (For some reason Penn and Cornell rarely come up, but I assume they're in there too.) The upstate and 6 Nations kids that Syracuse relied on just aren't that much better than players from other parts of the country, and the summer club scene is exposing them - the "Next Big" Iroquis player just committed to UVa.

[Klinglerware]

Yeah, HYP should also probably continue to be competitive because of the generous financial aid packages they can provide. With the athletic scholarship equivalencies allowed being relatively small in lacrosse, necessitating the widespread use of partial scholarships, some of the more deep-pocketed Ivies will have a bit of an advantage in being able to pick up the slack with non-merit aid...

[BishopMVP]

True... things get a little nebulous there. It's also interesting to see how the really, really early recruiting plays out with regards to Ivy League schools. UVa/UNC/Hopkins really started the trend two years ago, and now rising 9th graders are given committable offers before they step foot on a HS campus. The Ivies hold off a little longer, but they accept verbals from Sophomores, and then ask them to hold off on announcing it until their Junior year begins (and preferably a semester's worth of JR year grades are in.) (Some other schools/coaches, like UMass and Cannella, hate this trend and tried not to participate, but when everyone else is doing it...)

UMass went down and pulled out a late 12-11 victory over UNC. Even more impressive considering they were missing a Tewaaraton finalist from last year at Attack and our other MLL drafted middie.

[BishopMVP]

Anyone else following the regular season? The rule changes really seem to have added transition back to the game, and between that and the increased parity brought about by the explosion in HS athletes playing there have been a lot of "upsets" by start-ups over the name programs - for example, just today Mount St. Mary's beat Georgetown 14-6.

[Klinglerware]

I don't really follow the regular season all that closely, but I do keep tabs on Brown.

Looking at the roster and recruit lists, I am surprised with the higher proportions of recruited athletes coming from places west of the Mississippi...

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by Klinglerware

I don't really follow the regular season all that closely, but I do keep tabs on Brown.

Looking at the roster and recruit lists, I am surprised with the higher proportions of recruited athletes coming from places west of the Mississippi...

Brown picked up that nice comeback win at UMass - down 3 goals in the 4th to an OT win. We threw in a different offensive set without Manny and Fleming and were able to reel off 3 wins to open the year, but starting with the Brown game teams figured it out and we really need those guys healthy. Brown's actually doing really well according to the computers right now, but still no love from the polls. If you can win the next 2, your schedule gets really interesting, with UNC/Princeton/Penn/Yale/Providence/Cornell.

There's definitely a few hotbeds out west, around Dallas, Denver, San Fran, San Diego and Seattle, and the sport is exploding. It'll be interesting to see when the first Cali college jumps in - so far it's just Denver and Air Force west of the Mississippi. The south is also seeing an increase, although that's been matched or driven by colleges (Jacksonville, Bellarmine, Mercer, High Point, etc). We'll see if any big-time warm-weather school overcomes the Title IX hurdle and jumps in - Florida started a women's team that was in the title game within like 3 years. With the college season starting in February that gives a lot of incentive for kids to play further south/west.

(It's also been an increase in players and the elevation of the Philly and Boston suburbs from places where occasional good players came from to legitimate hotbeds that rival Baltimore/LI/Upstate - up until 5 years ago there were 15-20 kids going D1 from Mass on average, now there are over 80 committed for 2013 alone, and 2014/15 look to be even bigger.)

[Klinglerware]

Yeah, it's hard to tell how to interpret Brown's season so far. It doesn't surprise me that they're still unranked. Brown's been all over the map performance-wise the past couple of years: they've had opportunities to get some signature wins against top teams, but haven't closed more often than not. They've also had their share of beat downs. I'm guessing that Brown will have to show more before the polls start to take notice.

[Young Drachma]

Big Ten to add lacrosse, Johns Hopkins as affiliate - ESPN

Blue Jays joining the B1G as an affiliate member in lax. huge move for the B1G.

[terpkristin]

Originally Posted by Young Drachma

Big Ten to add lacrosse, Johns Hopkins as affiliate - ESPN

Blue Jays joining the B1G as an affiliate member in lax. huge move for the B1G.

They had to, with Rutgers and Maryland coming in. When I think B1G, I think of hockey not lax.

/tk

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by terpkristin

They had to, with Rutgers and Maryland coming in. When I think B1G, I think of hockey not lax.

/tk

Hockey? I'm guessing you're joking or something.

lax league will be decent. The hockey league won't be very useful from the outset since most of the programs are going to be upstarts initially. Though it might signal the decline of some of the traditional hockey powers if those schools in the B1G do figure out how to get down with the stick and puck.

[terpkristin]

Originally Posted by Young Drachma

Hockey? I'm guessing you're joking or something.

lax league will be decent. The hockey league won't be very useful from the outset since most of the programs are going to be upstarts initially. Though it might signal the decline of some of the traditional hockey powers if those schools in the B1G do figure out how to get down with the stick and puck.

Yes, it was somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I don't think of lax when I think of Big Ten. I do seem to remember Michigan in a hockey...semifinal? Final? Some bigger game. Of course, I meant "when I think of Big Ten" I wasn't talking football/basketball. I was trying to think of other sports outside of those typical biggies.

