Loyola Greyhounds 2023

[houndace1]

Second point- for player development, loyola wouldnt have achieved the success it had as a program without developing their guys.

There’s an article from the 90’s and also in 2011/2012 detailing what it was like for practices how the freshmen immensely struggled in fall ball because of how good the upperclassmen were. Paul carcaterra even said “loyola doesn’t get the best players but they get good players as freshmen. Then by senior year they are all Americans”

Ty Xander’s said multiple times loyola is the best at finding kids that are not the highest on other teams radars for recruiting and yet they can develop them into great players. They’ve developed 3-4 star guys in HS into all Americans like foster Huggins, Jay drapeau, Lindley, Wyers.

The staff will get their share of 3 and 4 stars and the occasional power 100 recruit but the culture is 2nd to none and the systems they have these guys play in set them up for success

[Exlaxbro]

Excellent points. I guess we can only hope we recruit well and work hard in the fall to compete with the OOC schedule that Loyola always seems to have. Part of me thinks Loyola isn’t that far off while another part of me thinks Loyola is never going back to the final four.

[Peter Brown]

Excellent points. I guess we can only hope we recruit well and work hard in the fall to compete with the OOC schedule that Loyola always seems to have. Part of me thinks Loyola isn’t that far off while another part of me thinks Loyola is never going back to the final four.

You guys need to chill.

We were only a few goals from a great record this year. Yes, Maryland smoked us, but they smoked nearly everyone including UVA who gets 6 5-stars every year. We beat Duke, which has a collection of five stars the envy of every D1 team. We lost to Rutgers, a final four team, by one goal.

The Hounds are a really good team. Charley is a great coach. He’s got a great incoming class. He’ll have a challenge next year, assembling the pieces again. But, and this is critical, he’s got the pieces. He’s just got to figure out who goes where.

Meanwhile we have a fantastic venue to see great lacrosse. And we might be the lacrosse worlds first viewing of an also reconstituted Terps team.

[Exlaxbro]

It’s just a discussion to have while we wait for February. No need to chill. Although much of what you say is true, this team still lost to a below average Hopkins squad, Towson, hot blown out by Georgetown and barely beat Lafayette and Colgate. That extra Covid year might have actually hurt this team’s chemistry and certainly mucked up the lacrosse world for years to come with the transfer portal.

[houndace1]

Excellent points. I guess we can only hope we recruit well and work hard in the fall to compete with the OOC schedule that Loyola always seems to have. Part of me thinks Loyola isn’t that far off while another part of me thinks Loyola is never going back to the final four.

I think we have to realize that teams who make it to the final four fall into different categories:
1. they are clearly the best team all year and have championship potential
2. Some schools make it by getting hot at the exact time and play with house money were everything clicks(see UNC 2016)
3. Some programs get their by virtue of an extra lucky bounce, a pass, a shot, a call that went their way from the ref. These 3 categories can repeat themselves for even getting to the championship game

It is almost impossible to consistently make the final four year in year out unless you are outright dominant in not only recruiting, BUT coaching (i.e Danowski when hes made the tournament, Tillman, and even Lars from UVA).

The standard for the Loyola mens program is an NCAA quarterfinals recently as Toomey stated it it after the quarterfinals in 2021. That is the standard that can be achieved. They want and expect to win their conference. but these games are not handed to them as they know they need to work hard like every other school.

Loyola to me falls in between categories 2 and 3. They are ranked among the great programs but it will take a bounce here or there for them to break through. Even with Spencer they made 1 FF, a 1st round and 2 QF's. Prior to Spencer they made a ton of first rounds and quarters but won a natty with their first trip to the FF since like 1990.

This team is not far off, they just need to find what works and then readjust if it doesn't. You can have all the talented pieces in the world but if you don't know how to put it all together, its never going to succeed the way you want it to.

[houndace1]

It’s just a discussion to have while we wait for February. No need to chill. Although much of what you say is true, this team still lost to a below average Hopkins squad, Towson, hot blown out by Georgetown and barely beat Lafayette and Colgate. That extra Covid year might have actually hurt this team’s chemistry and certainly mucked up the lacrosse world for years to come with the transfer portal.

