LaxPower Back-Up Stick

Cletus wrote: ↑Wed May 05, 2021 11:17 am

seacoaster wrote: ↑Wed May 05, 2021 9:55 am The player honors make complete sense. The COY, not so much. Gary loses two Tewaarton candidates to calamitous injury, including perhaps the best offensive player in the college game today, finishes (before the NCAA tournament) 14-3, but Levy gets the coach of the year award. AWW had a better case for COY, given what I think most people expected from BC and the subsequent trajectory of enormous improvement on the backs of a lot of freshmen and sophomores. It's not "Best Record of the Year Award."

The awards sector of women’s lacrosse is too safe and polite. I would also say the same thing for coach of the year in the Big Ten. I think coach Lehman deserved the award for what she did with Rutgers this year. The powers that be seem too timid to rock the boat or offend people or whatever. The commentary on the whole from women’s lacrosse is too safe and polite. Mutual admiration societies get awfully boring awfully quick.

Cletus wrote: ↑Wed May 05, 2021 11:17 am

seacoaster wrote: ↑Wed May 05, 2021 9:55 am The player honors make complete sense. The COY, not so much. Gary loses two Tewaarton candidates to calamitous injury, including perhaps the best offensive player in the college game today, finishes (before the NCAA tournament) 14-3, but Levy gets the coach of the year award. AWW had a better case for COY, given what I think most people expected from BC and the subsequent trajectory of enormous improvement on the backs of a lot of freshmen and sophomores. It's not "Best Record of the Year Award."

The awards sector of women’s lacrosse is too safe and polite. I would also say the same thing for coach of the year in the Big Ten. I think coach Lehman deserved the award for what she did with Rutgers this year. The powers that be seem too timid to rock the boat or offend people or whatever. The commentary on the whole from women’s lacrosse is too safe and polite. Mutual admiration societies get awfully boring awfully quick.

8meterPA wrote: ↑Wed May 05, 2021 11:36 am

Cletus wrote: ↑Wed May 05, 2021 11:17 am

seacoaster wrote: ↑Wed May 05, 2021 9:55 am The player honors make complete sense. The COY, not so much. Gary loses two Tewaarton candidates to calamitous injury, including perhaps the best offensive player in the college game today, finishes (before the NCAA tournament) 14-3, but Levy gets the coach of the year award. AWW had a better case for COY, given what I think most people expected from BC and the subsequent trajectory of enormous improvement on the backs of a lot of freshmen and sophomores. It's not "Best Record of the Year Award."

The awards sector of women’s lacrosse is too safe and polite. I would also say the same thing for coach of the year in the Big Ten. I think coach Lehman deserved the award for what she did with Rutgers this year. The powers that be seem too timid to rock the boat or offend people or whatever. The commentary on the whole from women’s lacrosse is too safe and polite. Mutual admiration societies get awfully boring awfully quick.

Cletus - agree with you on coach Lehman, what she has done with Rutgers in a short period of time is incredible and I thought deserved the COY. Also feel the same way about GG - what he has done with this team after losing those 2 players is amazing and deserves the award as well.

I wonder if the coaches actually care about those awards?

Dr. Tact wrote: ↑Wed May 05, 2021 10:17 am

Laxfan500 wrote: ↑Wed May 05, 2021 10:01 am

seacoaster wrote: ↑Wed May 05, 2021 9:55 am The player honors make complete sense. The COY, not so much. Gary loses two Tewaarton candidates to calamitous injury, including perhaps the best offensive player in the college game today, finishes (before the NCAA tournament) 14-3, but Levy gets the coach of the year award. AWW had a better case for COY, given what I think most people expected from BC and the subsequent trajectory of enormous improvement on the backs of a lot of freshmen and sophomores. It's not "Best Record of the Year Award."

Gait or AWW would have had to win the Championship for either one of them to win COY

Why? is that (winning a championship) a metric for COY?

I agree with Sea.

