Johns Hopkins 2022

[wgdsr]

Unfortunately, UNC has a elite ride, so hopefully that improvement happens sooner rather than later.

I mean, they did last year for sure. I didn't see anything elite yesterday, ride or otherwise.

Still, clearing will need to improve a lot.

Expect North Carolina to ride hard next week and force the Blue Jays to finally prove they can clear the ball against a lot of pressure.

As just about everyone here recognizes, this is a coaching issue. Players have plenty of speed and skill to clear. They just need some better coaching to clean things up.

DocBarrister

no one here knows what has been instructed in practice over and over.
thus, no one knows whose issue it is. players, coaches. they both need to get it figured out. starting with the coaches knowing whether they need to put in 1 hour or 6 hours this week.

[44WeWantMore]

That wasn't the prettiest. Lot of things to like, lot of things to improve on. But another solid W.

Pros
- Wis was Wis, and def felt like he was playing with an extra juice and some more showmanship back at the Dome
- Even in a game where Cuse cut off a lot of adjacents and were on their sticks and didn't let them whip the ball around the zone the way they usually do, still a 40% off. eff day and that was with a couple of pipes and Gavin stealing some goals. So many great looks still.
- The injuries at D-Mid are concerning (Higgins looked gimpy today) but whoever gets asked to play there puts in such a good shift. Bubba was great again, Koras played really, really well. The defense on the whole was tremendous. I thought they should have put Makar on Dordevic in the 2H, but felt like the plan was to just let Dordevic get his goals knowing no one else on Cuse can dodge, and he can't pass when a hard double comes. In the end, only 4 guys for Cuse scored. Defense was tremendous.
- Great game for Logan. Still would like to see him get better low, but he gobbled up anything high, was good out of the cage, sharp early when Cuse tested him.
- Wierman battled and played great in the 4Q (won 62% of draws) the wings were terrific too. Pugs and Bubba battled hard raking out some key GBs when it became a scrum. Felt like we won all the scrums. That's gotta be the goal on FOs.
- Murphy is a weapon. He can shoot it, he can invert from MF, got speed. They could play him at attack some shifts to spell Khan or Malever. He's going to be such a good player here.

Cons
- clearing. god that was rough. Looked like Hopkins yesterday. Just too many adjacent passes from goalie to long pole. Someone's gotta just take the ball and go. It's on everyone else to make sure they're not offsides, you get the ball and you go. Also just a lack of focus on some when they got the ball in the zone, Brennan one in particular
- Turnovers outside of clears weren't great. Lot of February issues there, just weird passes off line, guys not bringing it into their sticks. Passing isn't 100% crisp yet, but again, it's February
- Man I hope they can get healthy in the rope unit. Smith, Coffman, Cope already out and Higgins looked gimpy.

All in all, not the best game, but a 4 goal road win vs a Top 20 team. Onto Princeton.

Helpful advice from the Terp thread.

[ColumbiaBlueBlack]

This is a basic concept taught in high school, but obviously needs to be repeated. Fortunately, this is an easy remedy.

This was game FOUR. Sorry Coach, as a previous coach once yelled at a freshman player in Fall Ball (ummm, his first contest), "Peter, freshman year is OVER."

[primitiveskills]

Unfortunately, UNC has a elite ride, so hopefully that improvement happens sooner rather than later.

I mean, they did last year for sure. I didn't see anything elite yesterday, ride or otherwise.

Still, clearing will need to improve a lot.

Expect North Carolina to ride hard next week and force the Blue Jays to finally prove they can clear the ball against a lot of pressure.

As just about everyone here recognizes, this is a coaching issue. Players have plenty of speed and skill to clear. They just need some better coaching to clean things up.

DocBarrister

I definitely expect UNC to come out on fire against us after that debacle yesterday.

Agree we need a different approach to clearing, beginning with getting better outlets. Disagree that we have plenty of "speed and skill" in the clearing game. Our fastest and most skilled guys on that end are both poles (Smith and McManus). Love our SSDMs (BTW, Lilly's defense on Olmstead, and Martin's double on the roll back, was absolutely textbook), but the clear we're using that asks these guys to curl back to the crease area and then break out is not their game. I suspect we'll see something much different next week.