Part of this you can attribute to the goalie platooning as i think there wasn't a lot of confidence between the defense and whoever was in goal.
Towson game was an enigma because the defense and goalie played average but the offense just sputtered and crashed. They've had our number two years in a row. Lafayette and Colgate are not doormats in this league, they're getting better and better. There is no easy out anymore in the patriot league.

While i do see that the offense in 2022 needed some revamping, the coaching staff was certainly trying to incorporate newer guys into the fray. They reduced time for starters and gave more PT to people like Heuston who then had a nice 3-4 game stretch. Plus we started 0-4, at that point you have to win a lot more games as the season was pretty much on the line. They HAD to play the guys they thought would give them the best chance to win and in this case it was a ton of grad students.

I believe with the youth movement not only in offensive midfield and the rope unit/close defense for next year, we're going to see some an interesting mixup of people.

All we can do as fans is root for the team and for them to succeed. If they tried their hardest (which they did because some guys were banged up and still wanted to play) then that's all we can really ask of these men who deal with extremely busy schedules day in day out in addition to practice and film

[NovaHound]

Excellent points. I guess we can only hope we recruit well and work hard in the fall to compete with the OOC schedule that Loyola always seems to have. Part of me thinks Loyola isn’t that far off while another part of me thinks Loyola is never going back to the final four.

I think we have to realize that teams who make it to the final four fall into different categories:
1. they are clearly the best team all year and have championship potential
2. Some schools make it by getting hot at the exact time and play with house money were everything clicks(see UNC 2016)
3. Some programs get their by virtue of an extra lucky bounce, a pass, a shot, a call that went their way from the ref. These 3 categories can repeat themselves for even getting to the championship game

It is almost impossible to consistently make the final four year in year out unless you are outright dominant in not only recruiting, BUT coaching (i.e Danowski when hes made the tournament, Tillman, and even Lars from UVA).

The standard for the Loyola mens program is an NCAA quarterfinals recently as Toomey stated it it after the quarterfinals in 2021. That is the standard that can be achieved. They want and expect to win their conference. but these games are not handed to them as they know they need to work hard like every other school.

Loyola to me falls in between categories 2 and 3. They are ranked among the great programs but it will take a bounce here or there for them to break through. Even with Spencer they made 1 FF, a 1st round and 2 QF's. Prior to Spencer they made a ton of first rounds and quarters but won a natty with their first trip to the FF since like 1990.

This team is not far off, they just need to find what works and then readjust if it doesn't. You can have all the talented pieces in the world but if you don't know how to put it all together, its never going to succeed the way you want it to.

Good assessments Houndace. As always your perspective is interesting and thoughtful. I just felt that Maryland and the other teams just had more athletic ability and depth at every position and goalie/FOGO was key.

Hey - we only lost to Rutgers by 1 and we scored 1 more goal against the Terps than Cornell

[random observer]

Second point- for player development, loyola wouldnt have achieved the success it had as a program without developing their guys.

There’s an article from the 90’s and also in 2011/2012 detailing what it was like for practices how the freshmen immensely struggled in fall ball because of how good the upperclassmen were. Paul carcaterra even said “loyola doesn’t get the best players but they get good players as freshmen. Then by senior year they are all Americans”

Ty Xander’s said multiple times loyola is the best at finding kids that are not the highest on other teams radars for recruiting and yet they can develop them into great players. They’ve developed 3-4 star guys in HS into all Americans like foster Huggins, Jay drapeau, Lindley, Wyers.

The staff will get their share of 3 and 4 stars and the occasional power 100 recruit but the culture is 2nd to none and the systems they have these guys play in set them up for success

Your general point stands but Lindley was a top 30 recruit who smashed scoring records on a Darien team that went over three years without losing a game. Loyola definitely has a rep for developing diamonds in the rough, but IMO it's a rep that's started to supersede the results based on the past couple of years. Feels like player development has been a bit spottier in the past few post-Spencer seasons.

