Johns Hopkins 2022

[ptjhu]

WOW! If Lars had not pulled (9 for 10) LaSalla when the score was 10-1, the final score could have ended up 30 to 3. When was the last time Hopkins had an opponent clear their bench mid way through the 3rd Quarter?

I seem to remember several years ago, when Duke visited Homewood in the NCAAs, and John Danowski called off the dogs early in the 3rd Quarter versus Hopkins. Sorry to bring this memory up.

[DocBarrister]

It's pointless to criticize the coach's strategies in a blow out.
There's also no easy fix.
All the team can do it try to improve from week to week.
At least they are home next weekend. All three blowouts were on the road.
A win against SU could give them a boost and head the ship in the right direction.
They don't play UMD till the end of the season. Every other game is potentially winnable.

And who knows … six weeks from now, the MD game may be winnable. I think the 2022 team is deeper and more talented than the 2021 version. I wouldn’t rule out a B1G regular season or tournament championship. Blue Jays are a long ways from that, but they are still better than the 2020 and 2021 teams.

DocBarrister

[GSP]

WOW! If Lars had not pulled (9 for 10) LaSalla when the score was 10-1, the final score could have ended up 30 to 3. When was the last time Hopkins had an opponent clear their bench mid way through the 3rd Quarter? There was a very distinct difference in athleticism today.

Hopkins really needs to write 2022 off and start developing under classmen for the future. The current trend is extremely dangerous. College lacrosse is better when Hopkins is one of the top teams every year. They cannot let this downhill momentum drive them past the point of no return.

Uh, NO.

Hopkins really needs to focus on winning the Syracuse game.

DocBarrister

Band-Aid on a ruptured artery. Triage-- 2022 season="Expectant!"

We have at least seven winnable games in a row coming up, and you want the Blue Jays to throw in the towel? That’s not how the program won a thousand games.

DocBarrister

Hopkins will be VERY, VERY fortunate to go 4 and 3 over the next 7 games. 4-4 after Maryland would leave them 7-7 and needing to win the 1st round of the Big 10 tourney to even be NCAA Tourney eligible.

Better for the sport of Lacrosse and Hopkins to concentrate on getting back to relevance. They are in a very precarious position. 3 more non-tourney years will likely start some very troubling conversations for Hopkins internally.

Blue Jays still have a lot of upside. I can see them going 5-2 (or maybe even better) before playing Maryland.

I just can’t figure out what they’re trying to do on offense.

Is it a motion offense? No.

Canadian style offense? No.

Do they focus on playing two-man games? No.

Work hard to get a good short-stick matchup and then dodge? No.

What?

They have no chemistry on offense. None.

And that’s the funny thing about this season. Going in, everyone was worried about goalie play and our defense. Those parts of the team are coming along. Still lots of room for improvement, but coming along.

Offense? It’s a compete mess.

DocBarrister

They will be significant underdogs against Rutgers and OSU. Delaware at Delaware will be tough. Michigan is 7-0 against an admittedly weak schedule but 7 and 0 none the less. Penn State is improving. If they go 3 and 4 then lose to Maryland, they will need to win the Big 10 tourney to get into the NCAA's.

[DocBarrister]

WOW! If Lars had not pulled (9 for 10) LaSalla when the score was 10-1, the final score could have ended up 30 to 3. When was the last time Hopkins had an opponent clear their bench mid way through the 3rd Quarter?

I seem to remember several years ago, when Duke visited Homewood in the NCAAs, and John Danowski called off the dogs early in the 3rd Quarter versus Hopkins. Sorry to bring this memory up.

Look, it wasn’t that long ago (2015 NCAA tournament) when Hopkins completely blew out Virginia 19-7. Game was 13-2 after the first half.

True, that Hopkins team had two Stanwicks, a Brown, a Tinney, Crawley, and Cattoni, along with an Eric Schneider who saved 14 of 19 SOGs.

But that squad also lost six regular season games, so they were hardly a juggernaut.

This season is far from over.

DocBarrister

[DocBarrister]

WOW! If Lars had not pulled (9 for 10) LaSalla when the score was 10-1, the final score could have ended up 30 to 3. When was the last time Hopkins had an opponent clear their bench mid way through the 3rd Quarter? There was a very distinct difference in athleticism today.

Hopkins really needs to write 2022 off and start developing under classmen for the future. The current trend is extremely dangerous. College lacrosse is better when Hopkins is one of the top teams every year. They cannot let this downhill momentum drive them past the point of no return.

Uh, NO.

Hopkins really needs to focus on winning the Syracuse game.

DocBarrister

Band-Aid on a ruptured artery. Triage-- 2022 season="Expectant!"