/tk

[BillyNYC]

Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and MSU are traditional hockey powers (the 4 are among 10 teams with 3 or more NCAA titles), so not like the whole conference is new to hockey.

Getting back to lacrosse, seems like Hopkins felt they needed to be in a conference, and getting a marquis program into the B1G is a definite win for them too. Win, win.

(And quick comment on the just past season: as a Cornell alum, it's depressing to watch their close calls the past decade. I guess it's better to be contenders most years...but ouch.)

[BillyNYC]

Dola....random trivia I just discovered due to the hockey/lax tangent:

Cornell is only school to have won both NCAA D-1 men's lacrosse and men's ice hockey championships. Of course, the last of those 5 combined titles happened in 1977, but that's just details...

[terpkristin]

Yeah, when I think of lacrosse, I think of the NY, NJ, MD, VA, and NC. And no other states. I didn't think most states knew what it was.

/tk

[Klinglerware]

Originally Posted by BillyNYC

Dola....random trivia I just discovered due to the hockey/lax tangent:

Cornell is only school to have won both NCAA D-1 men's lacrosse and men's ice hockey championships. Of course, the last of those 5 combined titles happened in 1977, but that's just details...

That said, Men's Ice Hockey and Men's Lacrosse are one of the few sports where Ivy League school's can legitimately compete for a D-1 national championship. (Yale did win it all this year in Ice Hockey.)

Ironically, Ivy League women's teams are less competitive now in these sports, especially Ice Hockey: because of Title IX balancing requirements, more athletic scholarship opportunities are now available to elite female recruits now compared to even 15 years ago.

[BishopMVP]

Time for the annual bump, if for no other reason than to urge any fan of lacrosse to find a way to watch an Albany game (or two) this season for the Thompson brothers from Onondaga (they do have a televised one on ESPNU against Hopkins April 4th). UMass was 4-0, top 10 in the country, coming off a 15-2 spanking of a solid Brown team (sorry Klingerware!)... and got run off Garber Field. 6-1 after 6 minutes, 16-4 at halftime, 25-10 final. They don't run anything complicated, just a lot of 2-man pick game leading to a guy carrying the ball righty across the face, but their strength carrying through traffic is just unbelievable - the brothers had 10 and 8 and sat the 4th quarter (cousin Ty added 5 goals). The younger one, Lyle, had 113 points last year, 2 off the NCAA record, and has 29 through 4 games this season.

Funny thing is their team is 2-2. Albany is such a run and gun team they've lost 2 1-goal games in the high teens to Syracuse and Drexel. Albany goalie had by far his best game of the year yesterday, otherwise UMass could've easily put up 20+ too (32 shots on goal).

[CraigSca]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

Time for the annual bump, if for no other reason than to urge any fan of lacrosse to find a way to watch an Albany game (or two) this season for the Thompson brothers from Onondaga (they do have a televised one on ESPNU against Hopkins April 4th). UMass was 4-0, top 10 in the country, coming off a 15-2 spanking of a solid Brown team (sorry Klingerware!)... and got run off Garber Field. 6-1 after 6 minutes, 16-4 at halftime, 25-10 final. They don't run anything complicated, just a lot of 2-man pick game leading to a guy carrying the ball righty across the face, but their strength carrying through traffic is just unbelievable - the brothers had 10 and 8 and sat the 4th quarter (cousin Ty added 5 goals). The younger one, Lyle, had 113 points last year, 2 off the NCAA record, and has 29 through 4 games this season.

Funny thing is their team is 2-2. Albany is such a run and gun team they've lost 2 1-goal games in the high teens to Syracuse and Drexel. Albany goalie had by far his best game of the year yesterday, otherwise UMass could've easily put up 20+ too (32 shots on goal).

Wow - so they're the Loyola Marymount of lacrosse!

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by CraigSca

Wow - so they're the Loyola Marymount of lacrosse!

A decent comparison - if Hank Gathers and Bo Kimble were contenders for the Naismith award and projected top 5 picks in the pro draft. Albany's been 55th or worse in scoring defense (out of ~65-70 D1 teams) each of the last 5 years, with the #1 scoring offense last year and this year. NYT did an article on the two today - Log In - The New York Times - and how Syracuse is no longer the default choice for Haudonesee players.

[Klinglerware]

Yes, only 2 goals--talk about dominating. Based on what happened at UMass-Albany, what does that say about Brown?

But, it is fun to see (with Albany and elsewhere) the parity in Div I Lacrosse, especially with regards to the competitiveness of teams outside the traditional power conferences.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by Klinglerware

Yes, only 2 goals--talk about dominating. Based on what happened at UMass-Albany, what does that say about Brown?

