Flops and FU Goals

[laxfan9999]

Figured with all the recent FU goals and talk of flopping, we needed a new thread especially with Florida getting one to cover the -16.5 spread. Maybe teams are so worried about covering Spidey's lines that they throw sportsmanship out the window. Teams are worried that along with RPI, strength of schedule, against the spread record could influence who makes tournament.

[OuttaNowhereWregget]

Ya hear that, Spidey? Sounds like you've hit the Big Time!

[spidey44]

Ya hear that, Spidey? Sounds like you've hit the Big Time!

Ha! Dirty books! Sorry for being MIA. Spring break!

[OuttaNowhereWregget]

Ya hear that, Spidey? Sounds like you've hit the Big Time!

Ha! Dirty books! Sorry for being MIA. Spring break!

Even Bookmakers need a break from time to time.

[OuttaNowhereWregget]

I thought this was interesting in light of the recent discussion. Reprinted here with wlaxnut's kind permission (I asked him myself ). I don't know where to find the other guy.

NJBill, DrT, DMAC sorry for the late reply but this is my first opportunity. All your points are well taken and for anybody who's seen enough of the women's game knows that participants often embellish the affects of body contact. I don't know if it's taught or just learned behavior but consider what happens anytime a scrum occurs, often in the draw circle or the eight meter arc, the person that falls down usually gets the call. The motto should be, "when in doubt, fall down". I opined on camera angles and about what you see isn't always what it appears to be but the bigger issue for me is the calling out by name of suspected guilty parties which often lead to what can be called a public shaming. A perfect example is what happened to Megan Whittle.

Last year, after the Navy/Maryland NCAA tournament game, and accompanied with words of outrage a couple of videos were posted on the Laxpower forum showing the appearance of Whittle taking a dive. What followed, as one can imagine, was a flood of negative comments. It seems people love to vent on social media more than they love praising. The Navy fans were especially incensed and none to flattering in their description of her. then at the conclusion of the season when it was learned that Miss Whittle was hired as an assistant coach at Dartmouth negative comments were posted questioning coach Spencer's acumen for hiring Whittle (I have no doubt these videos were a contributing factor). And now those same videos make their way on to these boards with Whittle the poster child for flopping (with the charitable comments that such theatrics haven't been witnessed since Whittle graduated). And I have no doubt they'll turn up sometime in the future for many of the same reasons. But for all that those videos do show there's much, much more that's missing that would lend more balance to this issue, specifically the great physicality defenses would use to deny her a path toward goal, flagrant fouls often not called, but that's beside the point.

Now I'm sure there are many who say Megan Whittle is a big girl and she got what she deserved but I'm not one of them. And I don't care how brutal they are on the men's forum. Those who participate in NCAA women's lacrosse are true scholar athletes. They give up a lot to play their sport and toil mostly in
anonymity. There isn't a pot of gold waiting for them and for most the conclusion of their college careers marks the end of their lacrosse careers. Maybe I'm in the minority, which is often the case, but I think most of us should consider their impact before posting comments or videos. Think of it as if it was your daughter, sister, friend, etc that was the subject of that post. Would you still do it?

I appreciated the knowledge and passion in your well-written post. It gave me a lot to think about and mull over. You make some great points, some poignantly. I thought I would try to convey my perspective to you, in like manner.

I’d like to ask up front—do you think Whittle got hit in the face on the play? In general, do you frown upon players flopping or taking dives to gain an advantage?

My sole intention in posting the "Did Megan Whittle Flop?" clip was to facilitate further examination of a controversial point in the Maryland/Navy NCAA Quarterfinal game. That’s basic human nature—if there’s a controversy, we want to know what it’s all about so we can make our own decision as to whether it was legitimate.

As to the controversy itself—during that stretch of the game you mentioned, Mark Dixon--The play-by-play announcer—is heard to say:

"You can see the frustration from the Navy bench. They're basically saying that Whittle is flopping and trying to earn calls." And Sheehan Stanwick-Burch who was doing color for the game upon watching the replay said, "I don't see any check to the head..."

