Johns Hopkins 2020

[DocBarrister]

There are lacrosse programs who accepted early recruits but did not announce them until later. There are lacrosse programs that have advised recruits to accept an offer from a next choice school and them flip if the are accepted there. There are players that told programs if you didn't accept them they would go elsewhere. Accounting for all this variables is next to impossible.

Not a little selection bias going on. Starsis BTW gave a huge impetus to ER lone before 2011.

It would probably be useful to deal with why kids decide to attend a particular school. How changes in the game have affected various programs , how personnel changes have affected various programs etc etc.

The coaches can coach and develop players. There is no one in lacrosse who questions it that i know. The question is what has set back getting the athletes needed to win titles. Have to account for injuries in there as well.

You won’t get athletic defensemen if you don’t play an athletic style of defense. Also true: even the athletic defensemen you do get won’t be utilized well if you don’t play an aggressive, athletic style of defense.

Petro’s defenses have been getting more physical and we have seen their athleticism in transition play. But the defense makes far too many bad decisions. In recent years, I think Petro has lacked a vocal defensive leader on the field. Lots of good defensemen, but not playing as a cohesive unit. Saw glimpses of the potential in the two games against Maryland last year.

The model, modern defenses? Loyola and Yale. They play defense the way Hopkins needs to play defense if the Blue Jays want another national title.

DocBarrister

[OCanada]

Pretty much a non sequitor.

[HopFan16]

The model, modern defenses? Loyola and Yale. They play defense the way Hopkins needs to play defense if the Blue Jays want another national title.

DocBarrister

Yale's defense stunk last year. #58 in defensive efficiency and #37 in goals allowed per game (despite controlling possession in pretty much every contest). Defense definitely helped them win the title in 2018 (#5 in adjusted D efficiency that year) but in 2019 they were able to make the title game again because of an elite FOGO and high-powered offense. Defense had nothing to do with it. In NCAA tourney games prior to the championship, Yale allowed 16, 18, and 17 goals. That's nobody's idea of a "model" defense. Of course, they obviously could afford to have a sucky defense when they had TD Ierlan winning every faceoff. Our FOGO unit was solid but not nearly good enough to be able to mask the deficiencies on defense. Our offense was similar to Yale's in efficiency. Which was: good enough to compete.

This is of course not to say that defense doesn't matter. It does. That's probably why Virginia won the title, because its D got hot towards the end. But we don't need the defense to suddenly be what it was in the early-mid 2000s. You don't need a Tucker Durkin to make the Final Four. You do need it to be much, much better than it is, though, especially when the other two-thirds of the field aren't quite strong enough to make up for it. IMO, in the modern game, you need to dominate at least 2/3 of the game (offense, defense, faceoffs) to truly be elite. Can pretty much pick any two, and if the third is just average or sometimes even below average, you'll have a shot to go places. But right now just being "good" in 2 of the 3 areas is not good enough to account for the clusterf%$! on one end.

[Homer]

Most high school lacrosse stars “don’t pan out” in terms of becoming college lacrosse stars. That’s just the nature of sports. That’s true of both the early and late bloomers. A former high school All-American playing on a team full of other high school All-Americans may not even get much playing time.

"Maybe our players aren't very good. No matter. So few among us are truly 'good', if by 'good' you mean 'as good at lacrosse as Tom Schreiber'. Let us not get entangled tediously in whether other teams' not-Schreibers might in some relative sense be better than ours. I say there is none righteous, no, not one."

Neither early recruiting nor President Daniels are responsible for the decline seen at Hopkins. If you want to see the main reason, take a look at Petro’s defenses. Too complex, too passive, and often not nearly physical enough. Early recruiting has nothing to do with outdated defensive schemes.

Wait, are you saying sometimes the coaches have ideas about what will make the team better and those ideas are incorrect? Come on, that's so intellectually lazy. The coaches who teach passive defense do it for one reason ... it gives them a competitive advantage.

The 2020 Blue Jays, largely assembled through early recruiting, are among the most talented teams in the country.

There are a couple ways one might go about assessing such a statement. One would be to look at some measures of actual college performance, like game results or AA nods, like 51% did a few posts back. The other would be to rely on DocBarrister's imagination . Make sure you choose the right one.

