Yale v UVa - should VA bother showing up?

[10stone5]

Great weekend for Phila, SE PA lacrosse.
32,000 for the semis, which is a good crowd.

6 SE PA players win a national title for the Cavs.
Cabrini wins the 1st Division III national title for a Pennsylvania school

[Matnum PI]

FWIW, PSU, Penn, and Yale were evenly matched. And... neither Yale nor PSU played a single ACC team while Penn played one, Duke, and lost 17-7. Obviously, until the C'ship Final. Apropos to nothing but still interesting to me.

[QuakerSouth]

Hope Lars brought some smelling salts for his boys, sure needs something to wake them up and get 'em moving a little bit. Better bring a whole lot more energy to the field than they did in the first half or it's going to be a long afternoon for them. Far from the most exciting semi finals lacrosse I've ever seen, the girl's games offered a whole lot more.....faster and much more intensity. Gotta up your game, fellas.

Shouldn’t have been there anyway. Not final four caliber

From the Duke/UVa thread, but I'll just leave it here ...

Missed it earlier - thanks for sharing that gem.

I guess we'll be required to tape a big paper asterisk onto our trophy.

No asterisk. Not even close. We could pick out tons of questionable calls along the way and extrapolate from there, which in itself, would be inaccurate. The game is a game of ebbs and flows, and UVa has absolutely nothing to apologize for. The final 8 teams were the 8 best teams in the country. They fought it out. Hard. We saw some excellent quarters and semis. Every one of those 8 had their chance, and could have legitimately claimed the trophy. UVa showed they were the best team today.

Congrats to all UVa players, coaches, and fans.

[DMac]

... TD still won like 75% of the faceoffs against one of the better FOGOs in the nation, and he was over 90% in the second half...

I'm curious to see the boxscore and the exact numbers.

Me too, because that doesn't sound right to me....and if they are accurate, how long did Yale have "possession" before the swarming Cavs took the ball away from them? Face off "wins" are often times very deceiving numbers.

[MDlaxfan76]

TD still won like 75% of the faceoffs against one of the better FOGOs in the nation, and he was over 90% in the second half. Maybe they weren't all clean, but it was business as usual for TD. The difference was the offense wasn't capitalizing today.

Right; TD still 'dominated' possessions, but not to the point of creating lots of fast breaks. And he didn't dominate early enabling a big lead to develop. Instead UVA won a few and excellent goaltending early kept it close, while UVA kept breaking down the 1:1 match-ups.

And Petey's two goals...

So, to the discussion of FOGO's, seems to me that we likely all felt that Yale was still in the game, even down 5, because of the potential to go on a run with TD. That's a positive, IMO.

But way too many of those possessions were marred by TO's, and Rode stepped up big.

Best defensive game by the Hoos of their season, and relentless riding drove the Elis crazy.

Fortunately for UVA, the refs weren't 'whistle happy' and they let the slugfest go; and two very physical, very hard riding, explosive teams went at it hard for 60 mins.

Both teams played their hearts out.

[CU77]

Amended. In the future, either quote us or PM us directly. We don't read every post in every thread.

Sorry, will do.

[CU88]

Hope Lars brought some smelling salts for his boys, sure needs something to wake them up and get 'em moving a little bit. Better bring a whole lot more energy to the field than they did in the first half or it's going to be a long afternoon for them. Far from the most exciting semi finals lacrosse I've ever seen, the girl's games offered a whole lot more.....faster and much more intensity. Gotta up your game, fellas.

Shouldn’t have been there anyway. Not final four caliber

From the Duke/UVa thread, but I'll just leave it here ...

Missed it earlier - thanks for sharing that gem.

I guess we'll be required to tape a big paper asterisk onto our trophy.

No asterisk. Not even close. We could pick out tons of questionable calls along the way and extrapolate from there, which in itself, would be inaccurate. The game is a game of ebbs and flows, and UVa has absolutely nothing to apologize for. The final 8 teams were the 8 best teams in the country. They fought it out. Hard. We saw some excellent quarters and semis. Every one of those 8 had their chance, and could have legitimately claimed the trophy. UVa showed they were the best team today.

Congrats to all UVa players, coaches, and fans.

+1

[DaneFan]

TD still won like 75% of the faceoffs against one of the better FOGOs in the nation, and he was over 90% in the second half. Maybe they weren't all clean, but it was business as usual for TD. The difference was the offense wasn't capitalizing today.

I don't know what the final box score looked like, and unlike when TD whens it clean he won quite a few today taking it away from the UVA FOGO after they won the clamp or won a contested situation. I recall only a few where he won it clean and would have allowed early offense which is what drove Albany and to a large extent Yale this season. This showed when Yale had to play 6 v 6 offense and couldn't create.

And when have you seen an opposing FOGO when to clean and come down and score?

Statistically TD still had a good day, but he didn't win them in a way that allowed man up opportunities and unsettled opportunities.

[jhu7276]

That was a total butt kicking as the “Hoos gave the Eli’s fits”. Congrats to the Cavs...

Is Handsome Dan sweating yet?

touche!

[random observer]

TD still won like 75% of the faceoffs against one of the better FOGOs in the nation, and he was over 90% in the second half. Maybe they weren't all clean, but it was business as usual for TD. The difference was the offense wasn't capitalizing today.

I don't know what the final box score looked like, and unlike when TD whens it clean he won quite a few today taking it away from the UVA FOGO after they won the clamp or won a contested situation. I recall only a few where he won it clean and would have allowed early offense which is what drove Albany and to a large extent Yale this season. This showed when Yale had to play 6 v 6 offense and couldn't create.

And when have you seen an opposing FOGO when to clean and come down and score?

Statistically TD still had a good day, but he didn't win them in a way that allowed man up opportunities and unsettled opportunities.

