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

[primitiveskills]

The personnel decisions on offense are mind-boggling, to put it kindly

[flalax22]

As for Zinn, how many other teams sit their fastest, most athletic offensive midfielder for most of the game? Name one other team that does that. Zinn needs more game reps ... like NOW.

DocBarrister

He needed those reps and runs starting in game one.

[WOMBAT, Mod Emeritus]

Got to play a full 60 minute game, while better optimizing the personnel you have on the field.

Regime change has to be coming.

This isn’t Hopkins Lacrosse anymore.

Bill Belichick could make better personnel decisions with the Hopkins roster than our home grown experts.

[jhu06]

They play kids who can't play all year long until the season is out of reach. We saw this in 2010, 2013-14 and several other times over the years. Cole, concannon, Forry, Connor, basically just pull the first midfield off the field permanently, Shilling (on emo), just total dumpster fires everywhere on offense. Yeah that's 16 goals or whatever they gave but all year long it's been awful offensive possessions or shots-how many Dunkers to use a William Rawls reference are Forry/Concannon going to miss leading to middies caught on d or teams running in transition? Marr is a great shooter but that's about it and teams seem to understand how to neuter him, connor, and williams better than benson knows how to get use out of them.

[DocBarrister]

As for Zinn, how many other teams sit their fastest, most athletic offensive midfielder for most of the game? Name one other team that does that. Zinn needs more game reps ... like NOW.

DocBarrister

He needed those reps and runs starting in game one.

Yep ... and where are all those other freshmen 6-footers at midfield?

How do we have one of the smallest midfields in Division I lacrosse when we just brought in one of the biggest, most athletic freshmen midfields in the nation?

Right now, our midfield reminds me of a top-tier Division III midfield ... highly skilled but smaller and less athletic than a top notch Division I crew.

DocBarrister

[DocBarrister]

as the saying goes, Speed Kills. And to me, UVa looks a lot faster.

Agree, Va looked as if they were used to running at high RPMs for sixty minutes. Was a pretty impressive sprint to the finish line.

The irony ... fastest player on the entire field was Evan Zinn. Of course, he broke the Hopkins speed limit and had to sit down.

Another irony ... despite all the hoopla about Virginia’s offensive stars, it was Joey Epstein who led all scorers with five goals. Most impressive stat for Epstein? Four of those five goals were unassisted.

There’s a pattern emerging here.

DocBarrister <———getting tired rolling my eyes

[DocBarrister]

Got to play a full 60 minute game, while better optimizing the personnel you have on the field.

Regime change has to be coming.

This isn’t Hopkins Lacrosse anymore.

Bill Belichick could make better personnel decisions with the Hopkins roster than our home grown experts.

No need for advanced physics here, the math for Hopkins is pretty straight forward:

5 more wins: NCAA tournament bid ensured
4 more wins: bubble
3 or fewer wins: “regime change”

Blue Jays should just forget the prior 8 games. It’s a brand new season, and they need to win 5 games (any 5 games) to reach the NCAA tournament.

DocBarrister

[molo]

It was close for a long time. Then it wasn’t.

[rasheed]

as the saying goes, Speed Kills. And to me, UVa looks a lot faster.

Agree, Va looked as if they were used to running at high RPMs for sixty minutes. Was a pretty impressive sprint to the finish line.

The irony ... fastest player on the entire field was Evan Zinn. Of course, he broke the Hopkins speed limit and had to sit down.

Another irony ... despite all the hoopla about Virginia’s offensive stars, it was Joey Epstein who led all scorers with five goals. Most impressive stat for Epstein? Four of those five goals were unassisted.

There’s a pattern emerging here.

DocBarrister <———getting tired rolling my eyes

Call it irony. Call it whatever you want. I'd rather have three guys score three goals each and three guys score two goals each than one guy scoring 5. The balanced offense is good. Just like the determination on the ride.

[DocBarrister]

as the saying goes, Speed Kills. And to me, UVa looks a lot faster.

Agree, Va looked as if they were used to running at high RPMs for sixty minutes. Was a pretty impressive sprint to the finish line.

The irony ... fastest player on the entire field was Evan Zinn. Of course, he broke the Hopkins speed limit and had to sit down.

