DocBarrister wrote: ↑Thu May 02, 2024 8:29 pm
primitiveskills wrote: ↑Thu May 02, 2024 8:20 pm
Just way too many turnovers, mistakes, failed clears, bad decisions in 2Q and they never got any momentum back. Denver and Navy games all over again.
Offense really struggles in settled sixes. The motion offense is effective in generating "mismatches", but its only a mismatch if you have guys that can win the dodge and draw a slide. We don't have many of those guys. Losing English really hurt in that regard. If defenses don't ballwatch and lose track of Degnon, we have trouble. Not sure there's a magic solution at this point in the year.
We've been able to compensate by being close to perfect on clears and very hard to score on in sixes. Both of those fell apart for some reason today, especially in the second and third quarters.
Oh, well. On to the tournament. Seeding less critical this year vs most. Just need to avoid ND as long as possible.
The Michigan D VOLUNTARILY GAVE THE HOPKINS OFFENSE MISMATCHES. Peshko, Grimes, and Collison had SSDMs on them the entire game. Didn’t even have to “generate” those mismatches. They were handed to Hopkins on a platter.
Petro and Benson would have sold their souls to get matchups like that.
And what does Crawley and PM do with those mismatches? Pass the ball for little guys to dodge against longsticks or use the Big Guys to set picks.
DocBarrister
Again, unless those guys can beat the shortie and draw a slide, they are not mismatches. Tonight, they weren't mismatches. Peshko and Grimes dodged a bunch and never drew a slide. Collison beat his SSDM on the first possession of the game, got to the middle, and missed the shot. After that, Michigan completely took away the sweep and never slid off of Degnon, which really threw a wrench in the works. Maybe they could have gotten him some dodges from X, where he can be effective, but its not like there'sa lot of levers to pull.
Hopkins is not alone in having a shortage of guys who can make a defense move. Your friends in College Park, for instance, can commiserate. It's the reason that an "all-star" team like Duke can be held to 4 goals against a pedestrian Syracuse defense. Having multiple guys like that is what separates offenses like UVa, ND, and Cornell from the pack (a pack that unfortunately includes us).