Johns Hopkins 2020

[nrthcrosslax]

Where'd this Degnon kid come from? Nice to see an unheralded player emerge to make significant contributions.

[Peter Brown]

Where'd this Degnon kid come from? Nice to see an unheralded player emerge to make significant contributions.

Just saying:

For Hop, I thought this kid Garrett Deignon looked good...Smart hard low shot. How come you never hear of him?

Dematha produces a lot of athletes who only get better in college (Paul Rabil anyone?). This kid could be a breakout star for HOP.

https://hopkinssports.com/sports/mens-l ... gnon/12765

[flalax22]

Where'd this Degnon kid come from? Nice to see an unheralded player emerge to make significant contributions.

He's a sophomore. He came from the bench. While guys like DeSimone and Baskin put up regular donuts last year his talented 6'4 frame got a front row seat.

[44WeWantMore]

Don’t know what all the fuss is about. Blue Jays have a talented team this season. Good speed, size, and athleticism all over the field. Also improved depth compared to past seasons.

Blue Jays also have injuries to key people, lots of new starters and contributors, and a tough schedule. Hopkins is going to be inconsistent for a while.

Vast majority of coaches around the country would love to have guys like Zinn and Degnon on their midfields. DeSimone, Zinn, and Degnon are all on pace for about 20 goals or more this season. I’ll take that.

Zinn is generating a lot of offensive opportunities for himself and others off the dodge. For a lot of players, averaging an additional assist or goal per game is an unrealistic ask. Not so for Zinn ... well within his capabilities to be averaging four points a game (All-America caliber production) versus his current three.

I’m not sold on Darby yet, especially on whether he can ever be a vocal leader of the defense. Issues with clears may be a sign of that. Still, I think our defense is playing better as a team than last year.

If the young men put the work in and Epstein can work his way back to form (and who would wager against him?), this could be a pretty special Hopkins team. Don’t be surprised if that special team takes a few weeks more to develop.

DocBarrister

Ring a gosh-darn cow-bell; I agree with a post from DocB!!!!! This is the first, and possibly only post of his, that makes sense, especially the highlight above.

I'm no friend of this program, but my respect is deep. DocB captures this team well with the highlighted sentences above. The boys will recover despite the coach, heck maybe even in spite of the coach! I look forward to them pasting those Tar Heel interlopers this weekend! Get at it!

Carpetbagging mercenary. You just want Carolina to lose.

Back in the Dean Smith days, a friend of mine at Duke used to say, "Yeah, I rooted for Carolina. Once. They were playing the Russians."

[51percentcorn]

5 goals in 2 games - Degnon has been a pleasant surprise. But let's not automatically assume he would have done this last year as a freshman. First, the spot he is scoring a decent amount of his goals from was occupied by Marr last year - not DeSimone or Baskin. I am not going to sit here and say I am an expert on the kid's total game but he may not be a downhill middie dodger or comfortable doing the things he might have needed to do to be successful away from that spot on the field. Maybe he can and will.

Virtually everyone has opined on Zinn's failings that may have kept him away from the 1st line last year - turnovers, decision making, shooting percentage. I'll put out there that unlike one poster who said he and Williams can't hid the broad side of a barn - I'll say right now Zinn and Williams are hitting the barn plenty but they are hitting the screen door way too often. It will come.

[TheBigIguana]

5 goals in 2 games - Degnon has been a pleasant surprise. But let's not automatically assume he would have done this last year as a freshman. First, the spot he is scoring a decent amount of his goals from was occupied by Marr last year - not DeSimone or Baskin. I am not going to sit here and say I am an expert on the kid's total game but he may not be a downhill middie dodger or comfortable doing the things he might have needed to do to be successful away from that spot on the field. Maybe he can and will.

Virtually everyone has opined on Zinn's failings that may have kept him away from the 1st line last year - turnovers, decision making, shooting percentage. I'll put out there that unlike one poster who said he and Williams can't hid the broad side of a barn - I'll say right now Zinn and Williams are hitting the barn plenty but they are hitting the screen door way too often. It will come.

Plenty of midfielders have been valuable without ever being able to do anything consistently but run past their man. I watched Romar Dennis make a whole career out of it. Hop not using Zinn regularly when they couldn't get any dodging threat out of anyone but Epstein with consistency was inexcusable.

