Lewisfrederick wrote: ↑Sun Apr 16, 2023 1:03 am
UNC isn’t some mediocre program either. 5 National Championships and 14 Final Fours, plus it’s not like Breschi struggles to get top recruits to Chapel Hill. It’s simply we don’t develop players and get out coached most games. I know some people will laugh at me for saying this, but if we go out and make the right hire, we could be in the same category as Maryland, Duke and UVA year after year.
You mean the same Duke team that didn't even make the tournament last year despite having a once-a-generation player along with another #1 recruit along with numerous other all-americans?
UNC is in the same category as Maryland, Duke and UVA. They are an elite program. Those teams ain't perfect either though. UVA's '21 team got blown out by Syracuse 20-10 and lost again to the Orange, then could have lost to Bryant in the opening round. Their 2019 championship run could/should have ended in the elite 8 against Maryland, then again the following week down 2 with 47 seconds to go. On the flip side, Maryland blew a 5 goal 4th quarter lead to UVA in 2019 and were saved by amazing goalie play in '22 to not blow a 9-2 lead against Cornell (not scoring a goal for the last 27 minutes). And this year, Maryland has lived up to it's Be the Best standards probably once all season, against UVA; otherwise they have struggled big-time against Loyola, Michigan, Ohio State and Syracuse (which was not as good as they are now).
This is really not meant to be a knock on Duke, UVA or MD. The point is that winning in D1 lacrosse ain't so easy these days. And all these top teams have to play each other to keep their tournament profiles up, so somebody's gotta lose. UVA's lost 2 of the last 3. If they played Duke again in the tournament, I'd still take the Hoos. This year, what's the difference between Duke, UVA, MD, ND, Georgetown, Cornell, Hopkins, Rutgers, Denver and even Michigan? Probably Brennan O'Neill and UVA's depth at attack are the main differentiators, but they will have to beat at least 1 of the remaining group to even get to the Final 4.