THE 2019 Hopkins Lacrosse Fallout Shelter (44, we want more!)

[Bandito]

What's truly sad is that Hopkins will be televised 7 times or so by ESPN networks. What the heck!!!! How pathetic. They are not a good team at the moment.

[laxbro11]

Here is a discussion question and would love to get some feedback... Two questions, is this early recruiting that Petro did with getting phenoms in 8th grade catching up? and he just does not have the talent? Or does it come down to coaching and not being prepared?

[seriously?]

or rather is it the inflated egos of those being recruited to Hopkins... This is not news for them. Lot of individuals playing like individuals. Seems to be catching up to Syracuse and Duke as well.

[DocBarrister]

Wasn’t much in Petro’s press conference that I disagreed with. Don’t agree with his use of zone D. I understand the technical and tactical rationale behind that decision, but his crew needed to ramp up their aggression, not retreat into a passive stance.

Darby improved his overall game after the half (including clears), and he wound up with 15 saves despite a complete defensive breakdown. I think the young man shows real promise. He didn’t give up.

Both Zinn and Epstein scored points yesterday. I thought some of Epstein’s feeds were spectacular ... aggressive and confident. Screw any notion that he needs time to adjust. Give the kid as much responsibility as he can handle.

If Petro is right about the effort in practice, that is completely on the captains. I couldn’t help noticing the difference in energy between the two squads, even in the first quarter.

This Blue Jay team should be seeking a national championship, not working to avoid embarrassment. I think this team has great promise, and I for one have not given up on them. Let’s see if the boys can say the same.

DocBarrister

[stupefied]

or rather is it the inflated egos of those being recruited to Hopkins... This is not news for them. Lot of individuals playing like individuals. Seems to be catching up to Syracuse and Duke as well.

Humored by the "ego" generalization loosely applied to rated teams that lose their opening game. Yale if any team has plenty of egos and they seemed to do just fine last year . Talent of teams jell at different points, might be fairer observation that teams with deeper bases of talent could be more prone to individual play at start than others that are may be more reliant and cohesive at start. Assessing teams is better done after several games

[HopFan16]

Both Zinn and Epstein scored points yesterday. I thought some of Epstein’s feeds were spectacular ... aggressive and confident. Screw any notion that he needs time to adjust. Give the kid as much responsibility as he can handle

Came away with the same view. Epstein had your typical freshman mistake or two, including being a little too confident dodging directly at their best close defenseman, but he looks ready and more than capable of orchestrating an offense from X. He had two excellent passes to Cattoni (one from up top on EMO, one from behind the goal in 6v6) that both should have been canned—neither were. His passes from X were crisp and right on shooters' sticks. The 1v1 dodging for him will come as he gets a little stronger and becomes used to this level of play vs. high school. But it's a good sign that he's already passing well.

Smith also looked fine as a middie. We know what he can do off-ball, hopefully that second goal of his is a sign of things to come.

Everyone remember the Loyola debacle last year? The team rebounded pretty well from that. Similar situation—early season game on the road against a solid local rival. Couldn't clear. Turnovers, sloppy play everywhere. Perhaps Loyola of 2018 was better than Towson of 2019, but this Tigers team looked good, so it might not be that much of a difference. There are issues to fix, but time to fix them.

[Neverplaydown]

Was at the game on sat. I am a tiger fan. Here is my take on Hopkins
I usually stay on the Visitors side, as I like to listen to parents.
Yesterday, I stayed away, did not want to hear the band. Good news for us, they did not get to play much.
Your goalie was not good early, but thought he played better as game progressed. Maybe some big game nerves
Face off was obviously dominated by Towson. With the shot clock(which I think is great) a team should be able to deal with that.
The main reason Hopkins got beat so one sided was simple, totally out worked.
Your light at midfield, but attack is top notch. They need to do more.
I do think Hopkins will right the ship, but giving every once of energy on the field should be a given(Not a option).
That would NEVER happen with towson players.

[genesrfree]

bandito-I agree with you 100%!!! Who wants to watch Hopkins 7 times this season, certainly not me. Lot's of good things going on with D1 lacrosse and people need to wake up and actually help this sport grow. Televising a team based on prior history, particularly Hopkins is getting old for this fan! You can pontificate all you want about what is wrong with Hopkins, but, IMO, need to televise some other games...make it interesting.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Here is a discussion question and would love to get some feedback... Two questions, is this early recruiting that Petro did with getting phenoms in 8th grade catching up? and he just does not have the talent? Or does it come down to coaching and not being prepared?

Not particularly aimed at Coach Petro but it’s common sense that recruiting the best juniors in high school is better than recruiting the best freshmen. The power schools gave away their advantage when they started going earlier and earlier, in my opinion. Hopkins will be fine but kids see you can play good lacrosse at a lot of schools and you can win games. The calendar being pushed back will help but we aren’t going back to how it was 10-12 years ago when kids dreamed of playing at 3-4 schools.