(The reason she mentioned "the head" is because Whittle grabbed her head and put her hands to her face as she fell to the ground, even though she was cross-checked on her arm.)

When I heard the comments, I decided to go back and get a better look at the play to see what they were referring to, and to perhaps offer those who had an interest in the game a better look, as well, so that, as Badlands said earlier in this thread, that folks would “be able to ….watch a controversial play and draw our own conclusions about it.” Here I supply the aforementioned clip:

https://youtu.be/KbMgGz-e-rg

After watching the replay, it’s clear and obvious that Jenna Collins cross-checked Whittle’s arm, and came nowhere near her head—yet when Whittle fell to the carpet, she brings both hands to her face as if that’s where she got hit. After the whistle blew she popped up off the ground in an instant. A remarkable recovery for someone who just supposedly got hit in the face. As a result, Collins gets her 2nd yellow card, and has to sit for the remaining 4 plus minutes in the game, (not to mention her career). I can’t imagine she felt good about her career ending like that. So Navy loses arguably their best player during a critical part of the game, which certainly reduces their chance to come back. I can understand why Navy fans were incensed and had negative comments in the aftermath. And that’s why I thought the play was significant enough to publish. In the end, I concluded that it was an important moment in the game, and thought it was worth noting for history.

I love the great sport of women’s lacrosse and I only want to see it flourish and grow. I appreciate how hard the women work and how much they sacrifice to play. I have great respect for their toughness and dedication. But the incident we saw during this game doesn’t belong in this, or any, sport. In some sports, players are penalized for flopping/diving/embellishing.

Let’s be real—Whittle flopped on this play. This was conclusively much more than “the appearance of Whittle taking a dive.” This was Whittle absorbing contact on her arm and pretending it was a blow to her face. She did it to hopefully get a call and help her team win. She was successful. Though it cannot be reasonably said that it won the game for the Terps, it did end up hurting Jenna Collins and the Navy team's chances to make a comeback. I think behavior like that doesn’t make women’s lacrosse look good. Also—Whittle’s flopping was nothing new to the Navy team as Mark Dixon noted during the broadcast. I'm a little surprised you didn't assign some guilt to him, or his broadcast partner Stanwick-Burch, or Navy coach Cindy Timchal and her team. They brought up Whittle's name before the clip was posted. I imagine there are other folks out there who saw Whittle’s playing days and noticed her penchant for embellishing on occasion. This isn’t a Scarlet Letter issue as it is seemingly portrayed. This was a single video (you mentioned “videos”—not sure what clip you’re referring to other than this one) about a single moment in one game, entitled as a question—not an accusation.

In conclusion, we can certainly agree to disagree. I do hope we can all get along here on these boards. I know that doesn’t always happen but I would like to endeavor to be civil and respectful with everyone as I value the women’s lacrosse community here and hope to be a team player when all is said and done.

Peace everybody—

[laxfan9999]

Have to add Notre Dame vs Pitt where Wolak scored the 22nd goal on an assist from Ahearn to go up 22-5. Does Halfpenny get paid by the number of individual awards?

[westcoastlax]

Lack of playing time always makes the backups happy. There are only so many games a backup has a chance to play.

When under a running clock, when do you play backups on defense? It's much easier to mix in some attackers and midfielders. Defenders never seem to get to play.

[jff97]

Does Izzy Scane scoring with six seconds left when the game was well in hand count as one of these? And as for flopping, I didn't really see any from Taylor yesterday.

[OuttaNowhereWregget]

That what you call one o' them thar rhetorical type riddles?

[hmmm]

Wait, did SC just dribble out the shot clock with a 12 point lead on Iowa with 14 secs left? Why didn’t they jack up a 3? Don’t they know Iowa ended their perfect season last year?

