Johns Hopkins 2021

[Wheels]

Preseason, I expected Hop to finish with Michigan at the bottom of the table, so as an outsider, I'm not surprised to see the record.

Finer grain, though, what has surprised me is the offensive production. I thought they'd struggle on the defensive end because Milliman inherited a tough situation on that end of the field. The offensive struggles have surprised me. Thought and still think that the offensive output hasn't matched the talent or previous output of that talent. I actually thought we'd see a bunch of scores like the PSU-JHU B1G tournament game.

[flalax22]

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I was hoping Epstein would play well - Ohio State is a good defensive oriented team and they clearly decided he wasn't going to be the deciding factor and of course they played some of the requisite zone - he needs to figure out the path forward,

Disagree completely. Epstein decided he wasn’t going to be the deciding factor. He’s a team captain and believed to be the best player. Ohio State did nothing special to lock him off or shut him down. I thought last weeks diminished role was puzzling. Given his effort yesterday it looks from this seat like he mailed it in. When your that talented and a Coach challenges you publicly you can either fold or send the message right back with your best effort. It’s clear what he chose and to me that speaks volumes about what’s going on with the team.

[primitiveskills]

I'm not sure what the "cool" word is today but back in the day my daughter would tell me when she was aggravating the hell out of me - "Chill Dad Chill"
I think that's what we all need to do.
What record did you expect from a 2020 2-4 team - that was routinely getting boat raced before the pandemic - and then you throw in a whole new coaching staff but then give them no time to do virtually anything with their new team?
You might have hoped thought they could get Michigan twice and then maybe one at home against Ohio State or Penn State - virtually no chance against Maryland and with all the experience we knew Rutgers was going to be a tough out for sure - so at this point in the season most would have taken 3-5 or 4-4 at best. They are not horribly far from that.
Every game except the first Ohio State game has been competitive for at least the first half - they have had opportunities to be 5-3 instead of 2-6 - I think Wombat - and I don't say this often - has the right perspective - be happy you're watching Hopkins lacrosse at all and be even happier that you are watching into the 4th quarter thinking there's a chance.

As far as the game - the difference to me was the fact that the defense regressed in the first half and the Hopkins goalie did not - IMO - play well in the first half either - both the goalie and the defense played better in the second - but I thought Hopkins might have a decent chance of holding them to under the 14 goals they scored the first time. Ohio State was at 43% shot percentage in the first quarter and 40% for the first half - they were 28% for the second half. The other key factors were losing so many important 50/50 ground balls. I knew if Ignacio won the clamp and got the ball to space Ohio State was going to come up with it. I'm not saying Hopkins players were slow to try - they just don't win them. The other thing then is the 4 failed clears and the 15 turnovers - many at very inopportune times. After OSU scored to make it 12-10, Hopkins proceeded to turn it over on the ensuing face-off and again before falling behind 13-10 and then Williams scores, you win the ensuing face-off and turn it over again.

I will say one thing - however - Grimes had to be hurt right? He must have pulled something - slipped in the locker room at half - or he must have for some unknown reason told Milliman to do unnatural things to himself - tell me anything other than the coaching staff decided it would be a good idea to sub in for a guy who is 3 for 3 and gives you an added threat that you so desperately need? In fact a Grimes/Degnon/Angelus mid-field might be a ticket to ride.

For all the questions about Epstein - I find the defensive line-ups interesting - no Szuluk or Deans - and the switching around of giving guys short vs long sticks and asking them to assume different roles is clearly tinkering like Dr. Frankenstein.

I was hoping Epstein would play well - Ohio State is a good defensive oriented team and they clearly decided he wasn't going to be the deciding factor and of course they played some of the requisite zone - he needs to figure out the path forward,

Good post. I understand the frustration over the prospect of being 2-8, but this is essentially the same team that rightfully should have been 1-5 last year (with a loss to a Mt St Mary's team that frankly looked like the better team for 58 out of the 60 minutes of that game). Throw in new coaching staff, no fall ball or spring practice (with the prospects of meaningful impact from freshman diminishing in that light), other teams loading up on 5th year returnees and transfer meat market oferings whereas the only impact transfer we got won't see a single minute of playing time due to injury), and a cupcake-free all B1G schedule; this was somewhat foreseeable. But if we go 2-8, its more a reflection on years of programmatic rot rather than any meaningful predictor of the future.