[Peter Brown]

Second point- for player development, loyola wouldnt have achieved the success it had as a program without developing their guys.

There’s an article from the 90’s and also in 2011/2012 detailing what it was like for practices how the freshmen immensely struggled in fall ball because of how good the upperclassmen were. Paul carcaterra even said “loyola doesn’t get the best players but they get good players as freshmen. Then by senior year they are all Americans”

Ty Xander’s said multiple times loyola is the best at finding kids that are not the highest on other teams radars for recruiting and yet they can develop them into great players. They’ve developed 3-4 star guys in HS into all Americans like foster Huggins, Jay drapeau, Lindley, Wyers.

The staff will get their share of 3 and 4 stars and the occasional power 100 recruit but the culture is 2nd to none and the systems they have these guys play in set them up for success

Your general point stands but Lindley was a top 30 recruit who smashed scoring records on a Darien team that went over three years without losing a game. Loyola definitely has a rep for developing diamonds in the rough, but IMO it's a rep that's started to supersede the results based on the past couple of years. Feels like player development has been a bit spottier in the past few post-Spencer seasons.

If you could construct the perfect complement to Pat Spencer, Kevin Lindley is what you’d come up with.

Lindley is one of the smartest off-ball movers in the sport, so when Pat dodged (and drew a slide), Pat often knew where his teammates would move to before the teammate even moved; more often than not he chose Lindley because he trusted Lindsey’s instincts to be in the right position to get a feed. The two together were perfect partners.

The problem after Pat graduated is, well, we didn’t have Pat v. 2.0. Kevin isn’t a D1 dodging threat (he may have been a dodger in high school for all I know…at this level, he wasn’t that). He needs an incredibly intuitive initiator (Spencer) to get him the ball, both calculating ahead when to throw or move, and getting in position to do so, in essence moving together in synchronicity. When it worked, there wasn’t a more beautiful lacrosse ballet than these two, and it happened often while Pat was here.

I don’t lay any blame on the coaches if Kevin’s production fell post-Pat, if by that you meant Kevin didn’t develop. You could see that his lower production was going to most likely occur, unless (this is what I was hoping for) Olmstead developed into Pat v 2.0. That didn’t occur. So Kevin became somewhat (relative to the Spencer days) marooned, still moving well off ball, just not having other guys get it to him where he needs it.

[houndace1]

Second point- for player development, loyola wouldnt have achieved the success it had as a program without developing their guys.

There’s an article from the 90’s and also in 2011/2012 detailing what it was like for practices how the freshmen immensely struggled in fall ball because of how good the upperclassmen were. Paul carcaterra even said “loyola doesn’t get the best players but they get good players as freshmen. Then by senior year they are all Americans”

Ty Xander’s said multiple times loyola is the best at finding kids that are not the highest on other teams radars for recruiting and yet they can develop them into great players. They’ve developed 3-4 star guys in HS into all Americans like foster Huggins, Jay drapeau, Lindley, Wyers.

The staff will get their share of 3 and 4 stars and the occasional power 100 recruit but the culture is 2nd to none and the systems they have these guys play in set them up for success

Your general point stands but Lindley was a top 30 recruit who smashed scoring records on a Darien team that went over three years without losing a game. Loyola definitely has a rep for developing diamonds in the rough, but IMO it's a rep that's started to supersede the results based on the past couple of years. Feels like player development has been a bit spottier in the past few post-Spencer seasons.

If you could construct the perfect complement to Pat Spencer, Kevin Lindley is what you’d come up with.

Lindley is one of the smartest off-ball movers in the sport, so when Pat dodged (and drew a slide) or simply targeted a teammate before the teammate moved, more often than not he chose Lindley because he trusted Lindsey’s instincts to be in position to get a feed. The two together were perfect partners.

The problem after Pat graduated is, well, we didn’t have Pat v. 2.0. Kevin isn’t a D1 dodging threat (he may have been a dodger in high school for all I know…at this level, he wasn’t that). He needs an incredibly intuitive (like him) pure dodger to get him the ball, calculating ahead when to throw and getting in position to do so, in essence moving together in synchronicity. When it worked, there was t a more beautiful lacrosse dance, and it happened often when Pat was here.

