Johns Hopkins Coach Search

[Wheels]

Two more points:

1) Following a legend is a tough gig. Whomever follows Petro will inherently have a difficult time even if Hop hires an alum (many coming straight from the Petro tree). Maintaining continuity of winning is so difficult. Lars stumbled for a couple of years and won it, but this year was looking a bit down again for him (makes me wonder if last year was lightening in a bottle with all of the 1-goal wins). Cottle struggled in the shadow of the Big Man, even though Cottle's results were really good. Princeton has struggled to replace Tierney for a while. Maybe the way around this is to really shoot high and go for a guy who already has a title to his name (Shay). A guy like Shay won't walk in Petro's shadow because Shay has his own shadow.

2) The ground of the game shifted under Petro's feet, which early recruiting certainly exacerbated. The guys playing high major D1 lacrosse are high major athletes not just high major lacrosse players. If you're recruiting a 5'9" kid, he better be an athlete like Michael Sowers or a bulldozer like Matt Rambo. Otherwise, he's going to get swallowed up. I will never forget the day my wife saw the NCAA quarterfinals up at Brown. When Maryland and Syracuse ran onto the field for warm ups, she turned to me and said, "I thought you said small guys could play this sport?!" The difference between D1 and D3 players isn't stick skills or lacrosse IQ. It's not even necessarily size. It's how fast the D1 players move compared to the D3 players. D3 still has that "all shapes, all sizes" ethos of lacrosse. The only different shapes and sizes you see now in a D1 game is in goal.

[wgdsr]

Two more points:

1) Following a legend is a tough gig. Whomever follows Petro will inherently have a difficult time even if Hop hires an alum (many coming straight from the Petro tree). Maintaining continuity of winning is so difficult. Lars stumbled for a couple of years and won it, but this year was looking a bit down again for him (makes me wonder if last year was lightening in a bottle with all of the 1-goal wins). Cottle struggled in the shadow of the Big Man, even though Cottle's results were really good. Princeton has struggled to replace Tierney for a while. Maybe the way around this is to really shoot high and go for a guy who already has a title to his name (Shay). A guy like Shay won't walk in Petro's shadow because Shay has his own shadow.

2) The ground of the game shifted under Petro's feet, which early recruiting certainly exacerbated. The guys playing high major D1 lacrosse are high major athletes not just high major lacrosse players. If you're recruiting a 5'9" kid, he better be an athlete like Michael Sowers or a bulldozer like Matt Rambo. Otherwise, he's going to get swallowed up. I will never forget the day my wife saw the NCAA quarterfinals up at Brown. When Maryland and Syracuse ran onto the field for warm ups, she turned to me and said, "I thought you said small guys could play this sport?!" The difference between D1 and D3 players isn't stick skills or lacrosse IQ. It's not even necessarily size. It's how fast the D1 players move compared to the D3 players. D3 still has that "all shapes, all sizes" ethos of lacrosse. The only different shapes and sizes you see now in a D1 game is in goal.

i agree you can't be out-athleted and expect to compete all year, and win 4 games in the nc$$.
you lost me at no different shapes and sizes.
chris gray, grant ament, jeff teat, td ierlan, nick mellen, joey epstein. those are just first couple of team pre-season aa's for this year.

lacrosse definitely skews size with speed and athleticism vs what some teams bring. especially at the back end and middle of the field. i'd say if you went 2/3, 1/3... those 1/3 would typically prove they were better players given a size deficit.

[Blackdoglax]

Take a look at the 2015 recruit class that was ranked 3rd by IL to see where Hopkins failed miserably. Petro was incredibly loyal and he had that class finished by Christmas time of 2013 when they were sophomores in HS. Petro had lost two of the ‘highest’ rated recruits in the class before their sophomore year at Homewood. Not a good sign for his ER prowess.

Even if you write that year off because it was following perhaps the most highly touted recruit class at Hop in the modern era, even that class (2014) led by Shack et al did not produce the way they should have on paper. Do you say it’s because Petro could not coach anymore like he did with the Rabil teams or is it because he got caught up like Dom did and took the best at that time? I say the former.

Reminds me of Mack Brown at Texas who after he won the NC had each class done by the end of their junior year and reportedly did not watch kids senior tapes. Do you want a kid who peaked in 9th grade or who peaks as a junior as a Bluejay.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Take a look at the 2015 recruit class that was ranked 3rd by IL to see where Hopkins failed miserably. Petro was incredibly loyal and he had that class finished by Christmas time of 2013 when they were sophomores in HS. Petro had lost two of the ‘highest’ rated recruits in the class before their sophomore year at Homewood. Not a good sign for his ER prowess.