Another irony ... despite all the hoopla about Virginia’s offensive stars, it was Joey Epstein who led all scorers with five goals. Most impressive stat for Epstein? Four of those five goals were unassisted.

There’s a pattern emerging here.

DocBarrister <———getting tired rolling my eyes

Call it irony. Call it whatever you want. I'd rather have three guys score three goals each and three guys score two goals each than one guy scoring 5. The balanced offense is good. Just like the determination on the ride.

I completely agree. I really liked what I saw from Virginia today. Matchup problems await all their opponents. Liked the more disciplined but still aggressive play from the Cavaliers.

Meanwhile, Coach Pietramala criticized his own defense today for not playing physical enough. What I’m wondering is ... where does the mindset come from that allows such lapses to happen?

DocBarrister

[Hopkins34]

Slower, Smaller, Weaker and less athletic is not getting is done. Never will. Time for some major changes in this program.

[Big Dog]

Coach Pietramala criticized his own defense today for not playing physical enough.

Maybe if the Offense didn't keep giving the ball away in unforced errors, the D could have caught their breath and not have been gassed in the 4th. Early in the 4th, when Hopkins won 4 straight face-offs, did we actually get one shot on goal? (I know UVa got a couple...)

[Laxsmitty]

Why does Petro keep the same players on the field if they aren’t performing? Offense, defense or goalie, none of them are playing well or consistently. Defense is getting smoked, the offensive schemes aren’t working at all. The goalie can’t save a shot beyond 10 feet. Petro’s coaching style is dated and he refuses to adapt or change. He leads by intimidation and fear, and that clearly isn’t working anymore. He and his staff ARE the problem.

They play slow, use the clock instead of playing hard, fast an agressive. He keeps the captains on the field even though they are getting smoked. What kind of example does that set? Petro doesn’t have a full time fogo coach, doesn’t have a full time goalie coach and his assistants are also part of the problem. The teams that are beating Hopkins have all of that and more. Why doesn’t he hire someone? Everyone else has caught up and surpassed Hopkins. You can blame the players all you want, but at some point the big guy has the ultimate responsibility. It starts and ends with how he runs the program.

The bottom line, Hopkins is team in decline. If the powers that be care about the program, heads will roll. This is a disgrace and embarrassment.

[EZE]

This is the second game I've watched this year, the first being the one up in Syracuse. I wonder about this team. In my history of watching Hopkins lacrosse, starting in the 80s, this is one of the poorest performing teams I have ever witnessed, but strangely it's not for lack of talent, as they lit up the field in both games in the first quarter and then just seemed to fade as time went on. And on defense they're like Swiss cheese. Darby was forced to make alot of those highlight reel saves because the defense was so God awful. For a long time I've felt that Benson's dull offense is completely strangling the lifeblood out of these kids' creativity. This game was really painful to watch. Clearly this system is not the future of D1. Who would want to play when you're forced to slow it down and pass all the time. I say let the kids shoot the goddamn ball. They're clearly better players than they're being allowed to be. Let the kids play, Petro. Can't believe I'm saying this but in terms of being a spectator I miss the Seaman days when I was at Homewood. Terry, Pic and Dave were a lot more fun to watch!

[Wheels]

Petro and his staff all of the sudden haven't forgotten how to coach or had their Xs and Os somehow leave their brains. The shot clock has definitely caused the offense trouble from a schematic standpoint. Without at least 2 players who can get a defense spinning, the offensive scheme bogs down. Epstein can draw a slide, but no one else can. Safe to say that after 8 games, it doesn't look like anyone else can, either. Zinn might be able to blow by his defender, but once he draws the slide (and in the B1G, slides to him, if he's on the field, will come early and right in face), can he move the ball or find the open player? That's probably why he isn't playing more. Petro and his staff, up until now, haven't thrown caution to the wind. That might change soon enough, although a trip to Michigan might forestall any panic.

One defense, the rope unit isn't good. Teams can too easily draw slides and get the defense spinning. The close defenders are good enough, but they're only one part of the defense. To see JHU averaging more goals against than goals for is really a bigger problem than the offense, IMO. Sure, you'd like to see more than 11 gpg on offense, but the defense is surrendering nearly 13 gpg.

