WLax Broadcasts and Publications: Comments/Reviews

[Bart]

On the allocation of the blame to the coaches, harder to say. You expect -- in college; this is the pinnacle of lacrosse for most women for heaven's sake -- players to know that there are 20 seconds left in the half. I'm not sure if Lamonica was yelling "hold the ball" or not. Either way, the gaffe is really on the player in that situation, and maybe on the adjacent players as well (UVA No. 2 is a senior, I think....). Either way, UVA deserved this win, and I am happy they got the W here. Great game.

Agreed on everything here excepting "You expect...players to know..." I think that's where the blame should be laid directly at the head coach's feet. She can't afford to assume they know. She should make sure they know by regularly including situational lacrosse drills as part of their practice and game preparation.

Again, I suspect she does conduct those drills, and the goalie had a brain cramp, and none of her teammates told her to hold the ball. I think Josephson couldn't hear or blocked out whatever calls were coming from the sideline. In the end, I don't much care who gets the blame, but we talked about situational and clock awareness in high school. Kids have to understand the game they are playing.

I don’t know any coach that doesn’t practice situational drills.

[OuttaNowhereWregget]

On the allocation of the blame to the coaches, harder to say. You expect -- in college; this is the pinnacle of lacrosse for most women for heaven's sake -- players to know that there are 20 seconds left in the half. I'm not sure if Lamonica was yelling "hold the ball" or not. Either way, the gaffe is really on the player in that situation, and maybe on the adjacent players as well (UVA No. 2 is a senior, I think....). Either way, UVA deserved this win, and I am happy they got the W here. Great game.

Agreed on everything here excepting "You expect...players to know..." I think that's where the blame should be laid directly at the head coach's feet. She can't afford to assume they know. She should make sure they know by regularly including situational lacrosse drills as part of their practice and game preparation.

Again, I suspect she does conduct those drills, and the goalie had a brain cramp, and none of her teammates told her to hold the ball. I think Josephson couldn't hear or blocked out whatever calls were coming from the sideline. In the end, I don't much care who gets the blame, but we talked about situational and clock awareness in high school. Kids have to understand the game they are playing.

All reasonable and sound points, Sea.

[DMac]

both Dana Boyle and Mike Corey failed miserably.

Not in my book, I think they're outstanding broadcasters. The GK made a bad and ill advised pass, I saw what happened, I don't need the criticism of her and her coach from the broadcasters. There's not a player who has ever played who hasn't made a bad pass or bad play. When she had the ball there were 20 seconds left in the half, there's a good chance she was thinking that was enough time to get an outlet pass downfield and give her team a chance to put another one in before the half ended. She hesitated too long but was probably still of that mentality when she threw the pass. There's no room for criticism of the coach here, her player made a mistake. She knows it, the coach knows it and you move on to the next play. Criticism is for the critics, I'm fine without getting it from the broadcasters. You can get all the over the top criticism and analysis by tuning into Team QuAC (Quint, Anish, and Carc) on the men's side if that's your cup of tea. I find it to be annoying and tiresome.

[njbill]

Perhaps others have commented on this, but I really love the fact that are most broadcasts this year have sideline mics, which allows you to hear the officials calls or at least some of them. Definitely a big step in the right direction.

We have come a long way from the days when network games were rarer than hens teeth, a relatively small number of games were streamed, and even when you could get a stream, it would inevitably freeze up at the most critical part of a game. When the stream resumed, it would have skipped ahead and you would have no idea what happened.

I can live with announcers who fail to be “appropriately” critical. Just give me the game.

[Bart]

Perhaps others have commented on this, but I really love the fact that are most broadcasts this year have sideline mics, which allows you to hear the officials calls or at least some of them. Definitely a big step in the right direction.

We have come a long way from the days when network games were rarer than hens teeth, a relatively small number of games were streamed, and even when you could get a stream, it would inevitably freeze up at the most critical part of a game. When the stream resumed, it would have skipped ahead and you would have no idea what happened.

I can live with announcers who fail to be “appropriately” critical. Just give me the game.

Great point.

[cltlax]

How many times did the announcers in the Duke/Louisville game talk about how terrible it was that DeSimone was the victim of a foul on the play at the end of the 3rd where she trucked the Cardinals player, got a yellow card and injured herself? You'd have thought it was the other way around.

[ACClaxfan]

both Dana Boyle and Mike Corey failed miserably.

Not in my book, I think they're outstanding broadcasters. The GK made a bad and ill advised pass, I saw what happened, I don't need the criticism of her and her coach from the broadcasters. There's not a player who has ever played who hasn't made a bad pass or bad play. When she had the ball there were 20 seconds left in the half, there's a good chance she was thinking that was enough time to get an outlet pass downfield and give her team a chance to put another one in before the half ended. She hesitated too long but was probably still of that mentality when she threw the pass. There's no room for criticism of the coach here, her player made a mistake. She knows it, the coach knows it and you move on to the next play. Criticism is for the critics, I'm fine without getting it from the broadcasters. You can get all the over the top criticism and analysis by tuning into Team QuAC (Quint, Anish, and Carc) on the men's side if that's your cup of tea. I find it to be annoying and tiresome.

While I am fine with them not being overly critical especially when it is an obvious bone head move they at times just glossed overplays that really changed the momentum of the game. At the end of a brutal 3rd quarter for the cavs in which they had one goal a cav defender made a great defensive play picking up a charge , the game was tied at the time, resulting in a change of possession in which BC received two yellow cards and a go ahead cav goal. They barely even commented on it . There were several of these moments not speaking about the action on the field. As far as laying blame on the coaches for that turnover I would say this is not the first time this year that this has been an issue and they clearly have not addressed it or the goalie is just not coachable.

