Notre Dame at UVA (Round 2)

[Finster]

Absolutely. Shell is fantastic but this year Dickson clearly better year. If they make a deep run, he could end up with 70 goals!

I’ve been banging this drum the last month. Dickson’s field IQ is as high as I’ve seen from a player since Pat Spencer.

I’ll tell you a secret though. Dickson benefits more from Shellenberger than the reverse. Shellenberger can dodge on any pole, and every defense is softened because of that.

Dickson is so freaking smart, he is almost perfect drifting to the open space and getting feeds from anyone, but especially Shellenberger. When you couple in Dickson’s IQ where to shoot at each goalie, he’s almost automatic with his conversions.

Xander has a shot at the Tewey, but I think O’Neill will have something to say about the two UVA boys stealing that hardware. What I will say is both UVA attack should be AA First Team. No doubt in my mind.

[molo]

Final result totally predictable. Score a little lower than I expected. Nunes, Saustad, and the raptor keyed the d that shut down the Kman.

[Brownlax]

Nunes with 19 saves and a 70% save percentage!

[blue angels]

Absolutely. Shell is fantastic but this year Dickson clearly better year. If they make a deep run, he could end up with 70 goals!

I’ve been banging this drum the last month. Dickson’s field IQ is as high as I’ve seen from a player since Pat Spencer.

I’ll tell you a secret though. Dickson benefits more from Shellenberger than the reverse. Shellenberger can dodge on any pole, and every defense is softened because of that.

This is an astute view and an accurate one. Shellenberger is getting better, but IMO he still isn’t close to 100% recovered. Maybe it will happen by tournament time, if we are fortunate. Yet, he always occupies the opposing team’s top close defender so his teammates can slice and dice the 2s, 3s and shorts. It was Fake on Shellenberger again today. Brower at Duke on him as well and soon and so on. Opposing coaches put their best cover guy on the opposing team’s best player, which is consistently Shellenberger.

[10stone5]

Absolutely. Shell is fantastic but this year Dickson clearly better year. If they make a deep run, he could end up with 70 goals!

I’ve been banging this drum the last month. Dickson’s field IQ is as high as I’ve seen from a player since Pat Spencer.

Teat,
Jeff Teat - he was/still is a savant.

[tech37]

Nunes with 19 saves and a 70% save percentage!

This. Nunes was great.

[blue angels]

Absolutely. Shell is fantastic but this year Dickson clearly better year. If they make a deep run, he could end up with 70 goals!

I’ve been banging this drum the last month. Dickson’s field IQ is as high as I’ve seen from a player since Pat Spencer.

I’ll tell you a secret though. Dickson benefits more from Shellenberger than the reverse. Shellenberger can dodge on any pole, and every defense is softened because of that.

This is an astute view and an accurate one. Shellenberger is getting better, but IMO he still isn’t close to 100% recovered. Maybe it will happen by tournament time, if we are fortunate. Yet, he always occupies the opposing team’s top close defender so his teammates can slice and dice the 2s, 3s and shorts. It was Fake on Shellenberger again today. Brower at Duke, on him as well and so on and so on. Opposing coaches put their best cover guy on the opposing team’s best player, which is consistently Shellenberger.

[jrn19]

Absolutely. Shell is fantastic but this year Dickson clearly better year. If they make a deep run, he could end up with 70 goals!

Dickson is great but 18 of his 56 goals this year are assisted *by* Shellenberger. That's literally 1/3rd of his goals directly coming from the guy he's supposedly "clearly better than." He has 11 unassisted goals. So 18 goals assisted by Shellenberger, and 45 goals assisted overall. 80% unassisted to 20% assisted. Shellenberger has 9 unassisted goals of his 18. 50%. And he again has assisted on 1/3rd of Dickson's goals.

Again, Dickson is a great, great player, same with Cormier; but this is kinda like saying Mac O'Keefe was clearly better than Grant Ament. The reason they put up 40+ goals and Shellenberger has 18 is because the entire defense is paying attention to 1 guy. Shelly scored no goals against Ohio State or Hopkins and Dickson and Cormier still got like 7 and 8 because opponents send help and double teams just off even the threat of him dodging or they get wide open off defenders ball watching and turning their heads to what 1 does. Those guys ability to find space and finish is great and Cormier uses his body super effectively; but #1 is the offense. There's a reason when Shellenberger is completely taken out of the game by Ajax Zappitello against Maryland and the Terps don't slide, Dickson only has 1 goal.

Great player. Shellenberger is better.

[pcowlax]

I agree. Never said Dickson was a better player but that he has had a better year. As blue angles said, Shell gets the #1 pole and has had nagging injuries much of the season. For that reason, Dickson has clearly had a better year. Your numbers are silly. Shellenberger only has 18 goals. It is ridiculous to compare percentage assisted when one player has more than 3x as many goals as the other. By that light, why not say that Dickson has more unassisted goals than Shell and so is the better dodger? No one would say that because you don’t compare those numbers. And I don’t buy the arguments about why Dickson and Cormier have had such better numbers in many of the big games. You know what Virginia’s opponents really want to do? Shut down Shellenberger. You know what they want to do even more? Win the game. Shell was hobbled in several of those games and his teammates did most of the scoring because they were more capable of scoring. When someone has put up 6 goals and some assists, defenses don’t say, well, he’s still not their number one threat, we will stay focused on the guy the scouting report said to focus on. Again, Shell is the better player but the guy who might put up 70 goals and 20+ assists is clearly having the better year.

