Loyola Greyhounds 2022

[44WeWantMore]

I do see a big win this weekend, and hopefully some younger players can get into the game and show what they got.

I do too. I hope the Hounds start fast and keep the pedal to the floor. I am dying to see what guys like Taylor, Decker, Dixon, and McGorry can do, not to mention Seay and Bateman.

Hopefully espn+ will have a good broadcast

OK, I am going to apologize in advance for the rest of this post, but I feel the comment above about a good ESPN+ broadcast gave me free license. Yes, I'm that guy who rants about the amateurish quality of some of the broadcasts. After a little introspection, I'm not sure why I'm so intolerant. I still remember listening to the 1999 quarterfinal game against Syracuse on AM radio in my car (because the reception was better in my car than in the house). And even driving around the DC beltway and up route 29 during the game to get closer to Baltimore because I was losing the signal. One would think that after enduring that game-day experience, I would welcome a shoddy streaming offering... But alas, it is not so. Maybe it's because I am so spoiled by the production quality of Loyola's home games. Chris Gunkel does an amazing job with the color commentary. He offers great insights - lots of times I have to rewind and rewatch to see what he saw in real time. And his self-deprecating humor is awesome. When Dave Cottle joins the booth, the depth of the analysis in incredible.

In contrast, Saturday is going to be rough. My intent isn't to insult Holy Cross, but they simply do not have the same level of talent working their games. It has gotten better since Loyola joined the PL, but the starting point was pretty dreadful. I remember watching a HC game where the announcer quite clearly did not know the rules and had no idea what he was watching. Even the rules for determining possession after a shot seemed to baffle him completely. Oh, and he referred to sticks (or crosses) as "nets" (now the Loyola player has the ball in his net). Saturday will be better than that, but not a lot.

My prediction is that the camera operator will use too tight a shot and we will all get seasick as they try to follow the ball all over the field. After a clean save and a quick outlet pass upfield, the camera will remain fixed on the goalie and we will miss the fast-break goal at the other end. At random times, the camera will focus on the players subbing on/off the field and completely miss the action that is happening behind the cage, and meanwhile the announcer will be talking about the similarities between lacrosse and field hockey.

There you have it. Those are my predictions for broadcast. I will have plenty of beer on hand.

And like others, I still have faith in this team. Go Hounds!

If the Jays are not on, I always look for the Loyola stream hoping Coach Cottle is on. I never fail to learn something from him.

[GreyingHound]

If the Jays are not on, I always look for the Loyola stream hoping Coach Cottle is on. I never fail to learn something from him.

You're a true fan of the game. That's awesome.

To be honest, whenever I listen to Coach Cottle, I feel incredibly inadequate. It's like I'm not even watching the same thing he is. I think I know what I saw, and then he explains it, and I wasn't even close.

I've caught Don Zimmerman and Dom Starsia a couple times recently, and they are good too, but Cottle is so amazing because he seems to think everyone has the same understanding of the game that he does, and he just describes the action as he would to a fellow coach. You're not going to find that too many other places.

[GreyingHound]

I do see a big win this weekend, and hopefully some younger players can get into the game and show what they got.

I do too. I hope the Hounds start fast and keep the pedal to the floor. I am dying to see what guys like Taylor, Decker, Dixon, and McGorry can do, not to mention Seay and Bateman.

Hopefully espn+ will have a good broadcast

OK, I am going to apologize in advance for the rest of this post, but I feel the comment above about a good ESPN+ broadcast gave me free license. Yes, I'm that guy who rants about the amateurish quality of some of the broadcasts. After a little introspection, I'm not sure why I'm so intolerant. I still remember listening to the 1999 quarterfinal game against Syracuse on AM radio in my car (because the reception was better in my car than in the house). And even driving around the DC beltway and up route 29 during the game to get closer to Baltimore because I was losing the signal. One would think that after enduring that game-day experience, I would welcome a shoddy streaming offering... But alas, it is not so. Maybe it's because I am so spoiled by the production quality of Loyola's home games. Chris Gunkel does an amazing job with the color commentary. He offers great insights - lots of times I have to rewind and rewatch to see what he saw in real time. And his self-deprecating humor is awesome. When Dave Cottle joins the booth, the depth of the analysis in incredible.

