They dominated possession in lots of games this season and didn’t perform as well in the 4Q as they did against Duke. I was at the Hopkins game, they had tons of possessions in that 4Q and dominated face-offs…..they scored 5 goals.coda wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2024 9:07 amI dont think it surprising that the Maryland offense had a high efficiency in the 4q in a game where they dominated possession. Fatigue is not calculated in efficiency. That Duke game was about Defense and Weirman. Duke's offense struggled all day in 6 v 6. If the offense wasnt turning the ball over the entire 1st half, Duke doesnt probably scores 8 or less. Offense gave Duke multiple goals. Duke had 10 caused turnovers, at least 3-4 of those turned into fast break goals. Not all empty possessions are equal. Those numbers were boosted with Jamieson having 1 of his worst games. Efficiency is a useful metric, but it doesnt tell the whole story. If we are talking about Duke's biggest issue over the course of the season, it was maddening ability of one the most talented offenses in the country to completely disappear at times.jrn19 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 20, 2024 10:10 pmThe 70% faceoff advantage was, obviously, an advantage.coda wrote: ↑Thu Jun 20, 2024 5:01 pmI think this is a bit of an over-reaction to the finish. Keep in mind Maryland won those games behind 70% faceoff advantage. I didnt think the ACC had goaltending issues. Virginia did. Everyone else got solid play all year. The Duke kid picked the worst possible moment to look like a freshman, but that isnt shocking. Not bringing in the senior Goalie was shocking. That loss to Maryland was about faceoffs and just a complete lack of adjustments by the Duke staff. Defensively the ACC was solid. UVA has some great athletes and cover guys, but they were and have been undisciplined. That got highlighted, when the goalie situation fell apart. Even then they gave up 34 goals in 3 tournament games, that isnt a bad number. UVa lost that game due to faceoffs and having 0 offensive answers..1766 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 20, 2024 2:12 pmTalent is one thing. Organized talent is another. This discussion was had during the season when "Big Tom" was espousing the greatness of Acc offenses. He poo poo'd the argument that outside of ND, it's the lack of defense and goaltending in that league leading to such scores. We saw that play out in the tournament. Outside of ND, the lack of organization on the defensive end and bad goalie play lead to a lot of high scoring games.JerrysWorld wrote: ↑Thu Jun 20, 2024 1:45 pm I think these transfers could be really good. But I don’t think it elevates us to a talent level of the ACC, as you said. We’ve proven that we don’t need to be at that level though.
The kid Boyden was the Player of the Year from Tufts and he was solid at Virginia, but not spectacular. I think the Fairfield one will be the best.
Looking forward to it.
Maryland's offensive efficiency in all 3 of their tournament wins was also very good, and a key part of why they won. Here's the adjusted efficiency numbers in all games
MD v Princeton: 33% MD-22% Princeton
MD v Duke: 34% MD-34% Duke
MD v UVA: 31% MD-18% UVA
The Duke game in particular *was* about MD's offense in addition to the other factors. Maryland scored 7 goals on 13 possessions in the 4Q against Duke. Obviously, having 7 more possessions in the quarter was a huge benefit. But they had to take advantage of it, and did. There were plenty of games this year where Maryland had a decisive FO adv and the offense didn't come along with it. They scored 42 goals in their first 3 NCAA games, that's either down to some good offense or less than stellar defense from the opponent
Just equating MD’s success in the playoffs to faceoffs is very reductive; we literally saw the offensive changes the team made. They were significant