[lowandaway]

They both are far better than they would be without the other

[jrn19]

Shellenberger has 18 goals because the whole offense is built around the attention the opponents give to him and him drawing slides and then Cormier and Dickson catching open passes. Shellenberger is a better player but Dickson is having a far better season makes no sense. Shellenberger is the primary reason Dickson is having the season he is.

Was Kevin Lindley a better player than Pat Spencer because he scored more goals? Was O'Keefe better than Ament? Shellenberger wasn't hobbled in the Ohio State game when he had 0 goals. It didn't matter. UVAs offense isn't designed around Shellenberger scoring goals. If they wanted him to dodge and score, of course he could, we've all seen him do it a million times. They use the attention given to Shellenberger and exploit all the openings with ball movement and cutting and picks endlessly over and over. This isn't rocket science. The entire intent of the offense is for Xander Dickson to score more goals than Connor Shellenberger.

[UVAlaxfan]

Nunes with 19 saves and a 70% save percentage!

A few saves were gimmies at end of shot clocks or periods. And a number of other ones were soft offerings that resulted from excellent defense. NUnes played a great game but sometimes 19 saves means a goalie stood on his head and bailed out an inferior team, I don't think that was the case today.

[Finster]

Nunes with 19 saves and a 70% save percentage!

A few saves were gimmies at end of shot clocks or periods. And a number of other ones were soft offerings that resulted from excellent defense. NUnes played a great game but sometimes 19 saves means a goalie stood on his head and bailed out an inferior team, I don't think that was the case today.

I’d have to agree with uvalaxfan.

Put another way if you were at the game, Nunes 70% felt like 50%, whereas Entenmenns 50% felt like 70%.

[Finster]

Shellenberger has 18 goals because the whole offense is built around the attention the opponents give to him and him drawing slides and then Cormier and Dickson catching open passes. Shellenberger is a better player but Dickson is having a far better season makes no sense. Shellenberger is the primary reason Dickson is having the season he is.

Was Kevin Lindley a better player than Pat Spencer because he scored more goals? Was O'Keefe better than Ament? Shellenberger wasn't hobbled in the Ohio State game when he had 0 goals. It didn't matter. UVAs offense isn't designed around Shellenberger scoring goals. If they wanted him to dodge and score, of course he could, we've all seen him do it a million times. They use the attention given to Shellenberger and exploit all the openings with ball movement and cutting and picks endlessly over and over. This isn't rocket science. The entire intent of the offense is for Xander Dickson to score more goals than Connor Shellenberger.

Like many sports arguments, both you and PC have valid points.

Dickson is having a better ‘year’, but Shellenberger is the better player. Btw, it’s not simply that Shellenberger gets the #1 pole that helps explain his lower goal totals, but even with the #1 pole, every defense except Maryland has to still have their heads on a swivel because Shellenberger can still get space even from the opponents #1 pole. That fact softens up an entire defense, and Dickson is simply brilliant anticipating his teammates’ moves. He’s further brilliant in locating his shots. Dangerous combination.

The analogy to Spencer/Lindley is apt. It’s interesting to see the development of strong-bodied initiating attack like Spencer, O’Neill, Molloy, and Shellenberger. Neither O’Neill nor Molloy have/had attack partners quite-as-high field-IQ as Spencer and Shellenberger had/have in Lindley and Dickson.

Next year Shellenberger will miss having such a brilliant teammate. You’ll see a difficult start from UVA in ‘24 as Shellenberger adjusts to that realization.

[August]

@Finster. Im going to go out on a limb here and say Shellenberger and UVA will be just fine. It seems they have a pretty good bench. Dickson was not in the "top scorer" category EVER. Now he is just that. Shellenberger can turn other players with potential into all stars. That is in great part why he is as good as he is. Dickson's tremendous skills as an off-ball finisher and all-around lacrosse player have been on full display thanks to the other parts of the offense. Next year, the "realization" will be someone else who has risen to his potential...

[jrn19]

Yeah, Dickson is great, but before Dickson it was Laviano in 2019 and he scored 51 goals

[Finster]

@Finster. Im going to go out on a limb here and say Shellenberger and UVA will be just fine. It seems they have a pretty good bench. Dickson was not in the "top scorer" category EVER. Now he is just that. Shellenberger can turn other players with potential into all stars. That is in great part why he is as good as he is. Dickson's tremendous skills as an off-ball finisher and all-around lacrosse player have been on full display thanks to the other parts of the offense. Next year, the "realization" will be someone else who has risen to his potential...

Of course they’ll be fine. They’re loaded and have the #1 recruit coming in.

What I mean is Shellenberger will feel the absence of Dickson in the first few games. I’m telling you, very few kids have his field awareness and shooting accuracy.

[Finster]

Yeah, Dickson is great, but before Dickson it was Laviano in 2019 and he scored 51 goals

Not that close in terms of numbers between Laviano and Dickson. Thank you IL for these statistics to back me up.

Laviano 2019: 20 games. 51 goals. 11 assists. 62 points. Shooting percentage: 41%. Ground balls: 20.

Dickson 2023: 14 games (so far). 56 goals. 18 assists. 74 points. Shooting percentage: 57%. Ground balls: 30.

[wahoomurf]

Yeah, Dickson is great, but before Dickson it was Laviano in 2019 and he scored 51 goals

Dixon finds seams as well if not better than Bocklet.

[Finster]

Yeah, Dickson is great, but before Dickson it was Laviano in 2019 and he scored 51 goals

Dixon finds seams as well if not better than Bocklet.

^^^excellent point