In contrast, Saturday is going to be rough. My intent isn't to insult Holy Cross, but they simply do not have the same level of talent working their games. It has gotten better since Loyola joined the PL, but the starting point was pretty dreadful. I remember watching a HC game where the announcer quite clearly did not know the rules and had no idea what he was watching. Even the rules for determining possession after a shot seemed to baffle him completely. Oh, and he referred to sticks (or crosses) as "nets" (now the Loyola player has the ball in his net). Saturday will be better than that, but not a lot.

My prediction is that the camera operator will use too tight a shot and we will all get seasick as they try to follow the ball all over the field. After a clean save and a quick outlet pass upfield, the camera will remain fixed on the goalie and we will miss the fast-break goal at the other end. At random times, the camera will focus on the players subbing on/off the field and completely miss the action that is happening behind the cage, and meanwhile the announcer will be talking about the similarities between lacrosse and field hockey.

There you have it. Those are my predictions for broadcast. I will have plenty of beer on hand.

And like others, I still have faith in this team. Go Hounds!

I know it is bad form to reply to my own post, but I can't help it.

I give credit to the announcer at Holy Cross. He did an admirable job working the game alone.

While not all of my predictions about the camera work came to fruition, we did get to spend copious time admiring the goalies while the action was taking place at the other end of the field, especially in the 2nd half when Loyola used 3 different goalies. We also spent some time watching the substitutions while action was taking place outside the frame.

What I didn't expect in regard to the camera work was that about 10% of the time, the ball was off screen because they simply weren't willing to use a wide enough angle or follow the ball when it went off screen. We also missed 3 faceoffs because they restarted the game before we came back from commercials. Nice. And we got a great look at Coach Toomey standing on the sideline in the 4th quarter while there was live action taking place on the field. OK.

Two more jabs before I shut up about the quality of the broadcast. After we scored our 10th goal with 2:27 left in the first half, they showed a replay of the goal, and statistician apparently thought the replay was an 11th goal, so the score on the screen displayed 11-4 for the remainder of the half.

And finally, how about the halftime stats that were displayed. I wish I had taken a screenshot. They weren't just wrong, they were incomprehensibly wrong. My favorite was faceoffs. They showed that Loyola was 2-8 on faceoffs in the first half. How is possible in a 10-4 game that there were only 8 faceoffs!

Anyway, great win on the road for the Hounds! We got to see a few new things today, like Binney on the invert curling around the cage from behind and scoring. That is a new wrinkle to his game. Lots of guys got some quality minutes, and it looked to me like Lindsey was playing a lot of attack, with Olmstead coming in from the box. Great to see Bateman and Seay get some time, and of course, the debut of both Decker, who got an assist, and McGorry, who drew a penalty. Lots of new faces on defense in the 4th quarter as well. We did not rest Wyers, and holy cow did he have an amazing game! 3 CT, 3 GB, and a shot on goal. Wow!

Probably the most surprising thing to me today was Savio's struggles early, including the 3 violations. Not sure what was going on there, but great to see him figure it out and finish strong. And our EMO unit still needs work. 1-5, and the one we scored on was a 6-on-4 situation.

Go Hounds!

[Peter Brown]

I do see a big win this weekend, and hopefully some younger players can get into the game and show what they got.

I do too. I hope the Hounds start fast and keep the pedal to the floor. I am dying to see what guys like Taylor, Decker, Dixon, and McGorry can do, not to mention Seay and Bateman.

Hopefully espn+ will have a good broadcast

OK, I am going to apologize in advance for the rest of this post, but I feel the comment above about a good ESPN+ broadcast gave me free license. Yes, I'm that guy who rants about the amateurish quality of some of the broadcasts. After a little introspection, I'm not sure why I'm so intolerant. I still remember listening to the 1999 quarterfinal game against Syracuse on AM radio in my car (because the reception was better in my car than in the house). And even driving around the DC beltway and up route 29 during the game to get closer to Baltimore because I was losing the signal. One would think that after enduring that game-day experience, I would welcome a shoddy streaming offering... But alas, it is not so. Maybe it's because I am so spoiled by the production quality of Loyola's home games. Chris Gunkel does an amazing job with the color commentary. He offers great insights - lots of times I have to rewind and rewatch to see what he saw in real time. And his self-deprecating humor is awesome. When Dave Cottle joins the booth, the depth of the analysis in incredible.