[primitiveskills]

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I was hoping Epstein would play well - Ohio State is a good defensive oriented team and they clearly decided he wasn't going to be the deciding factor and of course they played some of the requisite zone - he needs to figure out the path forward,

Disagree completely. Epstein decided he wasn’t going to be the deciding factor. He’s a team captain and believed to be the best player. Ohio State did nothing special to lock him off or shut him down. I thought last weeks diminished role was puzzling. Given his effort yesterday it looks from this seat like he mailed it in. When your that talented and a Coach challenges you publicly you can either fold or send the message right back with your best effort. It’s clear what he chose and to me that speaks volumes about what’s going on with the team.

Nah. The time to check out would have been 4Q vs Michigan, but he played well and picked up 3 assists. You also don't win 3GBs (two of them were tough) if you are checked-out. OSU did a good job, and in general GKs have figured out what he likes to do (high-to-high overhands from the wings and wrap-arounds from X). Once or twice he did vary his release point from the wing yesterday, and it wasn't pretty.I don't think any of that has to do with Milliman talking to the media.

[flalax22]

.
I was hoping Epstein would play well - Ohio State is a good defensive oriented team and they clearly decided he wasn't going to be the deciding factor and of course they played some of the requisite zone - he needs to figure out the path forward,

Disagree completely. Epstein decided he wasn’t going to be the deciding factor. He’s a team captain and believed to be the best player. Ohio State did nothing special to lock him off or shut him down. I thought last weeks diminished role was puzzling. Given his effort yesterday it looks from this seat like he mailed it in. When your that talented and a Coach challenges you publicly you can either fold or send the message right back with your best effort. It’s clear what he chose and to me that speaks volumes about what’s going on with the team.

Nah. The time to check out would have been 4Q vs Michigan, but he played well and picked up 3 assists. You also don't win 3GBs (two of them were tough) if you are checked-out. OSU did a good job, and in general GKs have figured out what he likes to do (high-to-high overhands from the wings and wrap-arounds from X). Once or twice he did vary his release point from the wing yesterday, and it wasn't pretty.I don't think any of that has to do with Milliman talking to the media.

If we are making excuses like that then he isn’t as good as any of us think. I’m not buying it.

[primitiveskills]

.
I was hoping Epstein would play well - Ohio State is a good defensive oriented team and they clearly decided he wasn't going to be the deciding factor and of course they played some of the requisite zone - he needs to figure out the path forward,

Disagree completely. Epstein decided he wasn’t going to be the deciding factor. He’s a team captain and believed to be the best player. Ohio State did nothing special to lock him off or shut him down. I thought last weeks diminished role was puzzling. Given his effort yesterday it looks from this seat like he mailed it in. When your that talented and a Coach challenges you publicly you can either fold or send the message right back with your best effort. It’s clear what he chose and to me that speaks volumes about what’s going on with the team.

Nah. The time to check out would have been 4Q vs Michigan, but he played well and picked up 3 assists. You also don't win 3GBs (two of them were tough) if you are checked-out. OSU did a good job, and in general GKs have figured out what he likes to do (high-to-high overhands from the wings and wrap-arounds from X). Once or twice he did vary his release point from the wing yesterday, and it wasn't pretty.I don't think any of that has to do with Milliman talking to the media.

If we are making excuses like that then he isn’t as good as any of us think. I’m not buying it.

Sowers was (0, 1) yesterday. O'Keefe has had a couple of 0g games this year. Are they not as good as we thought? I'm not buying that a competitive kid like Epstein is "checked-out".