Petro and his staff might be able to fire the team enough to steal an upset, but the root of the problem at JHU is a lack of talent. It's amazing to even type that, TBH. In my lifetime, I don't think that's ever been the case.

Still think JHU makes the B1G tournament by beating Michigan and RU. The hype of the Maryland game will give JHU a puncher's chance. The PSU game could get ugly. Tambroni has shown no compunction about running up scores.

[jhu93]

This is the second game I've watched this year, the first being the one up in Syracuse. I wonder about this team. In my history of watching Hopkins lacrosse, starting in the 80s, this is one of the poorest performing teams I have ever witnessed, but strangely it's not for lack of talent, as they lit up the field in both games in the first quarter and then just seemed to fade as time went on. And on defense they're like Swiss cheese. Darby was forced to make alot of those highlight reel saves because the defense was so God awful. For a long time I've felt that Benson's dull offense is completely strangling the lifeblood out of these kids' creativity. This game was really painful to watch. Clearly this system is not the future of D1. Who would want to play when you're forced to slow it down and pass all the time. I say let the kids shoot the goddamn ball. They're clearly better players than they're being allowed to be. Let the kids play, Petro. Can't believe I'm saying this but in terms of being a spectator I miss the Seaman days when I was at Homewood. Terry, Pic and Dave were a lot more fun to watch!

The coaching doesn't help, and that is well documented, but there is a distinct lack of talent on this offense. The one true midfielder on this team, DeSimone, has 2 goals in eight games. I don't remember that ever happening before, but that is not all coaching. The rest of the top six middies who have logged the most minutes are skilled but smallish and not overly fast/quick natural attackmen. A couple, Keough and Baskin, have actually performed better than expected, at least on offense. Two others, Smith and Concannon, haven't and were ghosts tonight. Zinn not playing more is tough to explain, his obvious strengths would seem to merit him getting more time in light of the often complete ineffectiveness of the rest of the midfield.

As for the attack Williams was supposed to take the next step this year with his game but he has played markedly worse, for most of the season he has had more turnovers than points. Marr is obviously a great shooter and in a better offense he would look great, but in an offense this bad he is too easy for teams to find and shutdown. Epstein is who he was supposed to be, I just hope that this staff doesn't ruin him.

Hopkins' starting midfield had one goal tonight, Virginia's had five. Virginia has four players, Kraus, Moore, Aitken, and Conrad, who either have been or will have a strong chance to be first team all americans at some point in their careers. Hopkins has one, Epstein. Yes, the coaching can be questioned for Hopkins, but the most glaring thing is the poor aggregation of talent/recruiting by Hopkins. Tonigth they seemed to play as hard as they could and did as well at the X and off the ground as they could have expected to, I don't remember another game where Conrad was held to only one ground ball. But talent usually wins out, and Virginia has more of it than Hopkins does.

As for the goalie play, yes Darby makes some really nice saves, but as another poster said he also usually misses a bunch of saves that he should make. There were two or three times tonight where Virginia shot the ball right at him but he moved away from the ball because he was guessing. Add to that a really bad turnover by him on a clear, a bad turnover by a Hopkins D-man trying to clear the ball when he threw the ball right to Kraus, one goal where Baskin was caught on D and was beaten off the ball and one goal in the first half when Hopkins tried to run a guy off the field and Virginia scored immediately(the defense is usually good for giving up 1-3 confusion type goals a game) and you have the story of how Hopkins' night on that side of the field went.

[jhu93]

Why does Petro keep the same players on the field if they aren’t performing? Offense, defense or goalie, none of them are playing well or consistently. Defense is getting smoked, the offensive schemes aren’t working at all. The goalie can’t save a shot beyond 10 feet. Petro’s coaching style is dated and he refuses to adapt or change. He leads by intimidation and fear, and that clearly isn’t working anymore. He and his staff ARE the problem.

They play slow, use the clock instead of playing hard, fast an agressive. He keeps the captains on the field even though they are getting smoked. What kind of example does that set? Petro doesn’t have a full time fogo coach, doesn’t have a full time goalie coach and his assistants are also part of the problem. The teams that are beating Hopkins have all of that and more. Why doesn’t he hire someone? Everyone else has caught up and surpassed Hopkins. You can blame the players all you want, but at some point the big guy has the ultimate responsibility. It starts and ends with how he runs the program.