[houndace1]

There are lacrosse programs who accepted early recruits but did not announce them until later. There are lacrosse programs that have advised recruits to accept an offer from a next choice school and them flip if the are accepted there. There are players that told programs if you didn't accept them they would go elsewhere. Accounting for all this variables is next to impossible.

Not a little selection bias going on. Starsis BTW gave a huge impetus to ER lone before 2011.

It would probably be useful to deal with why kids decide to attend a particular school. How changes in the game have affected various programs , how personnel changes have affected various programs etc etc.

The coaches can coach and develop players. There is no one in lacrosse who questions it that i know. The question is what has set back getting the athletes needed to win titles. Have to account for injuries in there as well.

You won’t get athletic defensemen if you don’t play an athletic style of defense. Also true: even the athletic defensemen you do get won’t be utilized well if you don’t play an aggressive, athletic style of defense.

Petro’s defenses have been getting more physical and we have seen their athleticism in transition play. But the defense makes far too many bad decisions. In recent years, I think Petro has lacked a vocal defensive leader on the field. Lots of good defensemen, but not playing as a cohesive unit. Saw glimpses of the potential in the two games against Maryland last year.

The model, modern defenses? Loyola and Yale. They play defense the way Hopkins needs to play defense if the Blue Jays want another national title.

DocBarrister

Thanks for the compliment but our Defense being so young last year may have played hard-nosed and physical, but still let in a walloping 21 goals to penn state, 15 to syracuse, 18 to boston university, 14 to georgetown, 12 to towson, 12 to you guys, 13 to Duke

[51percentcorn]

What's the other saying Wombat? "Never argue with an idiot - he will drag the argument down to his level and beat you with experience"
Look - if Petro has been early recruiting since he arrived - hasn't he been teaching defense since he arrived as well - so the defense that won two championships - held 2003 national Champ UVA to under 10 goals twice - held offensive juggernaut Duke to 1 second half goal in the 2005 title game - 2007 semis - 3 goals allowed etc. - no GAA in double digits until something like 2009 or 2010 - what's the explanation there? He woke up in 2009 and decided - I am going to be more passive and more complicated? - Please. He had BETTER players - that were recruited and evaluated when they had at least finished their high school sophomore season and many their junior season - not the summer before they even stepped in their respective high schools. And they played alot of the same slide and recover concepts that Hopkins employs now - as O'C has pointed out time and again - the sticks made alot of coaches determine the hound and chase man to man could not be sustained.

I have often said - that there are unicorns that can be identified early and you know they are going to be special no matter how much they grow - Schreiber, Rambo, Moore, Aitken, Thompsons, Epstein etc. etc. and if the rules allow it you are doing a disservice to your program by not recruiting them. But they are few and far between maybe no more than 5 almost certainly no more than 10 per class that are worth the shot. The hard part was having the discipline to walk away when those 5 were gone - and Hopkins had the very worst discipline of any program - I don't think that point can be argued. The counterweight to the approach was to over recruit in numbers - and therefore the number of Type I mistakes grew exponentially and likely so did the Type II mistakes (those being harder to identify because you don't really know who might have attended Hopkins if Hopkins had more patience and space on the roster)

In addition, the head man himself in one of those recent video or podcast interviews said in coach speak (paraphrase but pretty close) "maybe if we did it all over again we would not have gone so far in that direction" Translation - we really screwed up with recruiting high school freshmen and 8th graders.

[wgdsr]

Starsis BTW gave a huge impetus to ER lone before 2011.

your continuing to push this fallacy, lord knows how many years later, after being undisputedly disproven from your claims (especially your original ones), continues to be outright comical and self-discrediting.
you are miles better than this.