[laxman3221]

Sadly, LaxFi passed away a few weeks ago, laxman...... sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Godspeed LaxFi. I called an old work friend earlier this week and his wife told me he had passed last summer. Getting old suxs

10 DEC 2018 actually. Lung cancer. Damn cigarettes. He did stop cold turkey some five years ago when he had cardiac issues.

That's what my old work friend's wife told me he died from.

[HopFan16]

bandito-I agree with you 100%!!! Who wants to watch Hopkins 7 times this season, certainly not me. Lot's of good things going on with D1 lacrosse and people need to wake up and actually help this sport grow. Televising a team based on prior history, particularly Hopkins is getting old for this fan! You can pontificate all you want about what is wrong with Hopkins, but, IMO, need to televise some other games...make it interesting.

Only 3 of those 7 games are airing live on TV. The rest are on the internet, like the majority of other games. The whole "Hopkins is on TV too much" thing is entirely fictional. Notre Dame and Syracuse both have more live TV games than Hopkins does. Hopkins has a contract with ESPN to air its home games on ESPN, but that usually just means "ESPN3" online. The network has extremely limited resources for lacrosse. For the most part, they're going to broadcast the teams people know so at least some people watch, instead of no people. Not sure if you're aware but lacrosse is an extremely niche sport. No one really watches these games to begin with but they get especially bad ratings when neither team is a blue blood. ESPN is a business, it's not their responsibility to "grow the game." They're going to broadcast/stream what makes sense for them financially.

[wgdsr]

Speaking of clearing - the Hopkins schemes and execution still remain horrible to me. If a team can force the Hopkins goalie to make a pass to the side to a defender and then back to the goalie you know the Jays are going to struggle. We rely way too much on getting the ball to a short stick near our own goal and running through the ride. We almost seem completely incapable of doing the one side overload and getting the other side to step across for an easy pass.

Agreed, although with the new rules it seems really hard to prevent a team from clearing past the midline in 20 seconds, even if your first outlet pass is to a pole on the wing, and even if the ball goes back to the goalie.

not sure your perspective, but why would you consider new rules making it hard to ride?

[HopFan16]

Speaking of clearing - the Hopkins schemes and execution still remain horrible to me. If a team can force the Hopkins goalie to make a pass to the side to a defender and then back to the goalie you know the Jays are going to struggle. We rely way too much on getting the ball to a short stick near our own goal and running through the ride. We almost seem completely incapable of doing the one side overload and getting the other side to step across for an easy pass.

Agreed, although with the new rules it seems really hard to prevent a team from clearing past the midline in 20 seconds, even if your first outlet pass is to a pole on the wing, and even if the ball goes back to the goalie.

not sure your perspective, but why would you consider new rules making it hard to ride?

I don't think they necessarily make it hard to ride, I just think it's pretty easy to get the ball past the midline in 20 seconds. Even when Darby's outlet pass was to a defenseman and then the defenseman passed back to Darby, they were still able to get it to the other side in time without much fuss. Hop's clearing errors were largely unforced. It wasn't a function of the new time limit. Bad, unnecessary clearing passes and flat-out dropped passes. Towson wasn't really doing anything to make clearing difficult for the Jays. In an effort to clear quickly, they screwed up. But when they tried clearing it slow and steady, it seemed to work pretty easily. Of course, you lose time on offense when you clear slowly, but that's better than turning the ball over. Just one game, but from some of the other games I've seen/heard about, it seems like coaches have preferred to get everyone back in the hole on D and stop transition, rather than try to force a failed clear in 20 seconds. Perhaps that changes as teams adapt to the new time constraints.

[WildPride]

Just makes no sense to me that you recruit all these big athletic kids and then don't play any of them—especially in a game that you KNOW is going to be physical.

Exactly why so many refuse to entertain an offer from JHU. Over recruit = undervalue each player. The players know they are just numbers.

To your point…the Frosh LSM at Villanova from Boys’s Latin was an early verbal to Hopkins. I heard one of the reasons he “decommitted” was Hopkins kept recruiting multiple LSMs after he verballed. The downside is he doesn’t get to play at a power program and be a Big Man on Campus. The upside is he’s the starting LSM at Nova as a Frosh.

[TLax1]

Here is a discussion question and would love to get some feedback... Two questions, is this early recruiting that Petro did with getting phenoms in 8th grade catching up? and he just does not have the talent? Or does it come down to coaching and not being prepared?

