PotomacRiver wrote: ↑Wed Jun 05, 2024 10:46 pm
DocBarrister wrote: ↑Wed Jun 05, 2024 9:30 pm
A lot of you folks are giving me a hard time about urging the Hopkins offense to get more aggressive. You say I’m delusional despite QK and other writers saying pretty much the same thing.
You give me a hard time about saying Collison should dodge more. But some of you (HopFan16) say Collison has first team AA potential (and I agree), but then don’t really say what that next step is.
Tell me, how many first team AA middies are out there who can’t dodge. I’m delusional because I think Collison can dodge? Something he did spectacularly from time to time. Some of you have some real issues with reality.
Fact is, Collison does have first team AA potential. Division I coaches see that. Frankly, I think that’s one reason he made third team AA this year (I think his play merited HM AA). But he is never going to achieve first team AA if he doesn’t dodge more frequently and aggressively. Being a cutter and setting picks isn’t going to make him a top Division I middie.
This reminds me of how much grief I got for pushing Petro to adopt a more aggressive takeaway defense that causes turnovers, prevents shots from even being taken, and pushes transition offense. It was a running joke around here.
And after more than a decade of pushing for an aggressive defense? Pretty much every top team plays aggressive defense, although styles can differ. Hopkins plays an aggressive defense now. Even Petro’s UNC defense causes turnovers at a pretty good clip.
I was right a decade ago and I got a lot of grief for it.
So … maybe I should have earned a bit of trust when I say (and Quint says) that the Blue Jays need a more aggressive offense. More early offense when opportunities arise (we saw a bit of that in the NCAA tournament). More aggressive dodging from the middies (saw a bit of that against Lehigh). I think Quint is right … Blue Jays need to be less conservative and more aggressive on O if they ever want to reach the Final Four again.
That’s not delusional. That’s just common sense.
I was right about aggressive defense. I’m pretty sure I’m right about the O and I’m not alone in my view.
Biggest win of 2024? Virginia, regular season, when the Hopkins middies went wild on the Cavaliers.
Case closed.
DocBarrister
Haven't looked at the forum in a few days but just glancing back at the last few pages of posts, things seem to have devolved a bit, everyone isn't as far apart on this as it seems. I don't think anyone would disagree that the Hopkins offense, particularly in the back half of the season, was lacking in its ability to reliably generate offense in 6v6 sets and this was largely because of a lack of effective dodging. Hence Quint's "minimally invasive" comments during gamecast. However, there is a disagreement over the cause of this problem: A) Hopkins was limited by its personnel vs B) the personnel was there but the coaches were holding them back. Let's get into specifics here...my general impressions player by player:
Angelus: Great feet, quick change of direction. Lacks straight line speed to consistently challenge D1 poles to score or draw a slide, but could occasionally sneak one in if defender out of position/caught napping. When switched onto a shortie, quick enough to be a scoring threat and looked to go to the goal more often this year when presented with that matchup. However, still more of an opportunistic passer/orchestrator of the offense; even when switched onto short stick, teams generally seemed to be inclined to let the matchup play out rather than send quick slide. Sometimes that would burn them, but preferable to early sliding that allows ball movement to an open Degnon.
Melendez: Not the same player as last year; sometimes would show flashes of quickness but looked a step slow. More than that though, mostly very passive with the ball in his stick. Interestingly in last UVA game, some of our early best offense was getting Melendez switched onto a SSDM; in those handful of matchups he was a real scoring threat, but we kind of moved away from that. Hard to know exactly what was going on with him this year (injury, confidence, both). But when healthy, a player who can pose a legitimate threat to go to goal against a pole, and a "red alarm" player for the defense against a short stick.
Degnon: Power shooter. Best with feet set on left wing sniping off of ball movement, but added wrinkle to his game sweeping to his left from up top with an on ball pick that could free up his hands for a couple seconds. Those plays looked spectacular when they worked, but if you watch possession-to-possession, he shot the ball straight into goalie stick on many of those. Another added wrinkle to his game was winding up for shot from the left wing, but faking and bringing stick across his body to get inside and then do a slick finish. Overall more a beneficiary of ball movement rather than sometime who initiates ball movement.
Bauer: Pretty fast and quick. Good passer and always dodges with head up. Not a huge threat to score 1v1 against a pole, but can run by shortsticks. I will say he often does seem to dodge to pass, rather than dodge to score but ready to pass the ball in event of a slide. Should be quite productive next year if he doesn't draw the pole.
Grimes: Strong shot, big but neither quick nor fast and mostly goes to his left. Was main dodger on 2nd midfield line, as he often drew shortstick. Despite his size, often easily pushed off balance. Struggled to beat shortsticks and defenses would just do a quick hedge slide+recover without anyone really rotating.
Peshko: Same as above but right handed. Slightly more pep in his step, so off ball movement could sometimes beat a shortie who wasn't broken down into proper defensive stance and go to goal.
Chauvette: Pure shooter, neither fast nor quick nor strong. But lightning fast release and can pick corners.
Collison: The tough one. Big, strong, and has a powerful left handed shot. Average straight line speed, below average quickness. Because of his size, doesn't need to outright beat his man to get a shot off. Really wants to get to his left hand. His freshman year, one of his most effective plays was dodging against shortstick from behind the goal and then getting above goal line extended for a question mark dodge back to his left hand for quick shot; teams are now ready for that and send a quick double to his back before he turns left. From up top, teams force him to his right hand down the alley and hedge from the crease + have a strong slide ready to his blind side in case he turns back left. Otherwise on lefty sweep dodges across the top, the SSDM would really overplay his left. Struggles dealing with double teams; either tries to do too much and runs into the double for turnover, or attempts hero pass rather than pass adjacent to allow quick ball movement. He absolutely can dodge, but a big area for improvement is passing out of doubles and better anticipation of where the slides are coming from (reflected in being 2nd on team in turnovers despite not being the main dodger). If he can improve in that area over the summer/fall ball, could absolutely have a 1st team AA-type season.
In short, I think there's an intermediate here. I mostly see a team of skilled players, but lacking in elite dodging threats...though for different reasons. The coaches don't want to sabotage the team, and they aren't stupid. I'd be shocked if they purposely are holding back an elite dodging threat just for giggles. The offense simply didn't have a lot of effective dodging threats this year, some due to just physical/talent limitations, and others because they need to grow a bit more as 6v6 lacrosse players. But again, I don't think it's controversial at all that for us to have success next year, Collison will have to play a bigger role as both initiator and scorer, just needs to improve a few things. I'm certainly rooting for him to do so.