In contrast, Saturday is going to be rough. My intent isn't to insult Holy Cross, but they simply do not have the same level of talent working their games. It has gotten better since Loyola joined the PL, but the starting point was pretty dreadful. I remember watching a HC game where the announcer quite clearly did not know the rules and had no idea what he was watching. Even the rules for determining possession after a shot seemed to baffle him completely. Oh, and he referred to sticks (or crosses) as "nets" (now the Loyola player has the ball in his net). Saturday will be better than that, but not a lot.

My prediction is that the camera operator will use too tight a shot and we will all get seasick as they try to follow the ball all over the field. After a clean save and a quick outlet pass upfield, the camera will remain fixed on the goalie and we will miss the fast-break goal at the other end. At random times, the camera will focus on the players subbing on/off the field and completely miss the action that is happening behind the cage, and meanwhile the announcer will be talking about the similarities between lacrosse and field hockey.

There you have it. Those are my predictions for broadcast. I will have plenty of beer on hand.

And like others, I still have faith in this team. Go Hounds!

I know it is bad form to reply to my own post, but I can't help it.

I give credit to the announcer at Holy Cross. He did an admirable job working the game alone.

While not all of my predictions about the camera work came to fruition, we did get to spend copious time admiring the goalies while the action was taking place at the other end of the field, especially in the 2nd half when Loyola used 3 different goalies. We also spent some time watching the substitutions while action was taking place outside the frame.

What I didn't expect in regard to the camera work was that about 10% of the time, the ball was off screen because they simply weren't willing to use a wide enough angle or follow the ball when it went off screen. We also missed 3 faceoffs because they restarted the game before we came back from commercials. Nice. And we got a great look at Coach Toomey standing on the sideline in the 4th quarter while there was live action taking place on the field. OK.

Two more jabs before I shut up about the quality of the broadcast. After we scored our 10th goal with 2:27 left in the first half, they showed a replay of the goal, and statistician apparently thought the replay was an 11th goal, so the score on the screen displayed 11-4 for the remainder of the half.

And finally, how about the halftime stats that were displayed. I wish I had taken a screenshot. They weren't just wrong, they were incomprehensibly wrong. My favorite was faceoffs. They showed that Loyola was 2-8 on faceoffs in the first half. How is possible in a 10-4 game that there were only 8 faceoffs!

Anyway, great win on the road for the Hounds! We got to see a few new things today, like Binney on the invert curling around the cage from behind and scoring. That is a new wrinkle to his game. Lots of guys got some quality minutes, and it looked to me like Lindsey was playing a lot of attack, with Olmstead coming in from the box. Great to see Bateman and Seay get some time, and of course, the debut of both Decker, who got an assist, and McGorry, who drew a penalty. Lots of new faces on defense in the 4th quarter as well. We did not rest Wyers, and holy cow did he have an amazing game! 3 CT, 3 GB, and a shot on goal. Wow!

Probably the most surprising thing to me today was Savio's struggles early, including the 3 violations. Not sure what was going on there, but great to see him figure it out and finish strong. And our EMO unit still needs work. 1-5, and the one we scored on was a 6-on-4 situation.

Go Hounds!

How about:

Eric Pacheco coming in and doing VERY WELL on face-offs!???

Sam Shafer at 67% in goal. Wow!

[laxbro11]

A win is a win. Holy Cross is not a very good team. We had too many metal mistakes for a team that is this good. Defense played well. Schafer saw the ball really well. Short stick the meds better but still need improvement. Offensively our shots were better but we still need to bury shot against a sub par team.

Tough week next week against an angry midshipmen team

[Loyolalaxgrad]

A win is a win. Holy Cross is not a very good team. We had too many metal mistakes for a team that is this good. Defense played well. Schafer saw the ball really well. Short stick the meds better but still need improvement. Offensively our shots were better but we still need to bury shot against a sub par team.

Tough week next week against an angry midshipmen team

Agree a win is a win. There is room for improvement

We were 16/51 on shots. 31% better but not great.

EMO only 1 of 5, continues to be a weak point on our offense. It takes them too long to spin the ball around
Shafer, Kamish, Lindley, Wyers, Hughes all came to play and played well.

Disappointed we did not sub sooner and give the younger guys a chance.. In a 10 pt win, they should have been in a little sooner, Holy Cross was not coming back.