[flalax22]

.
I was hoping Epstein would play well - Ohio State is a good defensive oriented team and they clearly decided he wasn't going to be the deciding factor and of course they played some of the requisite zone - he needs to figure out the path forward,

Disagree completely. Epstein decided he wasn’t going to be the deciding factor. He’s a team captain and believed to be the best player. Ohio State did nothing special to lock him off or shut him down. I thought last weeks diminished role was puzzling. Given his effort yesterday it looks from this seat like he mailed it in. When your that talented and a Coach challenges you publicly you can either fold or send the message right back with your best effort. It’s clear what he chose and to me that speaks volumes about what’s going on with the team.

Nah. The time to check out would have been 4Q vs Michigan, but he played well and picked up 3 assists. You also don't win 3GBs (two of them were tough) if you are checked-out. OSU did a good job, and in general GKs have figured out what he likes to do (high-to-high overhands from the wings and wrap-arounds from X). Once or twice he did vary his release point from the wing yesterday, and it wasn't pretty.I don't think any of that has to do with Milliman talking to the media.

If we are making excuses like that then he isn’t as good as any of us think. I’m not buying it.

Sowers was (0, 1) yesterday. O'Keefe has had a couple of 0g games this year. Are they not as good as we thought? I'm not buying that a competitive kid like Epstein is "checked-out".

Those guys weren’t buried in the press by their head coach. If you think that appeared to be Epsteins best effort I can’t help you but you may want to adjust the rose colored spectacles

[primitiveskills]

.
I was hoping Epstein would play well - Ohio State is a good defensive oriented team and they clearly decided he wasn't going to be the deciding factor and of course they played some of the requisite zone - he needs to figure out the path forward,

Disagree completely. Epstein decided he wasn’t going to be the deciding factor. He’s a team captain and believed to be the best player. Ohio State did nothing special to lock him off or shut him down. I thought last weeks diminished role was puzzling. Given his effort yesterday it looks from this seat like he mailed it in. When your that talented and a Coach challenges you publicly you can either fold or send the message right back with your best effort. It’s clear what he chose and to me that speaks volumes about what’s going on with the team.

Nah. The time to check out would have been 4Q vs Michigan, but he played well and picked up 3 assists. You also don't win 3GBs (two of them were tough) if you are checked-out. OSU did a good job, and in general GKs have figured out what he likes to do (high-to-high overhands from the wings and wrap-arounds from X). Once or twice he did vary his release point from the wing yesterday, and it wasn't pretty.I don't think any of that has to do with Milliman talking to the media.

If we are making excuses like that then he isn’t as good as any of us think. I’m not buying it.

Sowers was (0, 1) yesterday. O'Keefe has had a couple of 0g games this year. Are they not as good as we thought? I'm not buying that a competitive kid like Epstein is "checked-out".

Those guys weren’t buried in the press by their head coach. If you think that appeared to be Epsteins best effort I can’t help you but you may want to adjust the rose colored spectacles

Definitely was not his best effort. He struggled to get his shot. He forced some feeds into the crease. Same could be said for Sowers yesterday. I think "rose colored glasses" is not the same as not buying into a narrative (with no idea on what's going on behind the scenes) that meany Milliman destroyed a good player's career with something he said to the Sun.

Listen, if he ends up in the portal, maybe there was something to it. If he doesn't, obviously all the doom-and-gloom would have been off the mark. Until then, not sure anyone can say besides the guys involved, and anything else is speculation.

[GSP]

Watching what Epstein is experiencing, I would be extremely concerned with its effect on recruiting. There is some significant evidence that this situation will not end well.

At this point, one might wonder if Epstein is just waiting to see if Petro lands a D1 gig. Grimes has got to be doing some serious math as well.