[Bart]

Wait, did SC just dribble out the shot clock with a 12 point lead on Iowa with 14 secs left? Why didn’t they jack up a 3? Don’t they know Iowa ended their perfect season last year?

Well played sir……well played

[hmmm]

Wait UConn ran out the shot clock up 15 with 10 secs left? But they had their subs in that never get to play. Shouldn’t one of them have tried to score?

What's even more interesting is that the Purdue coach told the UConn coach to run a play so that the guys could do more than just stand there. UConn's coach decided that would be poor sportsmanship and had no place in the game of men's basketball.

[fanlaxUN]

Wait, did SC just dribble out the shot clock with a 12 point lead on Iowa with 14 secs left? Why didn’t they jack up a 3? Don’t they know Iowa ended their perfect season last year?

Well played sir……well played

Except...not a substantially sophisticated one....I didn't see the Iowa ladies chasing around and swinging sticks at the hands of the SC players, were they? Huh. It seems they, and the Purdue men for that matter were just passively standing and waiting for the clock to run out. I don't put fault in the MD players at all. However, I suspect that IF they were just passively standing letting the clock run out, all players on the field would have done so.

To be fair, I am not a believer in the score differential being the element as to how one should feel about their performance in a game. Rather, did I give what I could, did I play my hardest, did I not quit? There are some great thoughts written on this concept. How those teams that are on the low side of the scoreboard can most productively develop by not focusing on whether they lost by 16 or 17 and instead on the concepts noted above.

Settling the different perspectives on what approach is right and sportsmanlike in this argument is not something that likely happens over a message board - but nonetheless, I think the concept of comparing the outcomes of what happened at these hoops games and the NU-MD game is incongruent.

[hmmm]

Wait, did SC just dribble out the shot clock with a 12 point lead on Iowa with 14 secs left? Why didn’t they jack up a 3? Don’t they know Iowa ended their perfect season last year?

Well played sir……well played

Except...not a substantially sophisticated one....I didn't see the Iowa ladies chasing around and swinging sticks at the hands of the SC players, were they? Huh. It seems they, and the Purdue men for that matter were just passively standing and waiting for the clock to run out. I don't put fault in the MD players at all. However, I suspect that IF they were just passively standing letting the clock run out, all players on the field would have done so.

To be fair, I am not a believer in the score differential being the element as to how one should feel about their performance in a game. Rather, did I give what I could, did I play my hardest, did I not quit? There are some great thoughts written on this concept. How those teams that are on the low side of the scoreboard can most productively develop by not focusing on whether they lost by 16 or 17 and instead on the concepts noted above.

Settling the different perspectives on what approach is right and sportsmanlike in this argument is not something that likely happens over a message board - but nonetheless, I think the concept of comparing the outcomes of what happened at these hoops games and the NU-MD game is incongruent.

It's more a question of general mindset in wlax that doesn't exist in any other sport that I can think of. The NU/MD game was just the latest example. The game was 16-9 and Izzy Scane scores with 6 seconds left? Why is she in the game? Why is NU trying to score? Why is MD pressuring?The game is over. Question isn't just about NU here either. MD left their starters in too. Can you imagine if Izzy or someone else got hurt in the last 3 minutes of a 16-8 game? Same with MD. There's a player dealing with an injury that played the whole game. Why? Is it because there's no real press coverage of wlax? If the Chiefs were beating someone by 4 tds with 2 mins left and Andy Reid left Mahomes in the game and he was dropping back throwing downfield and got hurt Reid would get run out of town. I just don't get the approach on either end. It's fine up until the last couple minutes. But you aren't coming back from 16-8 with 2 mins left.

[fanlaxUN]

Wait, did SC just dribble out the shot clock with a 12 point lead on Iowa with 14 secs left? Why didn’t they jack up a 3? Don’t they know Iowa ended their perfect season last year?