I don’t lay any blame on the coaches if Kevin’s production fell post-Pat. You could see that was going to most likely occur, unless (this is what I was hoping for) Olmstead developed into Pat v 2.0. That didn’t occur. So Kevin became somewhat (relative to the Spencer days) marooned, moving well off ball, just not having guys get it to him where he needs it.

This is where I have optimism for Davis lindsey as the next QB/ X attackman. Some of his assists were very very reminiscent of Pat. Using his body to back down his defender, the burst around the cage to find cutters, the ability to throw darts for skip passes. The scintillating corner he tagged when he ran around the cage to score in the Georgetown game.


Granted, Davis is not Pat and no one will ever be a Pat for a long time. But Davis has shown flashes of it in this season where he was getting some minutes. Let’s give a reminder that he only played 4 games of his HS senior season in 2020 and he broke his collarbone in 2021. 2022 was his first real season of game speed. If he IMO puts on a little more muscle to compensate for his height, as well as gets more experience I think he will pan out very very well.

[Olddog]

Second point- for player development, loyola wouldnt have achieved the success it had as a program without developing their guys.

There’s an article from the 90’s and also in 2011/2012 detailing what it was like for practices how the freshmen immensely struggled in fall ball because of how good the upperclassmen were. Paul carcaterra even said “loyola doesn’t get the best players but they get good players as freshmen. Then by senior year they are all Americans”

Ty Xander’s said multiple times loyola is the best at finding kids that are not the highest on other teams radars for recruiting and yet they can develop them into great players. They’ve developed 3-4 star guys in HS into all Americans like foster Huggins, Jay drapeau, Lindley, Wyers.

The staff will get their share of 3 and 4 stars and the occasional power 100 recruit but the culture is 2nd to none and the systems they have these guys play in set them up for success

Your general point stands but Lindley was a top 30 recruit who smashed scoring records on a Darien team that went over three years without losing a game. Loyola definitely has a rep for developing diamonds in the rough, but IMO it's a rep that's started to supersede the results based on the past couple of years. Feels like player development has been a bit spottier in the past few post-Spencer seasons.

It's tough to really make an apples-to-apples comparison with the pre and post-Spencer seasons. Loyola has had to deal with a ton of injuries the past few seasons, which I think (together with Covid) have made it harder for the players to develop and gel at the same speed. Wyers, Kamish, Poitras, Linsdey, Heuston have all been injured at times. When on the field, they are not always at 100%. Also, Scanlan (a five star recruit) transferred out and Loyola had to rebuild a team without him.

More than anything, I'm hoping for a healthy team next year. I think McGorry will be a strong player and will see more time next year. I think Binney has been great. Also, don't count out the freshman, Hugh Brown and Henry Haberman are going to be stars in my view. I'd love for Charley an Co to take a look at Ethan Kriss (in the portal from Denver). We could use some depth at the X.

[random observer]

Second point- for player development, loyola wouldnt have achieved the success it had as a program without developing their guys.

There’s an article from the 90’s and also in 2011/2012 detailing what it was like for practices how the freshmen immensely struggled in fall ball because of how good the upperclassmen were. Paul carcaterra even said “loyola doesn’t get the best players but they get good players as freshmen. Then by senior year they are all Americans”

Ty Xander’s said multiple times loyola is the best at finding kids that are not the highest on other teams radars for recruiting and yet they can develop them into great players. They’ve developed 3-4 star guys in HS into all Americans like foster Huggins, Jay drapeau, Lindley, Wyers.

The staff will get their share of 3 and 4 stars and the occasional power 100 recruit but the culture is 2nd to none and the systems they have these guys play in set them up for success

Your general point stands but Lindley was a top 30 recruit who smashed scoring records on a Darien team that went over three years without losing a game. Loyola definitely has a rep for developing diamonds in the rough, but IMO it's a rep that's started to supersede the results based on the past couple of years. Feels like player development has been a bit spottier in the past few post-Spencer seasons.