[HopFan16]

Sowers has 2 combined points in his last 2 games. Army's Brendan Nichtern had 0 pts yesterday. Good players can have bad games. There was nothing wrong with Epstein's effort—he came up with a couple tough GBs and was running out every shot and diving to the end line. He doesn't match up well with the giant OSU defender (who also limited him in the first matchup) who has a massive wingspan and can get a stick on his hands even when Epstein gets a step (like he did toward the end of the game on that dodge from X, wraparound shot was saved). OSU did not have that dude in 2019. The staff isn't doing him many favors by continuing to run certain players out there to initiate who have quite literally done nothing in two months. I too thought he'd have a strong game and was disappointed to see him bottled up but it wasn't due to lack of effort.

Honestly I'm way less concerned about that as I am about Grimes though it doesn't appear we're going to get a definitive answer about that until next week. Either he's hurt or he was inexplicably benched after a terrific first half and whichever one it is, it's not great!

[Sagittarius A*]

Definitely was not his best effort. He struggled to get his shot. He forced some feeds into the crease. Same could be said for Sowers yesterday. I think "rose colored glasses" is not the same as not buying into a narrative (with no idea on what's going on behind the scenes) that meany Milliman destroyed a good player's career with something he said to the Sun.

Listen, if he ends up in the portal, maybe there was something to it. If he doesn't, obviously all the doom-and-gloom would have been off the mark. Until then, not sure anyone can say besides the guys involved, and anything else is speculation.

So your reward for all your hard work and efforts as a player is to get called out by the coach in the newspaper, essentially blaming a single player rather taking responsibility for the team's failings as the Coach.
There's too much talent on this team, too many top ten, top five ranked players, to be losing to Michigan.
What's wrong with taking him aside and saying, " Hey, son, we really need more from you."
I'm not seeing this HC working out long term. Being patient is like saying things will improve without any evidence of that at all. All we're seeing is a plethora of bad coaching decisions. He's essentially already admitted he's not up to this job, despite his incredible and ridiculous overconfidence when he was hired. In the back of my mind while listening to his press conferences, I kept thinking this guy just really doesn't grasp the situation he's taken on.
They should have hired Scott Marr.

[HopFan16]

They should have hired Scott Marr.

Hate to break it to you but the Albany program has been a bit of a mess internally for quite some time. Their star player was just kicked off the team. Ierlan transfer. Lots of rumblings of other stuff going on. I'm not shocked he wasn't offered an interview, despite the players wanting him to be in the mix because he's their friend's dad. Whether you agree with them or not—and you clearly don't, which is fine—the admin wanted someone to instill a certain team culture. It's early days but Milliman is starting to do that. There are and will continue to be growing pains. It's a longterm project. It's possible to be upset with some recent developments, as I have been, without losing sight of the bigger picture. If you can't even give it more than a few games of a pandemic season then you're going to have a ROUGH next year or two.

[GSP]

For some perspective on the present JHU lacrosse situation, I went back and looked at what concerned Quint when JHU agreed to join the Big Ten in 2014.

ESPN reported that Quint Kessenich said his biggest reservation is the quality of competition in the Big Ten.

"I believe that teams – whatever the sport – when they change conference, they ultimately play themselves to the level of that conference," Kessenich said. "It's kind of like a marriage. After 20 years of marriage, how often do the husband and wife look the same? That being said, you're joining a league with teams like Michigan. We're not sure how they're going to look like in 10 or 15 years although all signs are positive. You're joining a league with Rutgers. Rutgers hasn't had any kind of success, has never been to championship weekend, and has had one quarterfinal appearance. I worry about putting yourself in a league with other teams who aren't championship caliber and ultimately as a program, you become just like them."

WOW!

[smoova]

There's too much talent on this team, too many top ten, top five ranked players, to be losing to Michigan.

I wonder if the entire JHU situation has coaches questioning the recruit ranking "system" just a little bit ...

[primitiveskills]

Definitely was not his best effort. He struggled to get his shot. He forced some feeds into the crease. Same could be said for Sowers yesterday. I think "rose colored glasses" is not the same as not buying into a narrative (with no idea on what's going on behind the scenes) that meany Milliman destroyed a good player's career with something he said to the Sun.

Listen, if he ends up in the portal, maybe there was something to it. If he doesn't, obviously all the doom-and-gloom would have been off the mark. Until then, not sure anyone can say besides the guys involved, and anything else is speculation.