[jhu06]

-stanwick had a good stat that loyola hit 4 posts yesterday
-if you're going to fault pm for the last play you have to give the defense credit for shutting loyola down the last 1030
-the ssdms for the most part are a veteran group as are epstein/connor, I could see the issues w/szulak smith jennings and this was an issue that predated the current staff for years. The website lists 19 "team turnovers" so some of these guys numbers should be worse.
-faceoffs 18-10 hop first half last 2 games 16-8 foes in second half-dunn needs rest and help
-second midfield rotation will be interesting. peshko/mcdermott earned looks but evans and rakposo have come on.
-Student section looked barren yesterday.
-mcmanus really stepped up w/the defense yesterday. That was big time leadership. He's come a very long way over the years.

[Sagittarius A*]

-Student section looked barren yesterday.
-mcmanus really stepped up w/the defense yesterday. That was big time leadership. He's come a very long way over the years.

There were more Loyola fans than Hop fans at the game and the Loyola fans were definitely louder and more vocal.

[HopFan16]

That's been the case at every Hop-Loyola game at Homewood going back many years. Loyola's student body shows up to lax games like no other.

The TV cameras showed our student section a few times and it looked full to me, though decidedly less drunk and wearing all of their clothes.

Cool environment for a lacrosse game. I don't mind it. Was nice to send them on the cold walk back up Charles Street with an L.

[jhu72]

... was at the game. 60-40 Loyola v Hopkins fans.

[Sagittarius A*]

It looks like we're ranked #11 in the polls this morning.
Moving up in the world.

[10stone5]

Love from Quint,
top ten.

[jhu06]

-" face of frequent mistakes including timeout management, five shot clock violations, eight failed clears, 25 turnovers, and assorted miscues."
https://laxallstars.com/quint-kessenich ... y-21-2022/

"If you want to diagnose the issues with UNC’s defensive unit, late possession offense seems like a good place to start. Across all of Division I men’s lacrosse, teams shot 26.9 percent in the last 20 seconds of the shot clock."
https://www.usalaxmagazine.com/college/ ... rolina-men

https://hopkinssports.com/news/2022/2/1 ... ament.aspx
I guess delaney has conference tournament this weekend and then the ncaa tournament. After last weekend however I don't really want to see smith taken off the field much when lyne returns. I guess it's good news that we have not heard that fernandez and narewski are done for the year, because the clock is starting to tick there. Not sure who else we're waiting on. Some of you mentioned Phillips.

[HillsLax]

Regarding shots hitting the pipes, when I coached youth and high school I would always tell the goalie it was because of his good positioning that made the shooter miss/hit the pipes. While I am not sure this is entirely correct, it was something else positive to say to a goalie--I assume many (all?) goalies have an issue with confidence and this is a way to bolster them.

[Sagittarius A*]

Agree we need a different approach to clearing, beginning with getting better outlets. Disagree that we have plenty of "speed and skill" in the clearing game. Our fastest and most skilled guys on that end are both poles (Smith and McManus). Love our SSDMs (BTW, Lilly's defense on Olmstead, and Martin's double on the roll back, was absolutely textbook), but the clear we're using that asks these guys to curl back to the crease area and then break out is not their game. I suspect we'll see something much different next week.

Wow. Quality SSDM play. We're not used to that. Breath of fresh air.
BTW if you were doing the game Saturday, I think that you and M.D. make a great pairing.
Way, way better than what we're used to!

[MDlaxfan76]

Regarding shots hitting the pipes, when I coached youth and high school I would always tell the goalie it was because of his good positioning that made the shooter miss/hit the pipes. While I am not sure this is entirely correct, it was something else positive to say to a goalie--I assume many (all?) goalies have an issue with confidence and this is a way to bolster them.

That's probably a good assumption, especially with youth goalies, and pretty darn true of all, even the seemingly most confident. (though ideally the mature tender has learned to be confident in themselves not by being cocky but rather because of their preparation to perform under pressure, and ability to 'flush' the past shot and re-focus on the next play).

It also has the benefit of truth. Making the shooter press by being in strong position and exuding command will indeed typically result in more missed shots, including pipes.

My son's HS coach responsible for overseeing the goalies, a math teacher in his classroom gig, told me that he kept stats in practice of each of the goalies not just in saves and saves percentage but also missed shots altogether. Pretty darn analytical, but I appreciated that he had that level of insight.

Shooters look for "white" and when little is visible due to great footwork and stick positioning, it simply makes it harder...and when the tender seems to be gobbling up anything easy, the pressure goes on the shooter. Of course, the truly great shooters have the capability to disguise, hide and vary their shots to beat the tender even with great positioning, but even the best can press at times, though they are much less likely than the average to good shooter.

I'm not sure Loyola has many great shooters.

[molo]

Did the goalie coach play at Dulaney and Duke and had a brother who played at Dulaney and UVA?

