Northwestern v. Maryland 4/23/2022 at 11:30 AM

[wlaxphan20]

As for a stain on MD, is it a stain on NU that-IMO-they were coached to consistently be in 3 seconds and commit shooting space violations- which is dangerous- and instead of playing to the intent of the rules looked to force the officials to make them ?

Sure, teams taking advantage of poorly written rules can be frustrating - look at stalling, or that one season that 3 seconds was a minor penalty. IMO flopping/diving/etc. is just very poor sportsmanship, in all sports. But again, the players aren't the ones blowing the whistle, and as of now there is no rule in women's lacrosse to discourage these antics.

If you want to speculate about coaches on all teams encouraging players to sell fouls, sure. FTR, I believe coaches telling players to sell fouls happens on every single team in all of sports.

Ha. No, it most certainly does not. You can't possibly believe that.

The MW horse is indeed long dead and my intention wasn't to bring it back to the surface (I was specifically hoping that video would NOT come up when I wrote the post). My point was more generally about pervasive flopping. MD is not the only offender but it is one of the worst.

Sorry I should have been more specific. When I’m talking about it happening on all teams I mean is if there is actually a foul taking place - you need do x, y, or x (“sell it”) to make sure the official knows. I’m not talking about players pretending to get fouled and completely faking it when nothing actually took place at all - that I don’t believe is happening on all teams.

[Essexfenwick]

Why is it when Coach K teaches flopping as part of his defense, it’s good strategy, but when they do it in women’s lacrosse it’s so awful?

People who lose to UMD lax and Duke basketball are frustrated. It’s just human nature. There are many that whine about both.

[cltlax]

Why is it when Coach K teaches flopping as part of his defense, it’s good strategy, but when they do it in women’s lacrosse it’s so awful?

That's precisely why I hate Duke basketball as much as I do. Equally as awful in either sport.

[cltlax]

Woman’s lacrosse is more like basketball since you can’t physically check like the men’s game. The defense is positioning so you can’t charge. If a defensive player is good at getting position on a charging offensive player and the player runs into them hard enough to sell a flop then that is terrific defense. Woman’s lacrosse awards speed more than bulling to the goal due to the inability of the defense to forcefully stick check.

I agree, basketball and women's lacrosse have a lot of similarities. I'm not sure if your post is in response to the player mentioned above, but when I think of that player I usually think of flopping to get "stick check to the head" calls more than blocking calls.

I'd also say that while all charges are "taken" by a defender, not all charges are "sold". And with the rate that charges are called to being with, I don't think it gives defenders a distinct advantage anyway.

It's hard to sell an offensive foul (charge, stick to the head/body after a shot, etc) that didn't happen, although it does happen occasionally. It is not hard to make a defensive foul appear out of thin air, especially for certain teams that seem to be officiated more favorably, particularly in certain venues (MD in College Park is not the only example). Is MD the only team that likes to sell fouls? Of course not. Very far from it. This is something that makes me lose respect for a lot of teams/players. But it's particularly off-putting when it's a program with so much past success and that plays such a beautiful, disciplined, classic version of the game that I want to enjoy. I understand those who are pointing out one particularly egregious player as opposed to a broader pattern, but the fact that said player was not only allowed but presumably encouraged to play the way she did is a stain on the program. At the end of the day, maybe the problem is the officiating and I should be hating the game, not the players (i.e. MD etc.). Just something I really struggle to overlook.

Yes, I hadn't thought of it from that perspective before, and when you put it like that, I see your point and can understand why that would be hard to look over. I don't think you need to hate officiating or the game though, haha. Personally I think it goes deeper than officiating. I think it goes back to rules - how they are written, how they are enforced, etc. I think cleaning a lot of that up makes calls clearer for officials and there's less of a gray area. This could all just be one of the down sides of the growth of the game: that it will take officiating some time to catch up.

Unfortunately, the flopping has made its way down to the high school game. My daughter's team played against one of the perennial powerhouses in Georgia earlier this season. It was so egregious that we made a highlight film of all of the flops. On one particularly entertaining play, the attacker shot the ball and flopped on the ground with no defender within 5 feet of her.

That team was good enough that they didn't need to resort to falling down to get calls. Unfortunately, it worked, and gave them a bunch of extra free position chances that they converted.