As much "Any Given Sunday" as anything else - in addition to the 2 for Brown that UMass D gave up 4 goals to Harvard and 5 to Army, both on the fringes of the top 20. Cornell got taken to OT by 3rd year (and 2-26 coming into the season) Michigan last week, then turned around and gave #2 UVa its 1st loss. That UVa team beat #3 Loyola to start the season, beat top 10 Cuse by 5 goals last week, and in between beat Richmond by a goal - in Richmond's 1st ever varsity game. Brown's still 3-1 - I don't think they are a favorite in a loaded Ivy, but all 6 teams there (other than Dartmouth) can beat each other on a given day.

[Marmel]

That's a nice feel good article and the Thompsons are excellent players, but Syracuse did not just take them for granted. I am no lacrosse expert, but I keep up with it and Syracuse has 50 years of offering Onandogans scholarships, however in this case they didn't so much as take them for granted as fail to give in to their demands that we take 3 for the price of 1. The others were not high recruits and their play in high school probably didn't merit the schollies.

Also, the article didn't note that their older brother was academically ineligable for 2 seasons, but the school stuck by him.

Finally, Syracuse has 11 titles, not 10.

[BillyNYC]

After recently moving back to NYC, am excited to attend some Cornell lacrosse games.

Looks like @Hofstra in mid-April and then 2 weeks later at "Battle at Bethpage" vs Princeton at Bethpage HS on Long Island. Not sure how many seats the latter has, but looks like tix available at the HS in a few weeks.

Cornell was supposed to be in a rebuilding year, but a win over UVA last weekend raises expectations a bit.

[BishopMVP]

Hopkins/Albany 7pm tonight on ESPNU. Hopkins could dominate possession and win 12-7, or Albany could put up 20.

[Marmel]

Tournament bracket is revealed:

Duke Earns Top Seed for NCAA Men's Lacrosse Tournament: Matchups, TV and Bracket | Inside Lacrosse

[Klinglerware]

Originally Posted by Marmel

Tournament bracket is revealed:

Duke Earns Top Seed for NCAA Men's Lacrosse Tournament: Matchups, TV and Bracket | Inside Lacrosse

Based on the power ratings and records, it makes sense--but it still is somewhat interesting to see that even with six teams in the league, the entire ACC is in the tournament this year.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by Klinglerware

Based on the power ratings and records, it makes sense--but it still is somewhat interesting to see that even with six teams in the league, the entire ACC is in the tournament this year.

And as someone who hates the constant ACC hype and roots for "underdogs"... I couldn't argue against it. All 6 easily deserved it.

Fun first round with the 2/3/4 seeds all losing. Drexel won the battle of West Philly over Penn, Albany beat Loyola, and Bryant went to the Carrier Dome and knocked off Cuse. D3 tournament's also fun to watch; teams are attacking like crazy since the new rules came in - 8 teams put up between 19 and 25 goals in their first game.

[BishopMVP]

Albany lost yesterday in the epitome of their program. The Thompson trio scored 8 goals, they had a 5 goal lead in the 4th quarter, and Notre Dame came back for the W.

Duke/Hopkins and Denver/Drexel today. Wish the pairings were switched so I could root for the underdog in both.

[BishopMVP]

Duke/Denver and ND/Maryland semifinals. I probably should root for the non-ACC team, but I hate Tierney's sideline demeanor (and Petro's). I'll root for Maryland since I like Tillman and we have a kid going there next year.

[BishopMVP]

If anyones still up, this Canada/Iroquois game on ESPN3 is awesome.

[Desnudo]

I predict by 2016 UT and A&M begin participating and dominating this traditionally east coast sport. It's getting bigger in texas now, only a matter of time.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by Desnudo

I predict by 2016 UT and A&M begin participating and dominating this traditionally east coast sport. It's getting bigger in texas now, only a matter of time.

I do love the explosion of the sport at the youth/HS level's (2nd fastest growing HS sport after bowling!) - we actually ran a club tournament at Ft. Devens last week with teams from 18 states and Canada - but unfortunately that's not leading straight to growth at the college level. As a coach in the Northeast we've been laughing about/terrified about that very possibility for years, but it doesn't appear to be happening. U Florida jumped in the women's game and became a top 5 team within 3 years, and U Michigan added a men's team and proved a school with D1 football could add a team despite Title IX concerns, but the only way any big school will add it is if a donor pays the start-up costs.

[Desnudo]

How much growth do you think is restricted by title 9?

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by Desnudo

How much growth do you think is restricted by title 9?

Very little. It is true that most of the recent D1 growth is from teams without D1 football (BU, Marquette, UMass-Lowell, Richmond), but Title IX is just a convenient excuse/scapegoat administrators can hint at. Michigan added a fully funded men's team, UMass jumped from FCS to FBS football (which added double the scholarships of a fully funded lacrosse team), and in both cases it just took private donors pledging enough money to make it a profitable choice for the school.

I do wish that football scholarships were excepted from Title IX consideration, or that some college president actually had the balls to challenge Title IX on the proportionality part (a higher percentage of male students want to play a sport in college), but I also don't recall the government actually suing any schools over this. It's just the bogeyman AD's can point to when cutting a non-revenue sport like wrestling or water polo or baseball, or not adding lacrosse.

[Marmel]

Cuse men and women both won their ACC tournaments this weekend. Selection Sunday is next week at 9pm on The U.