[HopFan16]

Most surprising about Degnon IMO is that 2 of his 5 goals were not only on the run down the alley, but they were with his right hand (and both placed in excellent spots). The scouting report we heard all offseason was "big, lefty set shooter"—nothing about using the off hand or shooting on the run. So clearly he has worked on his game. Quint also mentioned during the Towson broadcast that he "changed his body" which I assume means hit the weight room and got stronger and leaner.

Williams has markedly improved his shooting since his freshman year. His mechanics have also gotten better, and he's even added a bit of a right hand to his repertoire. You cannot possibly accuse the dude of not working on his shooting. He might never be a 33%+ guy, which IMO is the number a high volume shooter should aim for, but the trajectory is clearly upward.

My theory on Zinn is that after not getting much time last year, he's trying to shoot it all out at once to start the season, which has led to some questionable shot selection. The shots he does get in good spots tend to go in—e.g. his second goal against Towson. I see nothing of concern in his mechanics. But shots tend to look bad or miss the cage when you're taking them from spots on the field you maybe shouldn't be taking them. Better shot selection will come—he has two collegiate starts under his belt—and when it does I suspect shooting will no longer be seen as an issue.

One thing I will point out however is that crease finishing for everyone other than Forry has been lacking the last year + 2 games. He seems like the only guy who knows you're allowed to throw a fake or two to move the goalie. At least one or two wide-open crease finishes the last two weeks have been tossed directly into the goalie's net. Baskin had one that needs to be a goal 100 out of 100 times.

[Typical Lax Dad]

5 goals in 2 games - Degnon has been a pleasant surprise. But let's not automatically assume he would have done this last year as a freshman. First, the spot he is scoring a decent amount of his goals from was occupied by Marr last year - not DeSimone or Baskin. I am not going to sit here and say I am an expert on the kid's total game but he may not be a downhill middie dodger or comfortable doing the things he might have needed to do to be successful away from that spot on the field. Maybe he can and will.

Virtually everyone has opined on Zinn's failings that may have kept him away from the 1st line last year - turnovers, decision making, shooting percentage. I'll put out there that unlike one poster who said he and Williams can't hid the broad side of a barn - I'll say right now Zinn and Williams are hitting the barn plenty but they are hitting the screen door way too often. It will come.

Plenty of midfielders have been valuable without ever being able to do anything consistently but run past their man. I watched Romar Dennis make a whole career out of it. Hop not using Zinn regularly when they couldn't get any dodging threat out of anyone but Epstein with consistency was inexcusable.

Who was that really fast middie that JHU had that could run by his man but had trouble finishing? He ended up with a knee injury (good player) I believe Zinn will give you more than he did but just getting the defense to rotate is valuable.

[Catbird]

Connor Reed

[jhu06]

what can we expect from the unc matchup this week?

[Catbird]

[nrthcrosslax]

Who was that really fast middie that JHU had that could run by his man but had trouble finishing? He ended up with a knee injury (good player) I believe Zinn will give you more than he did but just getting the defense to rotate is valuable.

Connor Reed?

[Typical Lax Dad]

Who was that really fast middie that JHU had that could run by his man but had trouble finishing? He ended up with a knee injury (good player) I believe Zinn will give you more than he did but just getting the defense to rotate is valuable.

Connor Reed?

That’s him! I always liked him. I am not sure he was ever the same after the injury. He had ability though.

[viper]

5 goals in 2 games - Degnon has been a pleasant surprise. But let's not automatically assume he would have done this last year as a freshman. First, the spot he is scoring a decent amount of his goals from was occupied by Marr last year - not DeSimone or Baskin. I am not going to sit here and say I am an expert on the kid's total game but he may not be a downhill middie dodger or comfortable doing the things he might have needed to do to be successful away from that spot on the field. Maybe he can and will.

Virtually everyone has opined on Zinn's failings that may have kept him away from the 1st line last year - turnovers, decision making, shooting percentage. I'll put out there that unlike one poster who said he and Williams can't hid the broad side of a barn - I'll say right now Zinn and Williams are hitting the barn plenty but they are hitting the screen door way too often. It will come.

Plenty of midfielders have been valuable without ever being able to do anything consistently but run past their man. I watched Romar Dennis make a whole career out of it. Hop not using Zinn regularly when they couldn't get any dodging threat out of anyone but Epstein with consistency was inexcusable.

Who was that really fast middie that JHU had that could run by his man but had trouble finishing? He ended up with a knee injury (good player) I believe Zinn will give you more than he did but just getting the defense to rotate is valuable.

