2024-2025 Predictions Top 5

[LiveLaxLove]

Cuse and ND will have a rebuilding year and then will be scary in the 25-26’ year

I apologize in advance to all the Cuse fans on here - but I have never perceived Cuse as scary. IMO, sloppy & lazy fundamentals have been their downfall for years. It bothers me so much to see a program get talent like that and do what they do on the field. To me it seems like they’re their own worst enemy.

Syracuse WLax -- alllllll those top recruits, no championship. I mean, at some point they should have won one! It's crazy how much they do less with more.

[SU-LAXAHOLIC]

Seems to me like you might be the most clueless poster on here tell me who Syracuse has failed to compete with? Are you some disgruntled NW whose taking a dump on Syracuse because your team pulled a massive choke job for the 2nd time in 3 years I’d be upset but your posts are completely laughable have a great summer

[wlaxphan20]

Seems to me like you might be the most clueless poster on here tell me who Syracuse has failed to compete with? Are you some disgruntled NW whose taking a dump on Syracuse because your team pulled a massive choke job for the 2nd time in 3 years I’d be upset but your posts are completely laughable have a great summer

Seems to me like you might be the most illiterate poster on here. No, I'm definitely not a Northwestern fan. As I have probably over-emphasized, it is my opinion that Syracuse makes way too many elementary mistakes for a team that good. For a top 5 team, I think their fundamentals are sloppy compared to other top 5 teams. This also isn't new. I've mentioned my thoughts on this a fair few times over the years. Sorry your feelings got hurt so badly.

[wlaxphan20]

Cuse and ND will have a rebuilding year and then will be scary in the 25-26’ year

I apologize in advance to all the Cuse fans on here - but I have never perceived Cuse as scary. IMO, sloppy & lazy fundamentals have been their downfall for years. It bothers me so much to see a program get talent like that and do what they do on the field. To me it seems like they’re their own worst enemy.

Syracuse WLax -- alllllll those top recruits, no championship. I mean, at some point they should have won one! It's crazy how much they do less with more.

I have my own opinions about ranking HS recruits. But again, this doesn't have much to do with the level of talent. You don't need world class talent to make good passes, cleanly pick up ground balls, have good ball security, etc.

[Seacoaster(1)]

Seems to me like you might be the most clueless poster on here tell me who Syracuse has failed to compete with? Are you some disgruntled NW whose taking a dump on Syracuse because your team pulled a massive choke job for the 2nd time in 3 years I’d be upset but your posts are completely laughable have a great summer

Seems to me like you might be the most illiterate poster on here. No, I'm definitely not a Northwestern fan. As I have probably over-emphasized, it is my opinion that Syracuse makes way too many elementary mistakes for a team that good. For a top 5 team, I think their fundamentals are sloppy compared to other top 5 teams. This also isn't new. I've mentioned my thoughts on this a fair few times over the years. Sorry your feelings got hurt so badly.

I am an ardent SU women's lacrosse fan, and I think they are often their own worst enemy, and the feature of that self-immolation is often failing to clear well, making poor passes, getting beaten on GBs, etc. They are a joy to watch when they are on, and I do think Kayla and Defliese have made them better in these areas, but the criticism is entirely valid. Having said all that, two things: (1) I never thought this was their year, and as a fan I am really happy that they made it to MDW; and (2) wlaxphan20 is one of the best, most even-handed posters on these threads. Hope you all were as entertained as I was this season.

[OuttaNowhereWregget]

I have never perceived Cuse as scary. IMO, sloppy & lazy fundamentals have been their downfall for years. To me it seems like they’re their own worst enemy.

Agreed. And I'll add--the bigger the game, the worse they perform.

[McLax9777]

Ignoring transfers which will happen, both in and out, I'd go

1) BC -- will be preseason #1, probably unamimous.
2) NW -- a lot more talent there than most people think
3) Yale -- been building for this year for a while
4) Michigan -- moving in right direction with 2 potential Tewey finalists
5) UVA -- they lose 3 key scorers, but no top 10 team played more frosh/soph this year;

I refuse to put UNC in top 5, though I am sure they will be there. I think the problems in Chapel Hill this year went far beyond injuries. Probably the best team on paper, but games aren't played on paper

I would switch UVA & UNC. Even if UNC did struggle this year, they split the series with UVA 1-1 with both one goal games. I think UVA struggles aganist UNC and will never be able to fix that even if they are top 5. I feel like also UVA adds a recruiting class with one 4-star and others unranked so they would be asking for people to step up off the bench.