We have at least seven winnable games in a row coming up, and you want the Blue Jays to throw in the towel? That’s not how the program won a thousand games.

DocBarrister

Hopkins will be VERY, VERY fortunate to go 4 and 3 over the next 7 games. 4-4 after Maryland would leave them 7-7 and needing to win the 1st round of the Big 10 tourney to even be NCAA Tourney eligible.

Better for the sport of Lacrosse and Hopkins to concentrate on getting back to relevance. They are in a very precarious position. 3 more non-tourney years will likely start some very troubling conversations for Hopkins internally.

Blue Jays still have a lot of upside. I can see them going 5-2 (or maybe even better) before playing Maryland.

I just can’t figure out what they’re trying to do on offense.

Is it a motion offense? No.

Canadian style offense? No.

Do they focus on playing two-man games? No.

Work hard to get a good short-stick matchup and then dodge? No.

What?

They have no chemistry on offense. None.

And that’s the funny thing about this season. Going in, everyone was worried about goalie play and our defense. Those parts of the team are coming along. Still lots of room for improvement, but coming along.

Offense? It’s a compete mess.

DocBarrister

They will be significant underdogs against Rutgers and OSU. Delaware at Delaware will be tough. Michigan is 7-0 against an admittedly weak schedule but 7 and 0 none the less. Penn State is improving. If they go 3 and 4 then lose to Maryland, they will need to win the Big 10 tourney to get into the NCAA's.

I don’t necessarily disagree, but they are still (realistically) winnable games.

But the Blue Jays will need to raise their intensity. They need to play each game like a tournament game.

DocBarrister

[Maverick]

Doc I love your optimism but after scoring one goal putting 5 shots on cage and winning one face off in the first half and then making it look only slightly less one sided against back ups I'm not sure why you think Hop can compete with the #1 team when UVA was ranked 2 or 3 going into the game. What did you see that you liked? I'm curious because I saw a team short on athletes and short on the will to win. Honest take; UVA poles looked more willing to beat their man and drive to the cage than any bluejay on the field today. I was shocked by how one dimensional the offense was. Keeper played well but he's not going to score you any goals. Lasalla put on a clinic at the x. UVA was very effective in their ride.

As someone very familiar and close to Hopkins successful history, I'll bet you a boh that nobody in the athletic department was even a tiny bit happy with what they saw today.

[Ruffled_Feathers]

We somehow usually find a way to play Maryland tough. Also while Maryland still looks great and is certainly a juggernaut themselves, I've been more impressed by what I've see out of Virginia the last few weeks more so than Maryland. I'm not sold that those rankings shouldn't be flipped and that UVA isn't going to beat the brakes off of the rest of Division 1 the rest of the season either.

The good news the rest of the way is likely that no one else is as good as Virginia. The offense looked pretty inept today but next week is a chance to do better.

[Maverick]

We somehow usually find a way to play Maryland tough. Also while Maryland still looks great and is certainly a juggernaut themselves, I've been more impressed by what I've see out of Virginia the last few weeks more so than Maryland. I'm not sold that those rankings shouldn't be flipped and that UVA isn't going to beat the brakes off of the rest of Division 1 the rest of the season either.

The good news the rest of the way is likely that no one else is as good as Virginia. The offense looked pretty inept today but next week is a chance to do better.

Agree with a lot of what you said. Would you agree though that hop needs to throw away whatever the offensive game plan was today and completely start over? I'd be daring my guys to beat their man, daring them to go to the cage. If someone at least tries this in practice they are getting playing time over one of the starters today. That's my issue is that not a single promising takeaway on offense at all and never thought I'd ever see such a weak willed Hopkins team. UVA no penalties=good you were blowing them out. HOP no penalties=bad get chippy crush some skulls show you won't get buried without putting up a fight. When UVA went up 3-0 I was pretty comfortable

[GSP]

Hopkins' best player, Joey Epstein, was outscored today by the defender who was covering him.

[Ruffled_Feathers]

I couldn't really tell you what the plan was but nothing is going to look right when your initiators aren't beating their man and the shots aren't on the 6x6 and that's not entirely a coaching fault. Not every problem this team faces this year can be fixed by a coaches magic wand.

I'm not even entirely sure what you are advocating for to be honest. Who do you want to be more assertive that wasn't and where do you want them to attempt to split dodge themselves to that they weren't being muscled away from or wouldn't be running headfirst into a trap or double team of their own making given they weren't getting any separation from their initial marker?

[Maverick]

I couldn't really tell you what the plan was but nothing is going to look right when your initiators aren't beating their man and the shots aren't on the 6x6 and that's not entirely a coaching fault. Not every problem this team faces this year can be fixed by a coaches magic wand.