John Greely I believe. Two knee injuries severely limited the potential when he came to JHU as a top recruit. Ranagan was the other and demonstrated great downhill speed, but it seemed that he could not hit the broadside of a barn either - at least until he went pro.

[HopFan16]

what can we expect from the unc matchup this week?

First real test for this new-look Hopkins defense. Allowing 17 goals on a 56% save percentage through two games is probably much better than what most people predicted. But neither Towson nor Loyola look particularly threatening on offense this year. North Carolina, on the other hand, is loaded.

Gray will be one of the better offensive players we see this season. (If he has a big game it will hurt even more because, apparently, he almost decided to go to Hopkins during the transfer process. Homewood was one of the three or so schools he visited.)

But the younger guys around him look better this year too, particularly Nicky Solomon and Brian Cameron. Their top 6 is quite a bit more dynamic than Loyola's IMO—and certainly much more than Towson's.

Their defense has allowed less than 7 goals per game through three contests. The huge caveat with all of this is that their competition has been Colgate, Mercer, and Lafayette. Not exactly a murderer's row. The Jays are as much a test for them as they are for us.

On D, they get Will Bowen, one of the best defensive recruits two years ago, back from injury. They do however lose Jack Rowlett, who many here will remember for trying to concuss Robert Kuhn and then flexing his muscles on the sideline when Kuhn, who scored on the play struggled to get up. They also lose leading scorer Timmy Kelly (who scored 4 goals against us at Homewood in 2018), though the Heels more than make up for that with the addition of Gray and the progression of some of the young pieces around him.

With a healthy Epstein in the lineup I would say that, at home, we should be able to put up a decent number against the Carolina defense. But without him at 100% (or at all) it's obviously a murkier picture. It goes without saying that Williams can't disappear again. Faceoffs have to be in the realm of 50% or better, as does save percentage. I think the one hope is that we don't really know what to expect out of this Carolina team yet because they've been beating up on weak competition. Meanwhile, coming off a loss to Loyola and what I assume/hope will be an intense week of practice, the Jays should, in theory, come out firing on Saturday. Lyne and McManus, assuming they're still in those roles, will have to play better than they did a week ago. The shorties need to be prepared for the big Canadian midfielder Tanner Cook, who we handled well last year in the mud, but not the year before.

UNC's shorties are relatively young and inexperienced—might need a big game from the middies, especially if the attack continues to struggle without Joey. And absolutely need more from that third attack spot than what we got against Loyola.

[WOMBAT, Mod Emeritus]

For the record, I didn’t see anyone saying fire the coach. I don’t think anyone here expects to happen during the season.

The question is whether the contract will be renewed, AFTER the season.

There are far differing opinions on that.

Our informed posters know what time of day it is.

Twatwaffles on Twitter pretending to be journalists do not.

One rule of thumb: get your memes right.


16, resume control of the thread. You’ve become as bad as DB. And THAT (2005) is when people really started making fun of these threads. Again, get your facts straight.

[HopFan16]

For the record, I didn’t see anyone saying fire the coach.

Ok, cool, then I wasn't talking about you!

16, resume control of the thread. You’ve become as bad as DB

For what, trying to talk about lacrosse on a lacrosse forum? Guilty!

Doc's eternal optimism seems misplaced and, occasionally, exhausting (though I must say it really doesn't bother me the way it does for some), but at least he is interested. I'll take that over the constant doom and gloom which achieves nothing. Like you said, nothing is happening one way or the other until the season is over. So until then I think it makes sense for everyone to just focus on the games on a week to week basis. But instead you had multiple people parachute in here the moment the Jays lost to Loyola calling for heads. Where were they after the Towson win? That's all I'm asking for. It's February.

[10 10 2]

what can we expect from the unc matchup this week?

UNC's shorties are relatively young and inexperienced—might need a big game from the middies, especially if the attack continues to struggle without Joey. And absolutely need more from that third attack spot than what we got against Loyola.

UNC's defensive midfield has two experienced players in Soph. Connor Maher (voted preseason All-ACC SSDM), and Junior Parker Alexander (played in every game in 2019.)

LSM on the other hand is much more inexperienced with Freshman Matt Wright and Junior Sean Morris. This is by far Carolina's biggest question mark this season.

[OCanada]

I think Greeley is right. He had an injury before he arrived. We have had a few middies that has ACLs that were also top recruits

[OCanada]

There is a reason LaxFi cut off contact with Wombat in 2018. Lt the only one who has done that. Part of it is showing up here. He had a confrontation with DP years ago and can’t seem to get past it.