Even if you write that year off because it was following perhaps the most highly touted recruit class at Hop in the modern era, even that class (2014) led by Shack et al did not produce the way they should have on paper. Do you say it’s because Petro could not coach anymore like he did with the Rabil teams or is it because he got caught up like Dom did and took the best at that time? I say the former.

Reminds me of Mack Brown at Texas who after he won the NC had each class done by the end of their junior year and reportedly did not watch kids senior tapes. Do you want a kid who peaked in 9th grade or who peaks as a junior as a Bluejay.

You just can’t recruit early in bulk. A couple a class is fine and good players would wait. When there is no room left, they move on. In consecutive classes, the first kids to commit to UVA were both cut. JHU was turning. The new coach will benefit form it. I like some of their young players a lot.

[FMUBart]

Don't see Marr getting the job, strikes me as more of a "dude" type coach based on the talent he has brought into UA--great players, but not exactly Hopkins-esque. Marr strikes more as more in the Simmons mold vs. Ciccarone. Unfortunately, I think it's either Raymond(my front-runner) or Nadelen. Luckily the season was cut short, otherwise Nadelen would have some explaining to do(0-6 with Duke and Denver up next on the schedule; although, maybe the Tigers would've had a good run in the CAA?).

I see dark horses: Cassesse, Sowell or Wray. Given the covid-19 pandemic, the coaching carousel appears stalled...

[primitiveskills]

Two more points:

1) Following a legend is a tough gig. Whomever follows Petro will inherently have a difficult time even if Hop hires an alum (many coming straight from the Petro tree). Maintaining continuity of winning is so difficult. Lars stumbled for a couple of years and won it, but this year was looking a bit down again for him (makes me wonder if last year was lightening in a bottle with all of the 1-goal wins). Cottle struggled in the shadow of the Big Man, even though Cottle's results were really good. Princeton has struggled to replace Tierney for a while. Maybe the way around this is to really shoot high and go for a guy who already has a title to his name (Shay). A guy like Shay won't walk in Petro's shadow because Shay has his own shadow.

2) The ground of the game shifted under Petro's feet, which early recruiting certainly exacerbated. The guys playing high major D1 lacrosse are high major athletes not just high major lacrosse players. If you're recruiting a 5'9" kid, he better be an athlete like Michael Sowers or a bulldozer like Matt Rambo. Otherwise, he's going to get swallowed up. I will never forget the day my wife saw the NCAA quarterfinals up at Brown. When Maryland and Syracuse ran onto the field for warm ups, she turned to me and said, "I thought you said small guys could play this sport?!" The difference between D1 and D3 players isn't stick skills or lacrosse IQ. It's not even necessarily size. It's how fast the D1 players move compared to the D3 players. D3 still has that "all shapes, all sizes" ethos of lacrosse. The only different shapes and sizes you see now in a D1 game is in goal.

A lot of really good points here. I especially agree with the merits of JHU looking outside of its alums for the next HC. One thing that will be critical in JHU moving to the next stage is to get away from the nostalgia of "the good old days". I think there are many non-JHU alums that would respect the postion that JHU has historically held in the game but also recognize that things have changed and you have to adapt.

[Wheels]

i agree you can't be out-athleted and expect to compete all year, and win 4 games in the nc$$.
you lost me at no different shapes and sizes.
chris gray, grant ament, jeff teat, td ierlan, nick mellen, joey epstein. those are just first couple of team pre-season aa's for this year.

lacrosse definitely skews size with speed and athleticism vs what some teams bring. especially at the back end and middle of the field. i'd say if you went 2/3, 1/3... those 1/3 would typically prove they were better players given a size deficit.

All of those guys you listed are really good athletes. Like I said, if you're going to recruit smaller guys, they better be really good athletes. Wasn't Gray a HS running back? Led LI in rushing his senior year in HS, I believe. Ament's change of direction is elite. He'd do really well in the NFL 20-yard shuttle drill. Ierlan's strength and quickness are elite (former HS running back, if I recall). Nick Mellen can flat out move. Epstein is a chunk of muscle. Before his knee injury, he had a great first step and cutting ability. Teat might be the only one on your list that isn't a great athlete, but his ability to navigate the box world does make me think he's a better athlete than not.

What got Hop in trouble, especially in its midfield, was that they didn't have good size and weren't especially fast. Ditto with its attack unit. Cole Williams needed a lot of time to win one-on-one battles because he often couldn't out-run a defender and needed to back them down. Epstein was one of the only players they had who could beat his defender in a one-on-one situation. That's why Hop's offense needed so much ball movement and off-ball cutting to draw slides because they didn't have a lot of guys who draw a slide off of a dodge beyond Epstein.