I'm not even entirely sure what you are advocating for to be honest. Who do you want to be more assertive that wasn't and where do you want them to attempt to split dodge themselves to that they weren't being muscled away from or wouldn't be running headfirst into a trap or double team of their own making given they weren't getting any separation from their initial marker?

Literally anyone.... Could have had the starters in lawn chairs out there today and it wouldn't have looked all that different

[Ruffled_Feathers]

What part of the field did you want them to dodge to that they would be capable of getting to that would have actually been advantageous rather than just generating a caused turnover on the stat sheet? For most of the day I didn't see a UVA defender out of position or not clogging up the passing and shooting lanes.

The defenders were in position and no one could run by their man to make someone slide and be out of position...

[wgdsr]

it was a bad shooting day for hopkins. they actually had a bunch of more than decent looks that didn't hit the cage. still would've only narrowed the lead.

[Maverick]

What part of the field did you want them to dodge to that they would be capable of getting to that would have actually been advantageous rather than just generating a caused turnover on the stat sheet? For most of the day I didn't see a UVA defender out of position or not clogging up the passing and shooting lanes.

The defenders were in position and no one could run by their man to make someone slide and be out of position...

No one tried. You will never beat your man if you don't try. What they were doing wasn't working should have at least tried anything. How do you know if the dodge isn't going to work if you never try. Bit of a defeatist attitude

[Mightyjoe]

JH 2022…..wouldn’t put a lot of faith JHU offense. Same players, same strategy. Are we going to see a different offense this time? Are we going to be more athletic?

[CrookedJay]

Didn’t get to catch much of the game, but I would say this Hop team does not share much DNA with 07/08 teams which, while ultimately successful, were slow-starting (and happened to have ugly losses (Albany/Hofstra) and were blown out by UVA and Duke in the regular season).

Those teams had studs in the middle of the field (3 1st team middies); the struggles then were a matter of gelling, and this is something worse that no amount of game planning can make up for.

Will not call out players by name, but it seems like our guys forget that when they are attacking the goal, they are not doing 1v1s like in practice (ie, there are other 10 other bodies to worry about). Hopefully they have a timer on these guys in practice and make them run the stairs if they hold onto it for more than a few beats…

[Ruffled_Feathers]

No one tried. You will never beat your man if you don't try. What they were doing wasn't working should have at least tried anything. How do you know if the dodge isn't going to work if you never try. Bit of a defeatist attitude

They weren't sitting there perimeter passing around in a circle offense looking to bust a zone. There were attempts at dodging straight up, dodging off picks. None of it was particularly effective until the game was already well over. At halftime they looked to switch from attempting to initiate from behind to doing it from out top. Nothing much changed in terms of results.

[Mr. F]

In other news, jhu basketball lost which means Connor Delaney could return soon

[DocBarrister]

Didn’t get to catch much of the game, but I would say this Hop team does not share much DNA with 07/08 teams which, while ultimately successful, were slow-starting (and happened to have ugly losses (Albany/Hofstra) and were blown out by UVA and Duke in the regular season).

Those teams had studs in the middle of the field (3 1st team middies); the struggles then were a matter of gelling, and this is something worse that no amount of game planning can make up for.

Will not call out players by name, but it seems like our guys forget that when they are attacking the goal, they are not doing 1v1s like in practice (ie, there are other 10 other bodies to worry about). Hopefully they have a timer on these guys in practice and make them run the stairs if they hold onto it for more than a few beats…

That’s the thing. These Blue Jays don’t have guys like Rabil, Kimmel, and Stephen Peyser around to initiate dodges from up top. They should be passing the ball quickly, working to get the ball to a cutter on the crease or inside or setting up a time-and-room shot on the wings. Instead, they are taking turns dodging (and, often, turning the ball over) in the hopes of beating their man.

They’re just not working much as a team. No chemistry at all.

What keeps me optimistic is that the defense generally does a good job with on-ball defense, which tells me they are athletic and skilled enough to play with the best. Still need to improve off-ball play … something they didn’t quite get right until the B1G tournament last season.

Plus, Kirson had another decent outing today, at least earlier in the game before things got out of hand.

The offense needs to find their identity and some chemistry. The defense needs to work better together off-ball.

They still have time to salvage this season.

DocBarrister

[jhu06]

Delaney is meaningless when we can't win faceoffs, can't clear, can't score, can't not turn the ball over. How did TWO staffs wake up in the morning and say this midfield group is d1 caliber?

Time for fernandez and narewski to make appearances or call it a year. As yogi berra once said, it's getting awfully late early.

Still can't believe benson found another job with this offense or that grant jr had 2 offseasons to add and thought jackson raposo peshko mcdermott bauer chauvette angelus and keogh were a d1 group.