[wgdsr]

The model, modern defenses? Loyola and Yale. They play defense the way Hopkins needs to play defense if the Blue Jays want another national title.
DocBarrister

Yale's defense stunk last year. #58 in defensive efficiency and #37 in goals allowed per game (despite controlling possession in pretty much every contest). Defense definitely helped them win the title in 2018 (#5 in adjusted D efficiency that year) but in 2019 they were able to make the title game again because of an elite FOGO and high-powered offense. Defense had nothing to do with it. In NCAA tourney games prior to the championship, Yale allowed 16, 18, and 17 goals. That's nobody's idea of a "model" defense. Of course, they obviously could afford to have a sucky defense when they had TD Ierlan winning every faceoff. Our FOGO unit was solid but not nearly good enough to be able to mask the deficiencies on defense. Our offense was similar to Yale's in efficiency. Which was: good enough to compete.

not sure what you're talking about. yale is "aggressive and athletic". they're modern.
so was loyola when they gave up 11 goals and the lead in less than a quarter of play for an 8 goal deficit. only to have spencer claw them back in and then give up 5 more. (in fairness, loyola and stover had their moments throughout the year).

speaking of d and not limited to hopkins -- why hasn't kyle georgalas gotten a godfather offer to coach defense from someone? expecting that alberici is untouchable -- army teams, now under a shot clock (and with no faceoff group to speak of), continue to have one of the best defenses around, year after year. whatever they're doing-- in the modern, athletic, aggressive era -- seems to be what's working. they're not playing acc offenses every week, but they see them some and their resume for a long time has been stellar. bring in some top-10 type defenders and who knows what he could do.

[OCanada]

Sorry bud. VA always seems to be Snow White in your narratives and no you have never disproved anything. It frankly I don’t really care

[wgdsr]

Sorry bud but it is true and you playing defense isn’t going to change it. VA always seems to be Snow White in your narratives.

lol. you make a sweeping generalization with no basis in fact, no details, no proof, no nada. as always. and it's on me.

ftr, i defend all types of folks on this forum and its predecessors, regardless of their laundry. including blue jays.
what i actually don't like and sometimes call out is people that come on here anonymously and rip others when they have little to nothing to base **it on, if it's egregious, inaccurate or just plain pathological. as it is in this case.

virginia (and about everyone else), starsia --- have had as much to contribute negatively and positively as anyone, depending on the cause du jour. spin doctors, not so much.

[OCanada]

Get a grip. I didn’t make any sweeping claims and nothing was ever disproved. But if it was have at it. Get a grip. What I said was an impetus was provided. That set in motion a chain of events. I am not interested in rehashing LaxPower though i sort of wish it was readily accessible sometimes. Nor did I claim VA jumped into ER in a major way back then.

BTW impetus definition. Accelerant; something that makes something happen quicker than it might otherwise happen.

[FannOLax]

The model, modern defenses? Loyola and Yale. They play defense the way Hopkins needs to play defense if the Blue Jays want another national title.
DocBarrister

Yale's defense stunk last year. #58 in defensive efficiency and #37 in goals allowed per game (despite controlling possession in pretty much every contest). Defense definitely helped them win the title in 2018 (#5 in adjusted D efficiency that year) but in 2019 they were able to make the title game again because of an elite FOGO and high-powered offense. Defense had nothing to do with it. In NCAA tourney games prior to the championship, Yale allowed 16, 18, and 17 goals. That's nobody's idea of a "model" defense. Of course, they obviously could afford to have a sucky defense when they had TD Ierlan winning every faceoff. Our FOGO unit was solid but not nearly good enough to be able to mask the deficiencies on defense. Our offense was similar to Yale's in efficiency. Which was: good enough to compete.

not sure what you're talking about. yale is "aggressive and athletic". they're modern.
so was loyola when they gave up 11 goals and the lead in less than a quarter of play for an 8 goal deficit. only to have spencer claw them back in and then give up 5 more. (in fairness, loyola and stover had their moments throughout the year).

But, as a Yale fan, I can confirm that HopFan16's stats don't lie. The Yale defense was terrific in 2018, but after the graduations of Keating, O'Connor, Warner and Alessi, the Elis' D was clearly not a strength in 2019. Last season, the Yale D played well against Cornell, but overall left something to be desired... although any number of the goals conceded came in "junk time" after games had been pretty much already won.

[wgdsr]

Get a grip. I didn’t make any sweeping claims and nothing was ever disproved. But if it was have at it. Get a grip. What I said was an impetus was provided. That set in motion a chain of events. I am not interested in rehashing LaxPower though i sort of wish it was readily accessible sometimes. Nor did I claim VA jumped into ER in a major way back then.