[OuttaNowhereWregget]

Dan Fritz is a veteran of the wars. He's been doing Penn home games for many years. I always enjoy the job he does. What I found increasingly frustrating and annoying during this broadcast was Meg White's no-clue sense of timing and her penchant for long-windedly droning on while action was happening on the field, where she should have, (not to put this indelicately, but) STFU! and let Fritz do play-by-play. She often stumbled into and over her words and was often not ready with a clean take--in addition to cutting in on Fritz. She would have been much more listenable if she had better chosen her spots to talk and made her points more succinct. As it was, she was a nuisance the entire broadcast in spite of the insightful observations she made from time to time. Camerawork was decent though I would have appreciated another angle or two on replays.

[Dasher]

Gotta love how the announcers for the Hop /Michigan game didn’t know it was sudden death overtime and felt the double OT game winner was anti-climatic. We have to be better than this during tournament time. It’s so amateurish.

[NULax2]

Gotta love how the announcers for the Hop /Michigan game didn’t know it was sudden death overtime and felt the double OT game winner was anti-climatic. We have to be better than this during tournament time. It’s so amateurish.

they are STUDENT announcers. but they should have been prepared.

[OuttaNowhereWregget]

Gotta love how the announcers for the Hop /Michigan game didn’t know it was sudden death overtime and felt the double OT game winner was anti-climatic. We have to be better than this during tournament time. It’s so amateurish.

they are STUDENT announcers. but they should have been prepared.

I wasn't able to identify the woman doing color commentary (Kristin Erin? Aaron?) but Summer Aldred is not a student. She's a coach from the area.

I actually didn't mind them that much. They were low key and weren't trying to hype anything. You just know if they had two guys in the booth they would be trying to hype things to the sky, like Jake Irwin was doing for the Penn St/Ohio St game. Yeah--the fact that they didn't know what the overtime rules were pissed me off in the moment but in the grand scheme of things it really doesn't matter. On the whole they did a decent job. I'll take them over Jay Alter and Charlotte North all day every day.

[Dasher]

Gotta love how the announcers for the Hop /Michigan game didn’t know it was sudden death overtime and felt the double OT game winner was anti-climatic. We have to be better than this during tournament time. It’s so amateurish.

they are STUDENT announcers. but they should have been prepared.

If true, why didn’t the BIG10 feel their own tournament wasn’t worthy of seasoned color commentary. Don’t tell me it’s money. And please don’t tell me the men’s tournament has this kind of crap.

[OuttaNowhereWregget]

Gotta love how the announcers for the Hop /Michigan game didn’t know it was sudden death overtime and felt the double OT game winner was anti-climatic. We have to be better than this during tournament time. It’s so amateurish.

they are STUDENT announcers. but they should have been prepared.

If true, why didn’t the BIG10 feel their own tournament wasn’t worthy of seasoned color commentary. Don’t tell me it’s money. And please don’t tell me the men’s tournament has this kind of crap.

Why wouldn't you accept money as a legitimate reason? Let's face it--folks don't flock to women's lacrosse; which doesn't bother me in the least, by the way. As long as I get to see the game with reasonably decent camerawork, I'm fine. Leave open the possibility that those who were slated to do the game had to bail for one reason or another. But, as I said earlier--I was okay with the (albeit green) tandem in the booth. There are much worse than them that I've listened to before muting over the years.

[watcherinthewoods]

They were painful. The normal PXP for guy for Michigan on Big10+ is quite good. Not sure why he was not on this game for the conference tourney and Michigan hosting.

One of the best broadcasters I have heard this season is Matt Corasetti (SP?) up at Dartmouth. Good knowledge of the game, knows the Ivies, and takes the time to research the opposition. A pleasure to watch/listen to and certainly better lax IQ than Jay Alter.

[OuttaNowhereWregget]

I guess it all depends on what is important to an individual during a broadcast.

The single most important item for me is the camerawork which includes multiple angles/replays/close-ups, etc.

Next is the on-screen teams/scoreboard/shot clock/power play time, etc.

Then the field mic's at a good level to hear the players from the sidelines and the fans in the stands (but not obnoxious leather-lunged defensive coordinators bellowing from the sidelines for their team who wears powder blue.)

Then who's calling the game and what they're like. Less is more for me. I'd rather listen to low-key, no-hype announcers calling the action than over-the-top, hyped-up, hyping-it-up, yelling announcers who know what they're talking about. Would I like to have both? Sure. There are a rare few who can provide both knowledge of the game with just the right amount of uncontrived enthusiasm. Curt Dudley for JMU is one. Michelle Sebastian for Vanderbilt is another. Dana Boyle. Sheehan Stanwick Burch, of course. I have others I like, too. But we all have our preferences. If I was forced to pick one tandem over another--I'd take (yesterday's Michigan/Hop game announcers) Summer Aldred and Christina Arens over Jay Alter and Charlotte North every single time.

[Relax77]

Lacrosse magazine has Penn State 9th.

[spidey44]

Lacrosse magazine has Penn State 9th.

And Missy lives to see another season... Gotta say, while I don't have them nearly that high, they've completely turned their season around the last few weeks.

[lax410]

Gotta love how the announcers for the Hop /Michigan game didn’t know it was sudden death overtime and felt the double OT game winner was anti-climatic. We have to be better than this during tournament time. It’s so amateurish.

they are STUDENT announcers. but they should have been prepared.

If true, why didn’t the BIG10 feel their own tournament wasn’t worthy of seasoned color commentary. Don’t tell me it’s money. And please don’t tell me the men’s tournament has this kind of crap.

Agreed that they can certainly do much better. The Big 10 network sells a lacrosse only subscription, which I bought last year for the season. But I didn’t renew this year because the quality was lacking. Commentary is definitely a part of that. My memory is that some of the video was pretty rough too.