Navy will be tough, we cannot play like we did today, I would like to seeb a 40% shooting percentage and, continue to win the ground ball battle and we need to be better than 50% at the faceoff X

[Laxfan#1969]

A win is a win. Holy Cross is not a very good team. We had too many metal mistakes for a team that is this good. Defense played well. Schafer saw the ball really well. Short stick the meds better but still need improvement. Offensively our shots were better but we still need to bury shot against a sub par team.

Tough week next week against an angry midshipmen team

Agree a win is a win. There is room for improvement

We were 16/51 on shots. 31% better but not great.

EMO only 1 of 5, continues to be a weak point on our offense. It takes them too long to spin the ball around
Shafer, Kamish, Lindley, Wyers, Hughes all came to play and played well.

Disappointed we did not sub sooner and give the younger guys a chance.. In a 10 pt win, they should have been in a little sooner, Holy Cross was not coming back.

Navy will be tough, we cannot play like we did today, I would like to seeb a 40% shooting percentage and, continue to win the ground ball battle and we need to be better than 50% at the faceoff X

Team went and did what they needed to do. That’s it. Not gonna moan about a win. Sure Holy Cross is bad...game was never in doubt...still like this team and staying positive

The PL tourney is wide open. That’s it. That’s what we’re trying to make and tune up for. Nothing else at this point but a few wins for seeding. We can win the PL Tourney

Nice to see some young guys get some run in Q4 today. Also ran deeper lines with Hueston and Binny and Bateman earlier in the game...

Also liked Lindsey subbing in for a Olmstead instead of Kamish...that will be Lindsey’s role next year...I prefer having Kamish in the field...I like using Olmstead in multiple positions and giving some different looks like they do with Kamish out of the box at times

Another solid performance by Kamish

Kevin was solid with 4

You can see Lindsey continue to get more comfortable

Defense and Sam were solid and we subbed heavy in Q4.

Congrats to Aiden on 100 goals and 200 points. Great kid, impressive numbers. We need him playing well to win three in a row in May.

We will be ready for Navy. Positive thoughts ahead. This team has lots of gas in the tank. It’s April!

Go Hounds!

[Loyolalax]

A win is a win. Holy Cross is not a very good team. We had too many metal mistakes for a team that is this good. Defense played well. Schafer saw the ball really well. Short stick the meds better but still need improvement. Offensively our shots were better but we still need to bury shot against a sub par team.

Tough week next week against an angry midshipmen team

Agree a win is a win. There is room for improvement

We were 16/51 on shots. 31% better but not great.

EMO only 1 of 5, continues to be a weak point on our offense. It takes them too long to spin the ball around
Shafer, Kamish, Lindley, Wyers, Hughes all came to play and played well.

Disappointed we did not sub sooner and give the younger guys a chance.. In a 10 pt win, they should have been in a little sooner, Holy Cross was not coming back.

Navy will be tough, we cannot play like we did today, I would like to seeb a 40% shooting percentage and, continue to win the ground ball battle and we need to be better than 50% at the faceoff X

Team went and did what they needed to do. That’s it. Not gonna moan about a win. Sure Holy Cross is bad...game was never in doubt...still like this team and staying positive

The PL tourney is wide open. That’s it. That’s what we’re trying to make and tune up for. Nothing else at this point but a few wins for seeding. We can win the PL Tourney

Nice to see some young guys get some run in Q4 today. Also ran deeper lines with Hueston and Binny and Bateman earlier in the game...

Also liked Lindsey subbing in for a Olmstead instead of Kamish...that will be Lindsey’s role next year...I prefer having Kamish in the field...I like using Olmstead in multiple positions and giving some different looks like they do with Kamish out of the box at times

Another solid performance by Kamish

Kevin was solid with 4

You can see Lindsey continue to get more comfortable

Defense and Sam were solid and we subbed heavy in Q4.

Congrats to Aiden on 100 goals and 200 points. Great kid, impressive numbers. We need him playing well to win three in a row in May.

We will be ready for Navy. Positive thoughts ahead. This team has lots of gas in the tank. It’s April!

Go Hounds!

The team won, that is good to continue on the road to the PL tournament. But do you have have the nagging voice in the back of your mind telling you that something is wrong. That is what I get when I watch this team. On paper this team should be top 10, but we struggle doing the basics. Sometimes our lacrosse IQ is lacking and we do not play hard.