[Blackdoglax]

Goes back to my point, kids look great at Nike Blue as rising sophomores when they are the fastest and best players out there....when they are fully grown at 5’9’’ and 175lbs going up against kids the same size who have not gone threw puberty.

Look at Yale’s offensive midfield as compared to Hopkins D mids the last three years.....no contest and same academic profiles or better at Yale.

[Homer]

Maryland too. UVA, UNC, and Maryland have all won championships after going all in on early recruiting.

Maryland jumped on later. Also covered it up with Transfers. Lars got rid of mistakes on the team and in the pipeline. I believe recruiting from the best players as juniors is better than as freshmen. JHU, UNC and UVA set the market. Everyone else eventually followed. Enough difference makers dispersed. For instance Heninburg was interested in all 3 of those schools but the classes were full during Spring of his sophomore year in high school....so he ends up at Rutgers. Lots of examples. Just how it was back then.

^^^ TLD makes exactly the right points here with regard to Maryland and UVA.

That leaves UNC, and what I'd add there is that the overall trajectory for Carolina from 2015-19 actually looks strikingly similar to JHU. Symptoms of dysfunction maybe somewhat different, but broadly comparable bottom-line results.

The 2016 title was a lot like Hopkins' 2015 FF run: basically a .500 team that caught fire at the right time. Yes, they won those crucial two extra games at the end and winning a chip cures a lot of ills, I'm not taking anything away from that. But at a higher level of abstraction the picture looks pretty similar: one great Memorial Day ride, one other QF appearance, and a bunch of 8-7ish seasons involving either a 1st-round depantsing or (perhaps mercifully) missing the tournament altogether.

So I think the Carolina example actually strongly reinforces the thesis: UNC and JHU recruited similarly* from 2010-16, and saw very similar results as those classes matriculated down the line.


*Sort of. There are always going to be school-specific differences, and Carolina is a bit more of a "pipeline" program: the Kellys aren't so much early recruited as signed over in the womb. Not sure how that should factor into the analysis.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Maryland too. UVA, UNC, and Maryland have all won championships after going all in on early recruiting.

Maryland jumped on later. Also covered it up with Transfers. Lars got rid of mistakes on the team and in the pipeline. I believe recruiting from the best players as juniors is better than as freshmen. JHU, UNC and UVA set the market. Everyone else eventually followed. Enough difference makers dispersed. For instance Heninburg was interested in all 3 of those schools but the classes were full during Spring of his sophomore year in high school....so he ends up at Rutgers. Lots of examples. Just how it was back then.

^^^ TLD makes exactly the right points here with regard to Maryland and UVA.

That leaves UNC, and what I'd add there is that the overall trajectory for Carolina from 2015-19 actually looks strikingly similar to JHU. Symptoms of dysfunction maybe somewhat different, but broadly comparable bottom-line results.

The 2016 title was a lot like Hopkins' 2015 FF run: basically a .500 team that caught fire at the right time. Yes, they won those crucial two extra games at the end and winning a chip cures a lot of ills, I'm not taking anything away from that. But at a higher level of abstraction the picture looks pretty similar: one great Memorial Day ride, one other QF appearance, and a bunch of 8-7ish seasons involving either a 1st-round depantsing or (perhaps mercifully) missing the tournament altogether.

So I think the Carolina example actually strongly reinforces the thesis: UNC and JHU recruited similarly* from 2010-16, and saw very similar results as those classes matriculated down the line.


*Sort of. There are always going to be school-specific differences, and Carolina is a bit more of a "pipeline" program: the Kellys aren't so much early recruited as signed over in the womb. Not sure how that should factor into the analysis.

I don't count the Kelly's either. Family program basically.

[OCanada]

I will say this with about 90% confidence. Shay will not be coaching at Hopkins.

[Farfromgeneva]

Maybe people are talking about the country boy band coaching hop.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_%2B_Shay

[Sativa Specialist]

You can bet there is no way in hell any school is going to be noticeably increasing their lacrosse (non-revenue) budget during this time. Hopkins is one of only a handful of places where lacrosse will not be looked at as a potential sacrifice for the school athletic budget in the near future.

You are better off asking yourself how many teams will be left in Division 1 lacrosse after all of this.

Excellent take.
We are in a new world, it's difficult to try and predict what the new world will look like because it's unfolding before our eyes.
Until there is a vaccine, I doubt we see 100,000 people at football games. How will this affect the Big10 ?
What will advertising budgets for corporations look like for televised college games of any sport ?
Does the location of the university seem safe from virus ?
Hopkins may be at an advantage in some areas, disadvantage in others.
It will be interesting to watch this new world unfold.