So your reward for all your hard work and efforts as a player is to get called out by the coach in the newspaper, essentially blaming a single player rather taking responsibility for the team's failings as the Coach.
There's too much talent on this team, too many top ten, top five ranked players, to be losing to Michigan.
What's wrong with taking him aside and saying, " Hey, son, we really need more from you."
I'm not seeing this HC working out long term. Being patient is like saying things will improve without any evidence of that at all. All we're seeing is a plethora of bad coaching decisions. He's essentially already admitted he's not up to this job, despite his incredible and ridiculous overconfidence when he was hired. In the back of my mind while listening to his press conferences, I kept thinking this guy just really doesn't grasp the situation he's taken on.
They should have hired Scott Marr.

"There's too much talent on this team, too many top ten, top five ranked players, to be losing to Michigan."
There's some talent, but too many holes in the roster, which have been discussed ad nauseum here. If things click perfectly (PSU game #1, for instance), we capable of winning, but when these holes (lack of shooters, poor goaltending, SSDM by committee) are exposed by our opponents, I'm not surprised when we lose to any B1G team.

"I'm not seeing this HC working out long term"
We'll see. If he doesn't work-out, it will be the first place where he didn't. He'll get at least a few years, so we don't need message board consensus yet.

"They should have hired Scott Marr."
No. Have you been paying attention to what's happening in Albany?

Re: Epstein, we'll see. If he hits the transfer portal (which I of course hope he doesn't), you'll have your answer. If he doesn't, well, you'll have your answer. For now, all speculation.

[Kikin]

This is the exact type of situation for transfer portal was made for. For whatever reason, the coach is being a jerk to a specific player (maybe more). Maybe its a personality conflict, maybe the coach is trying to make and example of one player, but no one needs to be treated that way, publicly humiliated in a large scale newspaper. It would be questionable for professional athletics, but inexcusable at the college level. I don't care what type of head games the coach is playing. Hit the transfer portal young man, you don't deserve this type of treatment

[jhu06]

This is the exact type of situation for transfer portal was made for. For whatever reason, the coach is being a jerk to a specific player (maybe more). Maybe its a personality conflict, maybe the coach is trying to make and example of one player, but no one needs to be treated that way, publicly humiliated in a large scale newspaper. It would be questionable for professional athletics, but inexcusable at the college level. I don't care what type of head games the coach is playing. Hit the transfer portal young man, you don't deserve this type of treatment

the team is in the midst of its worst stretch in program history. the previous staff-grown men with families to feed and kids going to college paid with their jobs for these kinds of weekends last spring. If players and their friends thought they wouldn't face accountability then that lack of self awareness is on them.

[nyjay]

Apropos of nothing, but with all the tinkering and “accountability” going on with the team, Kirson - who frankly seems like a bit a mess these days - gets rolled out to start every game. If you’re gonna call someone out for not meeting standards, why not him?

[Typical Lax Dad]

For some perspective on the present JHU lacrosse situation, I went back and looked at what concerned Quint when JHU agreed to join the Big Ten in 2014.

ESPN reported that Quint Kessenich said his biggest reservation is the quality of competition in the Big Ten.

"I believe that teams – whatever the sport – when they change conference, they ultimately play themselves to the level of that conference," Kessenich said. "It's kind of like a marriage. After 20 years of marriage, how often do the husband and wife look the same? That being said, you're joining a league with teams like Michigan. We're not sure how they're going to look like in 10 or 15 years although all signs are positive. You're joining a league with Rutgers. Rutgers hasn't had any kind of success, has never been to championship weekend, and has had one quarterfinal appearance. I worry about putting yourself in a league with other teams who aren't championship caliber and ultimately as a program, you become just like them."

WOW!

The Big Ten killed Maryland too!

[Wheels]

The Big Ten killed Maryland too!

And OSU and PSU, who have been to Final 4s and a championship game since the advent of B1G lacrosse.