I would not say the PL tournament is wide open. Clearly favorites are Lehigh, BU and Army. I will hold judgement on that for another couple of weeks to see how BU does against the the better teams in the conference

Positives: Kamish, Lindley are playing solid. Close defense played extremely well today, but again it was Holy Cross. Shafer, we may need to ride him to a PL tournament championship, he is playing well.

Negatives: Man up offense, What is MVA doing? Someone said 1 of 5, not good. Face offs were inconsistent, though I did like Pachecko out there. Shooting percentage, Defensive players shooting is a turnover, the only D player that should be allowed to shoot is McNulty. He has proven he can finish. Sloppy play and turnovers, though we did improve, we still had some bad plays,

In regards to ESPN+, it is what it is

Navy will be tough, we need to come out and play like we did the first time we played them last year. Come out, get ahead and finish. This a pivotal game for us. Hate to say, but a must win.

[loyola2025]

Just one last post until after the season, it has come to my attention that parents should not be airing dirty laundry. Not sure what that means, when you comment on your thoughts on making the team better. All things considered I will abide by the request.

First, I find it interesting the go to line is, "we dont see what goes on during practice, and that is why players are not playing" But neither do those posters, all they are doing is speculating. It is no different if a poster says it is due to favoritism or what you last name is. When you see experienced players play awful and the they still play, it makes you think. Or players that were playing well get benched with no explanation. I see down the road that Epstein has been benched, I have no idea why, but his production has been lacking and I would not put it past Milliman to bench him to send a message to the team. You need to play hard everyday.

Second, Holy Cross, sloppy play and it was a shame that the coaching staff did not sub earlier, you are up by 11 with 10 minutes left to go in the fourth, game is well in hand. Offense began, but defense did not until the 3 minute mark. I have said it before, you are not developing players by giving them 1-2 minutes of mom up time.

One last pet peeve. It is great to see players reach milestones, it does take a lot of effort and work. But no just at Loyola but at other schools, these players are playing a 5th year. In 2020 we played 6 games, other teams had played 8-10 games. For players that came before and after Covid, they will have to do it in 4.

I will return after the season. Go Hounds, lets go deep into the playoffs

[kramerica.inc]

Parents always air the dirty laundry. At every program. But losing just exacerbates it. I'm not at the Loyola practices, but as a coach in a highly competitive lax environment myself, with this current generation, I see an awful lot of fans, parents, and players that are quite entitled with their thoughts to "playing time"....and not based on reality. Not sure if it's the "club mentality" of thinking that because they pay tuition, they are entitled to a chance to play. Gotta earn it with consistency. Not just in practice, but in the pre/off-season. Like in real life, one week of good practice doesn't necessarily mean you deserve a shot. Nor does the guy in front of you stinking it up mean you deserve a shot either.

[Peter Brown]

Parents always air the dirty laundry. At every program. But losing just exacerbates it. I'm not at the Loyola practices, but as a coach in a highly competitive lax environment myself, with this current generation, I see an awful lot of fans, parents, and players that are quite entitled with their thoughts to "playing time"....and not based on reality. Not sure if it's the "club mentality" of thinking that because they pay tuition, they are entitled to a chance to play. Gotta earn it with consistency. Not just in practice, but in the pre/off-season. Like in real life, one week of good practice doesn't necessarily mean you deserve a shot. Nor does the guy in front of you stinking it up mean you deserve a shot either.

+1

[laxbro11]

Parents always air the dirty laundry. At every program. But losing just exacerbates it. I'm not at the Loyola practices, but as a coach in a highly competitive lax environment myself, with this current generation, I see an awful lot of fans, parents, and players that are quite entitled with their thoughts to "playing time"....and not based on reality. Not sure if it's the "club mentality" of thinking that because they pay tuition, they are entitled to a chance to play. Gotta earn it with consistency. Not just in practice, but in the pre/off-season. Like in real life, one week of good practice doesn't necessarily mean you deserve a shot. Nor does the guy in front of you stinking it up mean you deserve a shot either.

I agree But what we are not seeing is consistency on the game field. In real life if the person who ahead of you sucks. Any president of s company would look to rectify the situation and not just keep doing the same thing day in and day out. They would not be okay with inconsistent work or effort. They would be fired.