The bottom line, Hopkins is team in decline. If the powers that be care about the program, heads will roll. This is a disgrace and embarrassment.

I actually think that they want to play faster, they are best when they are in transition. The problem is that most teams have figured that out and get a couple of guys back in the hole limiting the fast break opportunities. Then in settled situations the problem is that Epstein is the only guy who is any threat to beat his man and draw a slide, no one else can come close for the most part. Maybe Zinn, but he has played so little in the half field that there is no real way to know right now. So what you are left with are protracted perimeter passing sessions along with a series of ineffective dodges to no where. If they could I think that they would play faster on offense in the half field, but other than Epstein there is no one to threaten the defense, and as the game goes on teams get more comfortable and adjust to that. Unfortunately I don't think that there is an offense to cover for the deficiencies that this team has offensively in the 6 on 6, this might be one of the least talented offenses that I can remember Hopkins having, and I have followed them since the 80's.

As for the assistants, I believe that there is a limit on the amount of paid assistants that a team can have. Every team has a coach who coordinates the offense and one who at least by title coordinates the defense. Teams then can have a third guy, and the choice usually between someone who works primarily with the goalies or one who works primarily with the face off unit. Hopkins has had Larry Quinn the last few years as the goalie coach, and he is obviously one of the best to ever play that position. Unfortunately, the goalie play has not improved much if at all, which again I think speaks to talent or lack thereof at the position.

With regard to Petro ruling by fear, from what I have observed he is not nearly as loud and in the faces of his players as he was back early in his tenure when Hopkins was winning. The difference is that the team was more talented by leaps and bounds back in the early years of his run. In my mind his main failure has been as a recruiter, as evidenced by the lack of talent on the current squad, particularly on offense.

[PeteStreet]

Hopkins has many issues they need to figure out and work through, but I agree with the primary and most concerning one being lack of size and talent at the midfield position. At this point, I think Petro needs to make size of players on offense a #1 priority, even over raw talent. Petro has not demonstrated the ability to adapt and change as needed in the middle of games, and he hasn’t over the last 10 or so years demonstrated an ability to out-coach other teams. Our midfield is getting pushed around by teams that are simply larger than us, and yet those teams aren’t even ridiculously large, they’re just playing more 6’ and above types. That is an incredibly realistic height benchmark Petro can aim for, yet he apparently hasn’t, or doesn’t view size as any sort of advantage. The midfield is not only getting pushed around by larger yet still averageish-sized guys, but they’re not able to even make up for it with dodges, aggressive offensive plays, outside shooting abilities, or anything really. They just look pathetic out there. While I would love to see some Dylan Molloy or Matt Rambo type of attackmen on Hop’s offense, I think we can get by with some smaller players there but the midfield absolutely needs to get bigger and faster, especially now with the shot clock pressure, the ability to run through or by other teams’ midfieders In transition is vital.

Come on Petro, this is an easy recruiting fix. Pick taller/larger guys to be on your midfield. Heck, we have bigger guys in the bench, I think they deserve more play time.

Another huge weakness has been face-offs. Someone else can do the math and tell us how many guys are just sitting on the bench all game every game, not being used at all other than for moral support and practice purposes. Petro should have ALL of them doing literally nothing else other than practicing face-offs for at least 30 min EVERY practice. It is absolutely a position regular players can learn and train for. When you only have 2 go-to guys and even they aren’t cutting it, it just looks bad when you aren’t even trying to fix the situation and you have talent just wasting away on the bench.

[WOMBAT, Mod Emeritus]

I’m thinking 1-4 the rest of the way, then done, stick a fork in them.

5-8.

Here’s another thought: how has this season helped build on making next season better?

I went to a funeral yesterday, and that turned out better than last night’s “attempt” at lacrosse.

[laxbro11]

it was a more than great series, most especially recently, and sad to see it end.
hopefully, it's back up within a year or 5.

coach or coaches --- should be ashamed.

You are correct, the coaches should be ashamed with this debacle a game the should have been won and lost in the fourth