[runrussellrun]

Recruiting landscape, including the IL gurus/publications really hurt Petro too.

Kids got recruited way too early. IL, assumed these kids were good B/c they got recruited by Hop and rated them high.

Expectations scored.

Kids/Hopkins floundered.

Hopkins fans raged. Petro gets released.

Pietramala is a good coach. I have been a harsh critic of early recruiting. These last two Hopkins classes had solid players in it. uVa/JHU and UNC were the three programs all in on early recruiting in large numbers. Starsia and Petro are gone. I believe if they were recruiting the best juniors instead of the best freshman, they may still be around. Petro will be fine. A change may be good for both parties.

Maryland too. UVA, UNC, and Maryland have all won championships after going all in on early recruiting.

Maryland jumped on later. Also covered it up with Transfers. Lars got rid of mistakes on the team and in the pipeline. I believe recruiting from the best players as juniors is better than as freshmen. JHU, UNC and UVA set the market. Everyone else eventually followed. Enough difference makers dispersed. For instance Heninburg was interested in all 3 of those schools but the classes were full during Spring of his sophomore year in high school....so he ends up at Rutgers. Lots of examples. Just how it was back then.

We are just wondering whom all these transfers would be. Who they are.

Besides the two "Cuse transfers , passing ships even, (Matlz, Wisnauskas )..........who transferred to College Park that was a difference maker? Say, in the past ten years.

[FMUBart]

If all the Hopkins comments are true, it would be difficult to imagine the school hiring another alpha male like Petro. Will they try to go with a less dominating personality? Coaches like Shay and Murphy come to mind(Danowski too, but he ain't going anywhere). Zim was in that mold, intense but not an intimidating figure like Petro...

[Typical Lax Dad]

Recruiting landscape, including the IL gurus/publications really hurt Petro too.

Kids got recruited way too early. IL, assumed these kids were good B/c they got recruited by Hop and rated them high.

Expectations scored.

Kids/Hopkins floundered.

Hopkins fans raged. Petro gets released.

Pietramala is a good coach. I have been a harsh critic of early recruiting. These last two Hopkins classes had solid players in it. uVa/JHU and UNC were the three programs all in on early recruiting in large numbers. Starsia and Petro are gone. I believe if they were recruiting the best juniors instead of the best freshman, they may still be around. Petro will be fine. A change may be good for both parties.

Maryland too. UVA, UNC, and Maryland have all won championships after going all in on early recruiting.

Maryland jumped on later. Also covered it up with Transfers. Lars got rid of mistakes on the team and in the pipeline. I believe recruiting from the best players as juniors is better than as freshmen. JHU, UNC and UVA set the market. Everyone else eventually followed. Enough difference makers dispersed. For instance Heninburg was interested in all 3 of those schools but the classes were full during Spring of his sophomore year in high school....so he ends up at Rutgers. Lots of examples. Just how it was back then.

We are just wondering whom all these transfers would be. Who they are.

Besides the two "Cuse transfers , passing ships even, (Matlz, Wisnauskas )..........who transferred to College Park that was a difference maker? Say, in the past ten years.

Those two were good enough. Are you suggesting Maryland hasn’t run guys off and taken in transfers? They lost Cannizarro also. Maryland has the top program in the country. Full Stop.
P.S your starting SSDM was a UHa. transfer...

[HopFan16]

Also Greg Danseglio, Pat Young, Danny Dolan

[Typical Lax Dad]

Also Greg Danseglio, Pat Young, Danny Dolan

https://www.insidelacrosse.com/article/ ... -liu/55136

Must be a typo

[Cooter]

Those two were good enough. Are you suggesting Maryland hasn’t run guys off and taken in transfers? They lost Cannizarro also. Maryland has the top program in the country. Full Stop.
P.S your starting SSDM was a UHa. transfer...

I think Dylan Maltz was the only starter on the Terps championship team that was a transfer - and he sort of stepped into the hole created by Cannizzaro's transfer out.

More than transfers Tillman usually left himself some room for some late recruits like Tim Muller or Colin Heacock.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Those two were good enough. Are you suggesting Maryland hasn’t run guys off and taken in transfers? They lost Cannizarro also. Maryland has the top program in the country. Full Stop.
P.S your starting SSDM was a UHa. transfer...

I think Dylan Maltz was the only starter on the Terps championship team that was a transfer - and he sort of stepped into the hole created by Cannizzaro's transfer out.

More than transfers Tillman usually left himself some room for some late recruits like Tim Muller or Colin Heacock.

Did someone say otherwise?
https://lacrossebucket.com/2020/04/13/b ... yland/amp/