DMac wrote: ↑Wed May 05, 2021 12:11 pm In other words, the team is so loaded that even I could coach them (by just getting out of the way and letting them just do what they do) to the title. Meanwhile the coach who patched his team together, went through a couple of wars to get to that game, and gave 'em hell in the title game isn't the ACC COY. Okay, that makes sense. To someone, but not me. As has been mentioned, this feels like a very soft call to me. Give the deserving girls their trophies, give the deserving coach his too.

hsllax wrote: ↑Wed May 05, 2021 12:49 pm I think you're all underestimating Levy's role in her team going undefeated and BLOWING OUT pretty much all competition throughout the season. She recruited these kids, she got the right coaching staff in place, she created effective practice plans and strategies to get them playing exceptional team D. In a year where dynamics could get toxic due to 5th years and transfers reducing the role of younger players, she seems to have avoided that. Her team could not have more pressure on them to win it all and so far are navigating that extraordinarily well. She has created a training plan that seems to reduce injury or manages the injuries that her players do have in an effective way allowing her to get her best team on the field. That's no small feat. When you see multiple ACL tears within a program over the course of 1 year, is it bad luck or is there something that they could be doing to more effectively reduce the risk? There's some great research out there on strength and conditioning protocol that reduces ACL tear risk in female athletes (it's always going to happen and some are more predisposed than others). Levy deserves all accolades she gets this year.

DMac wrote: ↑Wed May 05, 2021 1:08 pm Does the research include what kind of surfaces they're playing on too?
Maybe Gary should ask for a new turf? You watched Carney go down,
what could have been done to prevent that injury? Better preparation?
I'm going with the bad luck.

DMac wrote: ↑Wed May 05, 2021 1:08 pm Does the research include what kind of surfaces they're playing on too?
Maybe Gary should ask for a new turf? You watched Carney go down,
what could have been done to prevent that injury? Better preparation?
I'm going with the bad luck.

laxagainsthumanity wrote: ↑Wed May 05, 2021 1:32 pm Seems a little ridiculous to tacitly blame coaches for their players going down with ACL injuries. Besides, I can't think of a team that has lost more players to ACL tears in the last ten years than UNC...

In 2018, Levy coached up a very young team that was completely reliant on McCool and Hazar in the beginning of the year, and got them all the way to the Final Four. That was a masterclass in coaching. She has managed this year's team extremely well (and has a ring to show for it, and maybe another coming) but IMO her work does not compare to GG and AWW.

hsllax wrote: ↑Wed May 05, 2021 1:59 pm To clarify, I'm not blaming GG for the ACL injuries. You can do all the prevention in the world and they can and will still happen.

I am simply noting that a part of the role of a coach is managing and reducing injury risk and impact. If I were a coach and suffered multiple ACL tears to my players in the same season, I would evaluate the strength and conditioning program and see if we might add in intentional stabilization work, look at the lifts we're doing and the balance of work on different muscle groups etc. and see if moving forward we might do anything differently. You will always have bad luck with injuries and some years you have more than others but great coaches are always doing what they can to reduce that risk. See: every NU player wore 2 ankle braces for a while during their streak. KAH may have had players get injuries and miss games but it wasn't because of a sprained ankle.

Cletus wrote: ↑Thu May 06, 2021 4:51 am

hsllax wrote: ↑Wed May 05, 2021 1:59 pm To clarify, I'm not blaming GG for the ACL injuries. You can do all the prevention in the world and they can and will still happen.

I am simply noting that a part of the role of a coach is managing and reducing injury risk and impact. If I were a coach and suffered multiple ACL tears to my players in the same season, I would evaluate the strength and conditioning program and see if we might add in intentional stabilization work, look at the lifts we're doing and the balance of work on different muscle groups etc. and see if moving forward we might do anything differently. You will always have bad luck with injuries and some years you have more than others but great coaches are always doing what they can to reduce that risk. See: every NU player wore 2 ankle braces for a while during their streak. KAH may have had players get injuries and miss games but it wasn't because of a sprained ankle.

Who's to say that Gait hasn't already been doing this? I don't know either way. Who knows if he recommends following a certain workout plan and not all of his players are on board? It's awfully difficult to know for certain what goes on internally.

DMac wrote: ↑Thu May 06, 2021 7:45 am Inasmuch as Gary's daughter has gone through several (at least three and maybe four) ACL injuries I'd be very surprised if he's not very much up on best practices to try to avoid them. You can also bet your bottom dollar that surfaces play a role in this, I don't think there's any question about that.
lah summed the whole thing up perfectly with, "Seems a little ridiculous to tacitly blame coaches for their players going down with ACL injuries." Thanks for the new word (for me) too, I like that one.