Arceri did it 3 times just two days ago. Gallagher did it a few times this year.

Also, I get the feeling some people here haven't watched that much of Yale this year before the tournament. Ierlan isn't a true "pinch and pop", fast break fogo. He usually wins them far more cleanly than he did today, but he's typically more the type to pop the ball into space to get an easy gb. Yale wasn't scoring directly off the face-off against PSU they were just spinning the ball around and making the Lions defense dizzy. They were not nearly as crisp with their ball movement today.

[blue angels]

FWIW, PSU, Penn, and Yale were evenly matched. And... neither Yale nor PSU played a single ACC team while Penn played one, Duke, and lost 17-7. Obviously, until the C'ship Final. Apropos to nothing but still interesting to me.

Well said. There have been some outrageously disrespectful posts about Virginia by some mostly Ivy fans here and elsewhere over the course of the tournament. I would never have predicted the drubbing we gave them but most Virginia fans quietly thought we had an excellent chance. There were no truly dominant teams this year.

[DaneFan]

I watched TD up close and personal so know his game well. Agree he isn't a pure pinch and pop guy like Gallagher for Penn, but he usually wins it very cleanly, escapes quickly and initiates a lot of early offense. Other than Baptiste, Mackie, the Maryland guys two years ago, I haven't seen TD slowed down quite like this. I am sure there was another game or two, but Yale without Reeves reminded me of Albany with Connor playing on one leg, and neither team had great offenses when forced to play 6 v 6 against a superior defensive opponent.

Not a knock on TD, but a testament to how good he is, and how he can make a good offensive group pretty prolific.

[thetruth]

Yale was fatigued today and the heat compounded it. UVA was the better conditioned team which allowed them to be more aggressive. Yale was lethargic and tight, and UVA took advantage of it. Credit to the UVA staff.

[swf]

by Matnum PI » Mon May 27, 2019 2:22 pm
Brook, agreed. Pre-Lars, UVA's D was awful. Consistently one of the worst in D1 Men Lacrosse. And for no good reason. They had talented D-men.

Not a good reason; A bad one. JOE STARSIA LASAGNA

[HoosBaby]

Kinda kills me that some are making it seems as though Ierlan had a "meh" game. That dude was a beast, and basically kept Yale in the game by himself. UVA rotated at FOGO a good bit, looking for the fatigue factor. Didn't happen. UVA's FOGOs are pretty good, but Ielan controlled the action all day except for a brief period in the 1st half. That's a credit to how good Ierlan is. It was at the other positions that the game was decided.

The Hoos clearly game planned to be very physical and aggressive, and to rotate a lot of guys.

You can argue that UVA played its A game at money time, and Yale really didn't. That's fair. But without some league cross scheduling it's hard to make a reasonable judgement on that.

The "bracket" arguments, to me, are not very convincing. Duke was/is much better than Yale, not close. Had the Hoos not escaped Duke, the Devils would have won going away.

Anyway, the only reason I joined and posted was the title of the OP. I have been chastised that the vast majority here are good folks, and from reading around I agree with that. Never disrespect your opponent, or anyone for that matter.

Hope to discuss various topics with y'all in the future.

[HoosBaby]

by Matnum PI » Mon May 27, 2019 2:22 pm
Brook, agreed. Pre-Lars, UVA's D was awful. Consistently one of the worst in D1 Men Lacrosse. And for no good reason. They had talented D-men.

Not a good reason; A bad one. JOE STARSIA LASAGNA

You're kidding right?

UVA lacrosse had a little bit of success under Dom.

The culture and some really unfortunate circumstances caused a huge shock and caused a setback in results. Maybe some of that Dom should be criticized for, emphasizing "some", but with Lars UVA is in a very good place right now and into the future. The talent flow is already very stout, maybe not quite as good as Duke's, but still formidable. And with a stronger culture and style, nothing but good things ahead. This isn't the apex for UVA lacrosse by a long shot (pardon the pun) but a marker for the future.

[calourie]

Viginia spent much of the season learning how to play with a sense of urgency in all of their comebacks. That lesson seems to have been well learned and paid off handsomely as they did that in today's game from the get go. It's what made them the look like the more athletic team for most of the game. Yale finally caught on in too big a deficit to have it matter much towards the end of the game. Rode was amazing in the cage, and La Salla and Swenck good enought at the x to blunt Yale's ability to find themselves in a timely fashion.

[DMac]

One of you stats guys probably know what the record stands at for teams that played first, and the ones that played second on Saturaday, and which team has won the most titles. Pretty sure there's a big difference there. Tambroni's game plan was to beat TD up (not in a malicious sense) and it looked today as itf it worked. Just took a day or so to take full effect. That Sat evening game and right back at 'em at miday Mon is pretty tough (considering the competition), that's not much time for dings and bangs to heal. It sure aint easy to win that title, and to repeat...well, that's really tough too.

[random observer]

One of you stats guys probably know what the record stands at for teams that played first, and the ones that played second on Saturaday, and which team has won the most titles. Pretty sure there's a big difference there. Tambroni's game plan was to beat TD up (not in a malicious sense) and it looked today as itf it worked. Just took a day or so to take full effect. That Sat evening game and right back at 'em at miday Mon is pretty tough (considering the competition), that's not much time for dings and bangs to heal. It sure aint easy to win that title, and to repeat...well, that's really tough too.

Since 2010 when Duke won it all and played in the second semi, the winner of the first semi has won every year except 2017 when that stacked Maryland senior class finally broke through.

[thetruth]

A big part of UVA’s success this year was due to the fact that they had great senior leadership and the players took ownership of the season after some early struggles. That senior leadership is exactly what Yale had last year. Penn had it this year too.