BTW impetus definition. Accelerant; something that makes something happen quicker than it might otherwise happen.

say it out loud with one sentence of details so everyone can see how ridiculous your claim is.

[MDlaxfan76]

Interesting back and forth. Of the various discussions above, I find Homer's analysis most cogent.

This was a tragedy of the commons problem.

Once the ER train got rolling, and no regulatory authority put the brakes on, coaches had no choice but to participate, at least to some degree.

"Tragedy".

I'd ask the question a bit differently: Did high participation in driving ER ever earlier, with larger and larger portions of the commits coming easier and earlier, did any such programs markedly improve their outcomes relative to prior periods?

IMO, the initial "leaders" in pushing ER earlier and earlier, with larger % of early commits were Starsia, Breschi, and Petro. We can argue that Tillman was an active later participant, others as well, but those three were the earliest movers year after year at the beginning and regularly had the bulk of the class committed before other programs.

For UVA, it's very difficult to argue that ER improved outcomes, on or off the field, indeed at the tail end of Starsia's long, highly successful tenure team dynamics had become downright toxic. Lots of 'talent' but declining outcomes with a single positive blip when a traumatic move was made late mid-season changing that dynamic briefly. One could argue that factors other than ER contributed to these issues, but one can't argue (IMO) that ER was "successful" for the program.

For UNC, maybe it could be argued that Breschi's tenure, including his recruiting, improved the trajectory of the program. But was ER the positive or would simply more active recruiting for a quite attractive campus and program in a non-ER era have been equally successful? Even so, while I'm a fan of some of the players on that 2016 team, especially it's captain Matthai, it's hard not to see that spurt as more than a unique event for them.

For Hop, It's hard to argue anything positive re the impact of ER on the program. Certainly the program is not better off post ER than pre-ER.

Again, given the 'tragedy of the commons' dynamic, it's not a question of whether Petro needed to at least participate, best he could. He did, given no regulation.

So, here's where my criticism of these 3 "leaders" has always been: They quite frequently decried ER as bad for the kids, while also being the ever earlier first-movers. 10th graders, then freshmen, then 8th graders. IMO, as senior members of the coaching ranks, I think they had a duty to the sport, to the kids, to step up and demand regulation. But they didn't. Instead they whined publicly, but kept being the most aggressive in ER. Why? I think they believed that ER was advantageous to them versus their competitors, particularly schools that had relative restrictions on timing due to their Admissions committees. For instance Ivy and service academies. Ivies in particular were competing more strenuously for players and ER was seen as a way to preempt them. Can't prove it, but I've heard enough commentary from those coaches to believe that was what was on their minds, as well as the knowledge that a couple of their fellow coaches were going earlier and earlier too. So, they focused on their self-interests and ignored what I think was their higher responsibility.

The women stepped up.
These guys should have done so.

wgdsr, you and I are UVA fans. I don't mean to offend you by my critique of Dom's latter period, nor of him certainly as a human being. I just think this ER mess was a mistake that he was a key part of moving forward faster and faster, as were Breschi and Petro. They could and should have gotten together and demanded the NCAA help put some regulatory brakes on the practice. I don't think it helped them or their programs relative to their fundamental recruiting and coaching would have done absent ER and it was a mistake for the sport. They were in a position to lead in a positive way. Mistake not to have done so.

[MDlaxfan76]

Get a grip. I didn’t make any sweeping claims and nothing was ever disproved. But if it was have at it. Get a grip. What I said was an impetus was provided. That set in motion a chain of events. I am not interested in rehashing LaxPower though i sort of wish it was readily accessible sometimes. Nor did I claim VA jumped into ER in a major way back then.

BTW impetus definition. Accelerant; something that makes something happen quicker than it might otherwise happen.

say it out loud with one sentence of details so everyone can see how ridiculous your claim is.

I'll say it in one sentence.

Starsia was one of the key coaches who from 2000 forward each took turns, earlier and earlier, having the first commit of a class and the first to fill half a class of commits, with this process gaining greatest momentum post 2010.

Doesn't take away from his many triumphs nor his positive attributes as a coach, a father, husband, friend, mentor, man.