[DocBarrister]

Any word on whether the three players who missed the Loyola game will be back in action against North Carolina?

DocBarrister

[Sidelinehorn!]

Regarding shots hitting the pipes, when I coached youth and high school I would always tell the goalie it was because of his good positioning that made the shooter miss/hit the pipes. While I am not sure this is entirely correct, it was something else positive to say to a goalie--I assume many (all?) goalies have an issue with confidence and this is a way to bolster them.

That's probably a good assumption, especially with youth goalies, and pretty darn true of all, even the seemingly most confident. (though ideally the mature tender has learned to be confident in themselves not by being cocky but rather because of their preparation to perform under pressure, and ability to 'flush' the past shot and re-focus on the next play).

It also has the benefit of truth. Making the shooter press by being in strong position and exuding command will indeed typically result in more missed shots, including pipes.

My son's HS coach responsible for overseeing the goalies, a math teacher in his classroom gig, told me that he kept stats in practice of each of the goalies not just in saves and saves percentage but also missed shots altogether. Pretty darn analytical, but I appreciated that he had that level of insight.

Shooters look for "white" and when little is visible due to great footwork and stick positioning, it simply makes it harder...and when the tender seems to be gobbling up anything easy, the pressure goes on the shooter. Of course, the truly great shooters have the capability to disguise, hide and vary their shots to beat the tender even with great positioning, but even the best can press at times, though they are much less likely than the average to good shooter.

I'm not sure Loyola has many great shooters.

The shot clock has really helped change the mindset that defenders do not have to take the ball away every time they are on ball...creating bad shots and playing good team defense are now rewarded with shot clock violations...nearly impossible for teams to sit for long sets and lull a defense asleep like in years past...Hopefully this has a trickle down to how we teach our youth defenders...

[MDlaxfan76]

Regarding shots hitting the pipes, when I coached youth and high school I would always tell the goalie it was because of his good positioning that made the shooter miss/hit the pipes. While I am not sure this is entirely correct, it was something else positive to say to a goalie--I assume many (all?) goalies have an issue with confidence and this is a way to bolster them.

That's probably a good assumption, especially with youth goalies, and pretty darn true of all, even the seemingly most confident. (though ideally the mature tender has learned to be confident in themselves not by being cocky but rather because of their preparation to perform under pressure, and ability to 'flush' the past shot and re-focus on the next play).

It also has the benefit of truth. Making the shooter press by being in strong position and exuding command will indeed typically result in more missed shots, including pipes.

My son's HS coach responsible for overseeing the goalies, a math teacher in his classroom gig, told me that he kept stats in practice of each of the goalies not just in saves and saves percentage but also missed shots altogether. Pretty darn analytical, but I appreciated that he had that level of insight.

Shooters look for "white" and when little is visible due to great footwork and stick positioning, it simply makes it harder...and when the tender seems to be gobbling up anything easy, the pressure goes on the shooter. Of course, the truly great shooters have the capability to disguise, hide and vary their shots to beat the tender even with great positioning, but even the best can press at times, though they are much less likely than the average to good shooter.

I'm not sure Loyola has many great shooters.

The shot clock has really helped change the mindset that defenders do not have to take the ball away every time they are on ball...creating bad shots and playing good team defense are now rewarded with shot clock violations...nearly impossible for teams to sit for long sets and lull a defense asleep like in years past...Hopefully this has a trickle down to how we teach our youth defenders...

I think that's true, but in most situations I remain in the aggressive on ball camp, with team cover. As well as timely jumps.

In no way is that an encouragement of wild approaches etc.

[Sidelinehorn!]

Yeah I think there is a difference with being aggressive on ball and giving up positioning for takeaway checks...I think most teams have one or two guys who can really pull these off...the rest focus on fundamental one on one skills and team defensive concepts...

[primitiveskills]

Yeah I think there is a difference with being aggressive on ball and giving up positioning for takeaway checks...I think most teams have one or two guys who can really pull these off...the rest focus on fundamental one on one skills and team defensive concepts...

For sure. We teach (HS level) that aggressive on-ball defending means well-timed and well-positioned approaches, getting on hands, and driving the dodger away from topside at all cost. No one-on-one takeaways. Unless there is a huge ball carrier vs defender ability mismatch in favor of the defender, you are much more likely to get beat topside than getting the ball on the ground. We use well-timed slides and opportunistic doubles to get the ball on the ground. If there was ever a 5-minute video clip that would define how we want to defend on ball to get opportunistic doubles, it would be the final two Loyola possessions vs JHU on Saturday.