Well played sir……well played

Except...not a substantially sophisticated one....I didn't see the Iowa ladies chasing around and swinging sticks at the hands of the SC players, were they? Huh. It seems they, and the Purdue men for that matter were just passively standing and waiting for the clock to run out. I don't put fault in the MD players at all. However, I suspect that IF they were just passively standing letting the clock run out, all players on the field would have done so.

To be fair, I am not a believer in the score differential being the element as to how one should feel about their performance in a game. Rather, did I give what I could, did I play my hardest, did I not quit? There are some great thoughts written on this concept. How those teams that are on the low side of the scoreboard can most productively develop by not focusing on whether they lost by 16 or 17 and instead on the concepts noted above.

Settling the different perspectives on what approach is right and sportsmanlike in this argument is not something that likely happens over a message board - but nonetheless, I think the concept of comparing the outcomes of what happened at these hoops games and the NU-MD game is incongruent.

It's more a question of general mindset in wlax that doesn't exist in any other sport that I can think of. The NU/MD game was just the latest example. The game was 16-9 and Izzy Scane scores with 6 seconds left? Why is she in the game? Why is NU trying to score? Why is MD pressuring?The game is over. Question isn't just about NU here either. MD left their starters in too. Can you imagine if Izzy or someone else got hurt in the last 3 minutes of a 16-8 game? Same with MD. There's a player dealing with an injury that played the whole game. Why? Is it because there's no real press coverage of wlax? If the Chiefs were beating someone by 4 tds with 2 mins left and Andy Reid left Mahomes in the game and he was dropping back throwing downfield and got hurt Reid would get run out of town. I just don't get the approach on either end. It's fine up until the last couple minutes. But you aren't coming back from 16-8 with 2 mins left.

I would agree. If I had to guess its a holdover (like many things are) of the 80s-90s game where there was no shot clock and no boundaries for that matter. Players from that era now coach youth and HS teams that have no shot clock. Much of practice time is dedicated to stalling and, conversely trying to prevent teams from doing so in preparation for holding the ball strategies being employed in a 2 or 4-goal lead differential with six-8 min left. That conditioning is fairly prevalent in the youth and HS game still.

[Brownlax]

Wait, did SC just dribble out the shot clock with a 12 point lead on Iowa with 14 secs left? Why didn’t they jack up a 3? Don’t they know Iowa ended their perfect season last year?

Well played sir……well played

Except...not a substantially sophisticated one....I didn't see the Iowa ladies chasing around and swinging sticks at the hands of the SC players, were they? Huh. It seems they, and the Purdue men for that matter were just passively standing and waiting for the clock to run out. I don't put fault in the MD players at all. However, I suspect that IF they were just passively standing letting the clock run out, all players on the field would have done so.

To be fair, I am not a believer in the score differential being the element as to how one should feel about their performance in a game. Rather, did I give what I could, did I play my hardest, did I not quit? There are some great thoughts written on this concept. How those teams that are on the low side of the scoreboard can most productively develop by not focusing on whether they lost by 16 or 17 and instead on the concepts noted above.

Settling the different perspectives on what approach is right and sportsmanlike in this argument is not something that likely happens over a message board - but nonetheless, I think the concept of comparing the outcomes of what happened at these hoops games and the NU-MD game is incongruent.

It's more a question of general mindset in wlax that doesn't exist in any other sport that I can think of. The NU/MD game was just the latest example. The game was 16-9 and Izzy Scane scores with 6 seconds left? Why is she in the game? Why is NU trying to score? Why is MD pressuring?The game is over. Question isn't just about NU here either. MD left their starters in too. Can you imagine if Izzy or someone else got hurt in the last 3 minutes of a 16-8 game? Same with MD. There's a player dealing with an injury that played the whole game. Why? Is it because there's no real press coverage of wlax? If the Chiefs were beating someone by 4 tds with 2 mins left and Andy Reid left Mahomes in the game and he was dropping back throwing downfield and got hurt Reid would get run out of town. I just don't get the approach on either end. It's fine up until the last couple minutes. But you aren't coming back from 16-8 with 2 mins left.