UNC adds 6 5-star recruits (1-attack, 4-midfield, 1-goalie) which already adds to a stacked offense but the only place they are struggling at is the defensive side in which Brooklyn Walker Welch returns from injury and i’m sure we add at least one player from the portal. Would be weird to not have them in your top 5 because they struggled this year.

UNC had an off year but you can’t forget this team won a national championship just 2 years ago and has an amazing coaching staff helping them. This was the second time UNC went unseeded which shows how good this program is. Also we did have injuries take over, and lack of depth. Brooklyn Walker-Welch out which is probably our best all-around defender, Sophie Student and Kaleigh Harden out for the midfield. Marissa White & Chloe Humphrey out for the attack. Add Eva Ingrilli and Grace Ann Leonard during the season. Then, Ashley Humphrey for the last game. Those are all starters imo that got injured so I do think injuries were the main problem.

IMO you can’t go with that they won a National Championship a couple years ago, because then you can look at other teams with a richer history of winning, more, and more often than UNC and just expect that every year. Levy has been the coach for how many years and only won a couple years ago. It’s not the coaching staff, they had Ortega and a heavy hand in the portal of seasoned players. I miss the Ortega days when they had something special.

They pick up some decent kids next year, but so does every top program. I’m very curious to see how the sister-sister-sister scenario does with team chemistry. Typically is that’s good? They will also have an army of kids not seeing the field after the ‘24’s, I think there will be a big exodus of players at some point which will mess with team moral and chemistry.

It will be interesting.

[Hello]

Talking about next year's predictions and recruits it is interesting to consider the current sophomore class, given the overall premise that not many freshmen at top programs are starters but if you are not seeing significant time by end of sophomore year you are not likely going to become an impact player. When you look back at the top 50 ranked players in that class:

UMD (6) 2 impact players
UNC (6) 3 impact players and 1 injury
BC (5) 3 impact players with 1 All American
Stanford (5) 3 impact players and 1 transfer
NW (4) 1 impact player, 1 transfer
Michigan (3)
Duke (3) 1-2 impact players
UVA (2) 1 impact player
Syracuse (2) 1 impact player
ND (2) 1 transfer
SB (2)
Penn State (2)
FLA (1) impact player
Princeton (1) impact player
VTech (1) impact player
Clemson (1) impact player
Cornell (1)
Hofstra (1)
And a few more singles

Of all the sophomores on any of the All American lists this year it appears that only 1 is from these top 50. Schools with AA players not above include NW, Drexel, Army, Yale, Florida, JHU, JMU, Princeton. Obviously these lists are dominated by grads, seniors and juniors but it is interesting when considering how future recruits may or may not impact programs. And of course you can certainly debate what it means to "impact".

[Lax101]

Big turnover in talent next year across the country. There are really 2 graduating lax classes - 2020 (Wurzburger) class but also the 2019 Wolack/Choma covid class. Much better opportunity for younger players to shine in my opinion. Just look at the AU group that was drafted. Think the majority were grad kids.

[wlaxphan20]

Seems to me like you might be the most clueless poster on here tell me who Syracuse has failed to compete with? Are you some disgruntled NW whose taking a dump on Syracuse because your team pulled a massive choke job for the 2nd time in 3 years I’d be upset but your posts are completely laughable have a great summer

Seems to me like you might be the most illiterate poster on here. No, I'm definitely not a Northwestern fan. As I have probably over-emphasized, it is my opinion that Syracuse makes way too many elementary mistakes for a team that good. For a top 5 team, I think their fundamentals are sloppy compared to other top 5 teams. This also isn't new. I've mentioned my thoughts on this a fair few times over the years. Sorry your feelings got hurt so badly.

I am an ardent SU women's lacrosse fan, and I think they are often their own worst enemy, and the feature of that self-immolation is often failing to clear well, making poor passes, getting beaten on GBs, etc. They are a joy to watch when they are on, and I do think Kayla and Defliese have made them better in these areas, but the criticism is entirely valid. Having said all that, two things: (1) I never thought this was their year, and as a fan I am really happy that they made it to MDW; and (2) wlaxphan20 is one of the best, most even-handed posters on these threads. Hope you all were as entertained as I was this season.

Thank you, Seacoaster. The feeling is mutual!