[DocBarrister]

Game has changed since Petro’s earlier years at Hopkins. You can’t play a passive style of defense geared to give away shots from 12-15 yards out (from bad angles and the off-hand), relying on your goalie to make those saves. There are far more good shooters out there who can nail those shots, and unless you have a prime time Larry Quinn in goal, your goalie ain’t stoppin’ those shots.

Coach Bill Tierney, who helped teach Petro defense, seemed to recognize the change first. As Tierney once said, he abandoned winning low scoring games years ago.

These days, it seems more effective to press out and play aggressively. Sure, you still have to play good positional defense, but you also need to play aggressively, pounding the shooter’s hands and harassing them all over the field. Just as importantly, today’s best defenses work to take away the ball and initiate offense. It’s a very physical, aggressive, risk taking style that teams like Loyola and Yale play.

Hopkins needs to play that style of defense. Pietramala seems to have adopted a “hybrid” approach to defense. Let the horses loose and allow the D to gamble more.

DocBarrister

[HopFan16]

Both things can be true:

1) With some notable exceptions, Hopkins generally screwed the pooch with its early recruiting strategy

and

2) The defense has been steadily trending toward being ungood since Durkin/Bassett graduated—and early recruiting does not entirely account for that. Ineffective scheme, poor player development, munchkin middies, whatever you want to blame. But ER is not solely responsible.

Game has changed since Petro’s earlier years at Hopkins. You can’t play a passive style of defense geared to give away shots from 12-15 yards out (from bad angles and the off-hand), relying on your goalie to make those saves. There are far more good shooters out there who can nail those shots, and unless you have a prime time Larry Quinn in goal, your goalie ain’t stoppin’ those shots.

Call me crazy but I would expect a D1 goalie to be able to consistently stop bad angle, off-hand shots from 12-15 yards out. That doesn't require LQ in net.

Team is going nowhere unless it gets better goaltending. Pretty much everything else is immaterial until that happens. Of course, one way to get better goaltending is to play better defense in front of the goalie (I know, rocket science!). Though last year's regular season finale against Maryland might like to have a word with that theory. Good D apparently does not always equate to good goaltending.

[PeteStreet]

I agree with the notion that Petro's defensive scheme/passive defensive style is a huge negative, as well as the (lack of) size of midfielders on both ends of the field. I'd also like to add that there are some fundamental, individual defensive mistakes I see far too often with the Hopkins defense which includes ball watching and lunging. There really isn't an excuse for the excessive ball watching. When you leave top-tier attackmen wide open on the crease or wide open within a few yards of the goal, you're just not doing your job, individually speaking. Sure some guys are extra shifty and will force you to slide when not prepared or will cut without you noticing but this happens way more than it should, and the camera doesn't lie when all the viewers can see the defensive heads are not on a swivel.

[OCanada]

WDGSR. Sheesh. You claimed my point has been disproven. To make that statement you have to know the point. So go ahead and lay out the case against. That should not be a problem per your claim. You have made wild accusations and unsustainable claims.

MDLaxfan put it succinctly above

[51percentcorn]

Trying to be measured here:
It's certainly a reasonable opinion to think that Hopkins' defensive schemes are not suited to the game today, are not pressure oriented enough etc. Though I submit I am not good enough nor do I have the proper information (what exactly are the schemes, why do they do what they do, what happens in practice, film days etc.) to provide such an analysis. To my lizard brain it appears the defense suffers from two obvious issues that don't require such information. The defensive midfielders - despite being fine young men and giving supreme effort for my alma mater - were not up to the task at hand physically and the recent goalie editions - again despite their best efforts - did not excel at job #1 - saving the ball.

Both BTW can be tied to some degree to early recruiting. As an obvious example, when you recruit Danny Jones as a high school freshman you might think that the 5'5" 130 lbs (or whatever) is going to change. He also looks more like everybody else at that age. And you might as well have a monkey throw a dart at a map as to try to recruit goalies off of the summer circuit when they haven't played a single high school varsity game.

Defensive philosophies are not the be all end all to Hopkins woes. Things will get better when goaltending improves and when the defense can be more measured in sliding to help the SSDMs. Again, look at the OT goal in the BIG final - ball coming in from the end line and we are so concerned about a middie guarded by a SSDM that we lose complete defensive integrity and leave the most lethal shooter in the game with time and room.