Here is a real world example. In 2016 quarter-finals game Brown men were putting a beating on Johns Hopkins. Dylan Molloy, who was Brown’s leading scorer - he went on to win the Tewaarton, was still in the game late in the 4th quarter when game was clearly in hand.

Molloy broke his foot and was barely available in Brown’s semi-final game versus Maryland. He tried to come in late in the game. This injury was a key reason why Brown lost.

[LarryGamLax]

Wait UConn ran out the shot clock up 15 with 10 secs left? But they had their subs in that never get to play. Shouldn’t one of them have tried to score?

Basketball is different and you know it. When it comes to Lacrosse, when the reserves get in...let them play. They come to practice and they do what the starters do and what the coaches tell them to do. When the time comes for them to get into an actual game, just let them play and don't tie their hands. They want to show the coaches what they can do in a real game.
The meaningless goals scored by starters at the end of a game? Could be, 1) heated rivalry or 2) something egregious happened in the game. I see both as an acceptable reason to fire in a final tally or two.

[hmmm]

Wait UConn ran out the shot clock up 15 with 10 secs left? But they had their subs in that never get to play. Shouldn’t one of them have tried to score?

Basketball is different and you know it. When it comes to Lacrosse, when the reserves get in...let them play. They come to practice and they do what the starters do and what the coaches tell them to do. When the time comes for them to get into an actual game, just let them play and don't tie their hands. They want to show the coaches what they can do in a real game.
The meaningless goals scored by starters at the end of a game? Could be, 1) heated rivalry or 2) something egregious happened in the game. I see both as an acceptable reason to fire in a final tally or two.

No, I don't know it. Sportsmanship is sportsmanship. You'll never convince me it's a good idea to have Izzy and the rest of the starters out there in a 16-8 game with 2 mins left to fire in a final tally with 6 seconds left. I'll ask again. What if she got hurt? I don't give a darn if it's a heated rivalry or not. It's stupid. The game is over. First off, let other players get in a game. The experience may help them in the future. None of it makes sense to me. And like I've said. It's unique to this sport.

[Womenslaxxfan]

Wait UConn ran out the shot clock up 15 with 10 secs left? But they had their subs in that never get to play. Shouldn’t one of them have tried to score?

Basketball is different and you know it. When it comes to Lacrosse, when the reserves get in...let them play. They come to practice and they do what the starters do and what the coaches tell them to do. When the time comes for them to get into an actual game, just let them play and don't tie their hands. They want to show the coaches what they can do in a real game.
The meaningless goals scored by starters at the end of a game? Could be, 1) heated rivalry or 2) something egregious happened in the game. I see both as an acceptable reason to fire in a final tally or two.

No, I don't know it. Sportsmanship is sportsmanship. You'll never convince me it's a good idea to have Izzy and the rest of the starters out there in a 16-8 game with 2 mins left to fire in a final tally with 6 seconds left. I'll ask again. What if she got hurt? I don't give a darn if it's a heated rivalry or not. It's stupid. The game is over. First off, let other players get in a game. The experience may help them in the future. None of it makes sense to me. And like I've said. It's unique to this sport.

+1.

[OuttaNowhereWregget]

Wait UConn ran out the shot clock up 15 with 10 secs left? But they had their subs in that never get to play. Shouldn’t one of them have tried to score?

Basketball is different and you know it. When it comes to Lacrosse, when the reserves get in...let them play. They come to practice and they do what the starters do and what the coaches tell them to do. When the time comes for them to get into an actual game, just let them play and don't tie their hands. They want to show the coaches what they can do in a real game.
The meaningless goals scored by starters at the end of a game? Could be, 1) heated rivalry or 2) something egregious happened in the game. I see both as an acceptable reason to fire in a final tally or two.

+1