[kramerica.inc]

Parents always air the dirty laundry. At every program. But losing just exacerbates it. I'm not at the Loyola practices, but as a coach in a highly competitive lax environment myself, with this current generation, I see an awful lot of fans, parents, and players that are quite entitled with their thoughts to "playing time"....and not based on reality. Not sure if it's the "club mentality" of thinking that because they pay tuition, they are entitled to a chance to play. Gotta earn it with consistency. Not just in practice, but in the pre/off-season. Like in real life, one week of good practice doesn't necessarily mean you deserve a shot. Nor does the guy in front of you stinking it up mean you deserve a shot either.

I agree But what we are not seeing is consistency on the game field. In real life if the person who ahead of you sucks. Any president of s company would look to rectify the situation and not just keep doing the same thing day in and day out. They would not be okay with inconsistent work or effort. They would be fired.

It's a straw man.
But if we follow that real-world scenario, they aren't firing a guy who is a longtime and formerly proven high-performer for going through a relatively short rough patch. And they aren't likely to give a big account to a unproven guy.

[laxbro11]

Parents always air the dirty laundry. At every program. But losing just exacerbates it. I'm not at the Loyola practices, but as a coach in a highly competitive lax environment myself, with this current generation, I see an awful lot of fans, parents, and players that are quite entitled with their thoughts to "playing time"....and not based on reality. Not sure if it's the "club mentality" of thinking that because they pay tuition, they are entitled to a chance to play. Gotta earn it with consistency. Not just in practice, but in the pre/off-season. Like in real life, one week of good practice doesn't necessarily mean you deserve a shot. Nor does the guy in front of you stinking it up mean you deserve a shot either.

I agree But what we are not seeing is consistency on the game field. In real life if the person who ahead of you sucks. Any president of s company would look to rectify the situation and not just keep doing the same thing day in and day out. They would not be okay with inconsistent work or effort. They would be fired.

It's a straw man.
But if we follow that real-world scenario, they aren't firing a guy who is a longtime and formerly proven high-performer for going through a relatively short rough patch. And they aren't likely to give a big account to a unproven guy.

And they would not keep giving accounts to someone that constantly screws them up and costs the company money. That is how it works in my world, maybe not in yours. Mediocrity could be your standard, and that is okay.

What I love is that no fan of Loyola can critically look at the team and have a dialogue about sub par performances. Critical analysis is what will bring about success. Holding players accountable leads to changes in behavior. Early on in the season, they sat Wyers for dumb penalties at critical times. Arguably our best close defenseman. And it has changed his behavior and he is playing better.

This team has great potential, they just have not shown it for four quarters yet.

Navy has two fogos with 51%, Savio is at 54% this will be a battle, would like to see Pachecko get a little bit more to change things up. This game will come down to turnovers and goalie play.

Looking forward to seeing the Hounds live again

[kramerica.inc]

What I love is that no fan of Loyola can critically look at the team and have a dialogue about sub par performances. Critical analysis is what will bring about success. Holding players accountable leads to changes in behavior. Early on in the season, they sat Wyers for dumb penalties at critical times. Arguably our best close defenseman. And it has changed his behavior and he is playing better.

You think complaining...excuse me- critical analysis, on the internet will change Loyola's performance? Loyola coaches aren't looking for answers here. Nor should they. They are looking internally.

Unfortunately, it's tough to critically analyze here when we obviously have some posters who have preconditioned biases and ulterior motives.

Re- Wyers. think that is a bit of a stretch. He was coming off an injury and his performance, late slides and dumb penalties, was tied to his lack of lateral mobility. Benched for his performance, maybe. But also sat to help speed recovery. He appears to be more healthy since then and has been looking like his old self.

[GreyingHound]

What I love is that no fan of Loyola can critically look at the team and have a dialogue about sub par performances. Critical analysis is what will bring about success. Holding players accountable leads to changes in behavior. Early on in the season, they sat Wyers for dumb penalties at critical times. Arguably our best close defenseman. And it has changed his behavior and he is playing better.

You think complaining...excuse me- critical analysis, on the internet will change Loyola's performance? Loyola coaches aren't looking for answers here. Nor should they. They are looking internally.

Unfortunately, it's tough to critically analyze here when we obviously have some posters who have preconditioned biases and ulterior motives.

Re- Wyers. think that is a bit of a stretch. He was coming off an injury and his performance, late slides and dumb penalties, was tied to his lack of lateral mobility. Benched for his performance, maybe. But also sat to help speed recovery. He appears to be more healthy since then and has been looking like his old self.