If you could construct the perfect complement to Pat Spencer, Kevin Lindley is what you’d come up with.

Lindley is one of the smartest off-ball movers in the sport, so when Pat dodged (and drew a slide), Pat often knew where his teammates would move to before the teammate even moved; more often than not he chose Lindley because he trusted Lindsey’s instincts to be in the right position to get a feed. The two together were perfect partners.

The problem after Pat graduated is, well, we didn’t have Pat v. 2.0. Kevin isn’t a D1 dodging threat (he may have been a dodger in high school for all I know…at this level, he wasn’t that). He needs an incredibly intuitive initiator (Spencer) to get him the ball, both calculating ahead when to throw or move, and getting in position to do so, in essence moving together in synchronicity. When it worked, there wasn’t a more beautiful lacrosse ballet than these two, and it happened often while Pat was here.

I don’t lay any blame on the coaches if Kevin’s production fell post-Pat, if by that you meant Kevin didn’t develop. You could see that his lower production was going to most likely occur, unless (this is what I was hoping for) Olmstead developed into Pat v 2.0. That didn’t occur. So Kevin became somewhat (relative to the Spencer days) marooned, still moving well off ball, just not having other guys get it to him where he needs it.

My point was not to say that Lindley didn't develop. As a primarily off-ball player, his production is obviously going to be handicapped by who is initiating; if you put Kevin on a team like Maryland who knows how many goals he would have had. I was merely stating that he was no diamond in the rough like some of the other recruits; he's Darien's all-time leading goal scorer and smashed the single season scoring record by over 30 goals on a team that finished #1 in the nation.

My thoughts on the development front are pointed more towards the fact that other than Potrais (and Lindsey to a certain extent although his "improvement" stems more from lack of health in prior years), there hasn't been much development on the offensive end recently. When I mean post-Spencer, I'm not taking about regression from the few remaining who played with him (Lindley/Olmstead) -- I'm talking about the younger classes who didn't get a chance to play with Pat.

[Laxbuck]

As an outsider looking in sometimes the 5th year guys continue to raise the bar, but Loyola’s seemed to plateau or regress. Maybe some youth will be a good thing by season’s end. Conference wise,Navy, Bucknell and BU should be as good or better. Army/Lehigh maybe Loyola take a small step back. Lafayette still ascending. Colgate a question mark. HC a non factor. Overall PL more wide open than in ‘22?

[Peter Brown]

Second point- for player development, loyola wouldnt have achieved the success it had as a program without developing their guys.

There’s an article from the 90’s and also in 2011/2012 detailing what it was like for practices how the freshmen immensely struggled in fall ball because of how good the upperclassmen were. Paul carcaterra even said “loyola doesn’t get the best players but they get good players as freshmen. Then by senior year they are all Americans”

Ty Xander’s said multiple times loyola is the best at finding kids that are not the highest on other teams radars for recruiting and yet they can develop them into great players. They’ve developed 3-4 star guys in HS into all Americans like foster Huggins, Jay drapeau, Lindley, Wyers.

The staff will get their share of 3 and 4 stars and the occasional power 100 recruit but the culture is 2nd to none and the systems they have these guys play in set them up for success

Your general point stands but Lindley was a top 30 recruit who smashed scoring records on a Darien team that went over three years without losing a game. Loyola definitely has a rep for developing diamonds in the rough, but IMO it's a rep that's started to supersede the results based on the past couple of years. Feels like player development has been a bit spottier in the past few post-Spencer seasons.

If you could construct the perfect complement to Pat Spencer, Kevin Lindley is what you’d come up with.

Lindley is one of the smartest off-ball movers in the sport, so when Pat dodged (and drew a slide), Pat often knew where his teammates would move to before the teammate even moved; more often than not he chose Lindley because he trusted Lindsey’s instincts to be in the right position to get a feed. The two together were perfect partners.