Not particularly aimed at Coach Petro but it’s common sense that recruiting the best juniors in high school is better than recruiting the best freshmen. The power schools gave away their advantage when they started going earlier and earlier, in my opinion. Hopkins will be fine but kids see you can play good lacrosse at a lot of schools and you can win games. The calendar being pushed back will help but we aren’t going back to how it was 10-12 years ago when kids dreamed of playing at 3-4 schools.

At least in the case of Joey Epstein, Coach Petro saw into the crystal ball correctly. The Washington Post named Joey the DC player of the year.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Here is a discussion question and would love to get some feedback... Two questions, is this early recruiting that Petro did with getting phenoms in 8th grade catching up? and he just does not have the talent? Or does it come down to coaching and not being prepared?

Not particularly aimed at Coach Petro but it’s common sense that recruiting the best juniors in high school is better than recruiting the best freshmen. The power schools gave away their advantage when they started going earlier and earlier, in my opinion. Hopkins will be fine but kids see you can play good lacrosse at a lot of schools and you can win games. The calendar being pushed back will help but we aren’t going back to how it was 10-12 years ago when kids dreamed of playing at 3-4 schools.

At least in the case of Joey Epstein, Coach Petro saw into the crystal ball correctly. The Washington Post named Joey the DC player of the year.

Johns Hopkins will always recruit good players.

[youthathletics]

I see what you did there TLD...

[wgdsr]

Speaking of clearing - the Hopkins schemes and execution still remain horrible to me. If a team can force the Hopkins goalie to make a pass to the side to a defender and then back to the goalie you know the Jays are going to struggle. We rely way too much on getting the ball to a short stick near our own goal and running through the ride. We almost seem completely incapable of doing the one side overload and getting the other side to step across for an easy pass.

Agreed, although with the new rules it seems really hard to prevent a team from clearing past the midline in 20 seconds, even if your first outlet pass is to a pole on the wing, and even if the ball goes back to the goalie.

not sure your perspective, but why would you consider new rules making it hard to ride?

I don't think they necessarily make it hard to ride, I just think it's pretty easy to get the ball past the midline in 20 seconds. Even when Darby's outlet pass was to a defenseman and then the defenseman passed back to Darby, they were still able to get it to the other side in time without much fuss. Hop's clearing errors were largely unforced. It wasn't a function of the new time limit. Bad, unnecessary clearing passes and flat-out dropped passes. Towson wasn't really doing anything to make clearing difficult for the Jays. In an effort to clear quickly, they screwed up. But when they tried clearing it slow and steady, it seemed to work pretty easily. Of course, you lose time on offense when you clear slowly, but that's better than turning the ball over. Just one game, but from some of the other games I've seen/heard about, it seems like coaches have preferred to get everyone back in the hole on D and stop transition, rather than try to force a failed clear in 20 seconds. Perhaps that changes as teams adapt to the new time constraints.

ok, just reading your quote, it seems you attached new rules to making it hard. before, @ ncaa rules, it has been 30 seconds to the box. as a high school coach, i much preferred the 20 over, 10 to get in as it gave us 2 chances to ride hard and create a turnover. the new rules give you at least half of that, as it is much easier to get box in 30 than 20/10. no need to belabor this, but the fact that coaches mail in riding, to me doesn't equate to the new rules making it hard to prevent a clear. the new rules make it easier. cover up shorties and bust your tail and poles or the goalie have to make a play. just because ncaa coaches choose not to make their guys work a ride (in error, imo) doesn't mean the new rules make it hard to prevent a clear. they clearly make it easier, if you want to.

[wgdsr]

Here is a discussion question and would love to get some feedback... Two questions, is this early recruiting that Petro did with getting phenoms in 8th grade catching up? and he just does not have the talent? Or does it come down to coaching and not being prepared?

Not particularly aimed at Coach Petro but it’s common sense that recruiting the best juniors in high school is better than recruiting the best freshmen. The power schools gave away their advantage when they started going earlier and earlier, in my opinion. Hopkins will be fine but kids see you can play good lacrosse at a lot of schools and you can win games. The calendar being pushed back will help but we aren’t going back to how it was 10-12 years ago when kids dreamed of playing at 3-4 schools.

At least in the case of Joey Epstein, Coach Petro saw into the crystal ball correctly. The Washington Post named Joey the DC player of the year.

uva has recruited the #1 middie for a number of years in a row as well. and those guys are good. they got smoked saturday also. teams are over 40 guys nowadays. or 50. playing 20-25 (or more) usually works best.

[runrussellrun]

My fellow Hopkins friends......all this fretting about CLEARING. the clearly glaring clearing stat, at the current 80 percent, is very middle of the Div 1 pack.

Tied with Towson for clearing percentage, and Hopkins is ahead of HIGH point, Denver....and WELL ahead of Loyola, who is only clearing the ball 65 percent of the time.
Yeah, CLEARING is the problem