I agree about Wyers. He could barely move in the MD game, but in the last couple games he has been all over the field. It's great to see him healthy again. It was tough to watch him struggle early in the season.

Regarding critical analysis, one thing that has been driving me crazy this year is our poor performance on man-up. Watching the games, I feel like our EMO unit is so bad that it's an open invitation to foul us because there are no consequences. Last week against Holy Cross we were 1-5, and the one we scored on, we were 2 men up. Against Towson, we were 0-3 and never even got a shot off while we were man up. So, I took a look at the EMO stats over the last 10 years, along with our season records and who the offensive coordinator was. My conclusion? I don't see much of a trend. It's true that our EMO is not good so far this year, but we've been worse. A high EMO conversion rate does correlate with a good season, but it's likely that many other stats do too. Turnovers come to mind.

Loyola EMO graph.jpg (82.26 KiB) Viewed 1023 times

What I would really like to know is how this unit is so bad given the experience and talent we have. The only thing I can come up with is that while our overall shots-on-goal percentage is good (56.7%), our shooting percentage is low (27.4%), which is carrying over onto the EMO unit. Bottom line, we need better shot placement. That, and I think we need more urgency on man-up. Thoughts?

Navy is a beatable team. If we play well, there's no reason we can't leave Annapolis with a victory tomorrow. Go Hounds!

[laxbro11]

What I love is that no fan of Loyola can critically look at the team and have a dialogue about sub par performances. Critical analysis is what will bring about success. Holding players accountable leads to changes in behavior. Early on in the season, they sat Wyers for dumb penalties at critical times. Arguably our best close defenseman. And it has changed his behavior and he is playing better.

You think complaining...excuse me- critical analysis, on the internet will change Loyola's performance? Loyola coaches aren't looking for answers here. Nor should they. They are looking internally.

Unfortunately, it's tough to critically analyze here when we obviously have some posters who have preconditioned biases and ulterior motives.

Re- Wyers. think that is a bit of a stretch. He was coming off an injury and his performance, late slides and dumb penalties, was tied to his lack of lateral mobility. Benched for his performance, maybe. But also sat to help speed recovery. He appears to be more healthy since then and has been looking like his old self.

I agree about Wyers. He could barely move in the MD game, but in the last couple games he has been all over the field. It's great to see him healthy again. It was tough to watch him struggle early in the season.

Regarding critical analysis, one thing that has been driving me crazy this year is our poor performance on man-up. Watching the games, I feel like our EMO unit is so bad that it's an open invitation to foul us because there are no consequences. Last week against Holy Cross we were 1-5, and the one we scored on, we were 2 men up. Against Towson, we were 0-3 and never even got a shot off while we were man up. So, I took a look at the EMO stats over the last 10 years, along with our season records and who the offensive coordinator was. My conclusion? I don't see much of a trend. It's true that our EMO is not good so far this year, but we've been worse. A high EMO conversion rate does correlate with a good season, but it's likely that many other stats do too. Turnovers come to mind.


Loyola EMO graph.jpg

What I would really like to know is how this unit is so bad given the experience and talent we have. The only thing I can come up with is that while our overall shots-on-goal percentage is good (56.7%), our shooting percentage is low (27.4%), which is carrying over onto the EMO unit. Bottom line, we need better shot placement. That, and I think we need more urgency on man-up. Thoughts?

Navy is a beatable team. If we play well, there's no reason we can't leave Annapolis with a victory tomorrow. Go Hounds!

+1
Greying. Awesome breakdown. Emo is important especially when we have had 1 or 2 goal losses. Which if we were better translates to wins. And with our experience why are we so poor in the categories of emo and shooting percentage. This team can be so much better.

What team will show up tomorrow? Will it be Olmstead with assists and a lethal step down or the turn over king? The lack of consistency ks baffling.

[jrn19]

EMO can be a pretty volatile stat I think. Some years there are teams with great offenses who are actually meh on man-up. I think Maryland was an okay man-up offense last year despite having a Top 3 unit in the country

[youthathletics]

I attribute MVA in really helping Romar Dennis' shooting. His SOG% was at its best under MVA, not to mention, MVA's offense sets up stretch shooters nicely.

[Peter Brown]

Let’s go, fellas!!!!!!

Leave everything on the field!!!!