The problem after Pat graduated is, well, we didn’t have Pat v. 2.0. Kevin isn’t a D1 dodging threat (he may have been a dodger in high school for all I know…at this level, he wasn’t that). He needs an incredibly intuitive initiator (Spencer) to get him the ball, both calculating ahead when to throw or move, and getting in position to do so, in essence moving together in synchronicity. When it worked, there wasn’t a more beautiful lacrosse ballet than these two, and it happened often while Pat was here.

I don’t lay any blame on the coaches if Kevin’s production fell post-Pat, if by that you meant Kevin didn’t develop. You could see that his lower production was going to most likely occur, unless (this is what I was hoping for) Olmstead developed into Pat v 2.0. That didn’t occur. So Kevin became somewhat (relative to the Spencer days) marooned, still moving well off ball, just not having other guys get it to him where he needs it.

My point was not to say that Lindley didn't develop. As a primarily off-ball player, his production is obviously going to be handicapped by who is initiating; if you put Kevin on a team like Maryland who knows how many goals he would have had. I was merely stating that he was no diamond in the rough like some of the other recruits; he's Darien's all-time leading goal scorer and smashed the single season scoring record by over 30 goals on a team that finished #1 in the nation.

My thoughts on the development front are pointed more towards the fact that other than Potrais (and Lindsey to a certain extent although his "improvement" stems more from lack of health in prior years), there hasn't been much development on the offensive end recently. When I mean post-Spencer, I'm not taking about regression from the few remaining who played with him (Lindley/Olmstead) -- I'm talking about the younger classes who didn't get a chance to play with Pat.

Roger. Understood.

It’s interesting to think hypothetically of Kevin on the Terps. It would be interesting to see if those guys would take advantage of him. I think yes but it would have been different. The Terps offense seemed to be very very quick ball movement, often finishing with a skip pass to an absolute dead-eye outside shooter like Wisnauskas, Murphy, Demaio. I didn’t see a ton of inside finisher goals but I only caught a few of their television games.

[kramerica.inc]

Loyola, and any team for that matter, does well when they have an inside-out presence.
They haven't been balanced on offense. Not enough attention-grabbers who are able to draw a slide at midfield.
We have been an attack-oriented team for the past few years but that works much better when you have a big gun that can find space up top.
We haven't had that. I look forward to seeing the next iteration of this offense.

[Peter Brown]

Loyola, and any team for that matter, does well when they have an inside-out presence.
They haven't been balanced on offense. Not enough attention-grabbers who are able to draw a slide at midfield.
We have been an attack-oriented team for the past few years but that works much better when you have a big gun that can find space up top.
We haven't had that. I look forward to seeing the next iteration of this offense.

Higgins consistently beats his defender. He just needs to get a snipe shot on the run to go with his feet.

[kramerica.inc]

Loyola, and any team for that matter, does well when they have an inside-out presence.
They haven't been balanced on offense. Not enough attention-grabbers who are able to draw a slide at midfield.
We have been an attack-oriented team for the past few years but that works much better when you have a big gun that can find space up top.
We haven't had that. I look forward to seeing the next iteration of this offense.

Higgins consistently beats his defender. He just needs to get a snipe shot on the run to go with his feet.

Higgins is one of those guys who the staff has developed nicely. Watched him in hs a few times. He was a fantastic athlete back then, but was more of a diamond in the rough, and has really raised his game since coming to Evergreen. Kudos to him.

[TheBigIguana]

So it looks like we're stopping the Maryland win streak at Ridley next February

[Laxdoc31]

Lindley skipping the PLL?

[Peter Brown]

So it looks like we're stopping the Maryland win streak at Ridley next February

I’ll tell you what: it won’t be hard to have a geared-up crowd for that one. The good news for us is Pacheco got in the game against MD this year; the bad news is he went 2-9. I think Cottone will do well. He needs more reps out there. We have to keep the FO dot to 50/50. Hopefully both kids are locked in over the summer, getting better every day.

The other bright spot is Luke played as well and did better than Sam. It helps to have played against these guys once.

We’ll be okay.