Johns Hopkins 2022

[jhu06]

Really interesting that syracuse players, coaches and media gave the W to Hopkins ability to execute offensively more than Kirson.
https://dailyorange.com/2022/03/syracus ... s-hopkins/

[Hoponboard]

It’s too bad Rodgers’ outright theft was not worth more than a GB on the stat sheet. I get the blocked shot, but it was the cleanest CT you’ll ever see. Besides sealing the win, it was a signature play for Blake.

Great to see Peshko regain his 2021 form.

Jays are halfway through the season, having survived the opening gauntlet with a winning record. None of their remaining games will be easy, but they won’t be as hard as playing GU, UNC and UVA on the road.

We have learned the defense can stand up on its own. Kirson has stepped up his game. The close D is better than it has been in several years. Smith is a stud and Rodgers a difference maker. McManus is playing the best D of his career.

The motion offense is starting to click even with parts missing.

Just like last season, it has taken Milliman several games to find the most effective lineups.

But to make an excellent stretch run, face offs have to improve. Hoping to see Narewski debut against Navy or Delaware.

[stupefied]

Really interesting that syracuse players, coaches and media gave the W to Hopkins ability to execute offensively more than Kirson.
https://dailyorange.com/2022/03/syracus ... s-hopkins/

That article has errors, journalism not at its finest .Pipes helped Kirson but he made several big stops and should be given his due. He rightfully appeared in the Hopkins presser. Good win for Hopkins but awfully sloppy. Take advantage.

[HopFan16]

Ugly win to be sure but think it's worth taking a step back now that we're halfway through the regular season.

The team is, at the end of the day, pretty much exactly where a lot of us thought they'd be? They've lost to two top five teams and another top 10 team — and then beaten everyone else. Beating Syracuse, Loyola, and Towson all in the same year ain't so bad. They are 4-3 with a chance to rack up another win or two before conference play begins. They already have twice as many regular season wins as they did last year. The Jays are not setting the world on fire but that is real, tangible improvement from 2020 and 2021.

Coach K's imprint on the defense is taking shape. Kirson and the pipes bailed them out a few times but if someone watched the 2020 season and parts of 2021, then fell into a coma and woke up yesterday to watch the game, they would not recognize that defense. They are (relatively) fundamentally sound, know when and when not to slide, and the shorties aren't constantly getting toasted. Coaching has been a factor because that's an awful lot of the same personnel as before.

They've been playing all year without their top FOGO, turning an expected team strength into a weakness despite Dunn's heroic efforts in the first few games. The intriguing transfer from Virginia hasn't and won't suit up this year. Grimes who was on the verge of a breakout season with hat tricks in two of three starts is now hurt too. McDermott, Evans, and others have been banged up. Injuries are a part of the game but it feels like the faceoff woes and the revolving door on offense have contributed to the scoring struggles. The offense still lacks athleticism and dodgers but if either of those two things get better in the second half of the year the offensive inconsistency may be less pronounced. That's the optimistic view. The other view is that Narewski is seemingly never returning and even after he does he may not be his usual self and that even with Grimes back and the offense at full strength it still lacks guys who can consistently draw slides.

Glad Navy is back on the schedule. One game at a time but after the showing against Georgetown it's a little hard not to be worried about the Friday-Sunday stretch.

[Sagittarius A*]

We have learned the defense can stand up on its own. Kirson has stepped up his game. The close D is better than it has been in several years. Smith is a stud and Rodgers a difference maker. McManus is playing the best D of his career.

I definitely don't miss the horrible ssdm play and horrible goalie play.
This is much much better. Aggressive too. Lots of caused turnovers and intensity.
Good riddance to Petro.
Cuse can have him.

[Sagittarius A*]

The team is, at the end of the day, pretty much exactly where a lot of us thought they'd be? They've lost to two top five teams and another top 10 team — and then beaten everyone else. Beating Syracuse, Loyola, and Towson all in the same year ain't so bad. They are 4-3 with a chance to rack up another win or two before conference play begins. They already have twice as many regular season wins as they did last year. The Jays are not setting the world on fire but that is real, tangible improvement from 2020 and 2021.

Loyola just beat Duke. Loyola, Jacksonville, and SU could all be quality wins at the end of the season.
Light at the end of the tunnel.

[51percentcorn]

Alot to unpack here. Certainly the positives have been highlighted numerous times:
Kirson (except for his role in clearing)
Overall Defense (when it comes to playing defense)
and I would add - offensive efficiency (when they had the ball) 10 for 29 is not bad shooting

But this is the first game where I thought coaching sneaks into the equation and should be called out
Hopkins made ALOT of bad decisions and look undisciplined
- Your 5th year graduate student can't throw the ball over the end line clearly after the horn sounds
- Your 3 time captain can't tell the ref whatever he told the ref
- I don't often agree with DocB but the examples he pointed out where Hopkins absolutely needed to hold the ball - they didn't
You can't play defense for close to a full 5 minutes - hold the fort and have the offense try to thread the needle to a covered player in the first 5 seconds
I think it was another time where Martin unleashed a shot that hit the ground 5 ft in front of him at about 20 mph after again playing alot of defense

Then - while the coaches don't execute on the field - the decision making in the clearing game is horrendous - I am sure there is a difference
in size and athleticism but it shouldn't be that bad. They seem to be able to reasonably cover opposing offensive players (except for UVA and Chris Gray) but then they get run down like a gimpy gazelle on the savannah? Last time I checked Navy players tend to be in pretty good shape - anybody putting that one in the auto W column better think again. If you want to be a Top 20 team - your clearing can't be 53 out of 70ish teams and falling.

Second game in a row where the opponent was not flagged for a penalty. I wonder when the last time that happened?

Even while they scored at a reasonable pace when they had the ball - this really wide set where everybody started out as far as possible from each other and it took 60 seconds to even start the offense was a little off to me. Certainly given the amount of defense played there were times when they needed to hold the ball but I often wondered what the object of the deal was. I didn't see a motion offense really and Q directly accused them of standing around ball watching - which I think had some truth.

[steel_hop]

Ugly win to be sure but think it's worth taking a step back now that we're halfway through the regular season.

The team is, at the end of the day, pretty much exactly where a lot of us thought they'd be? They've lost to two top five teams and another top 10 team — and then beaten everyone else. Beating Syracuse, Loyola, and Towson all in the same year ain't so bad. They are 4-3 with a chance to rack up another win or two before conference play begins. They already have twice as many regular season wins as they did last year. The Jays are not setting the world on fire but that is real, tangible improvement from 2020 and 2021.

Coach K's imprint on the defense is taking shape. Kirson and the pipes bailed them out a few times but if someone watched the 2020 season and parts of 2021, then fell into a coma and woke up yesterday to watch the game, they would not recognize that defense. They are (relatively) fundamentally sound, know when and when not to slide, and the shorties aren't constantly getting toasted. Coaching has been a factor because that's an awful lot of the same personnel as before.

They've been playing all year without their top FOGO, turning an expected team strength into a weakness despite Dunn's heroic efforts in the first few games. The intriguing transfer from Virginia hasn't and won't suit up this year. Grimes who was on the verge of a breakout season with hat tricks in two of three starts is now hurt too. McDermott, Evans, and others have been banged up. Injuries are a part of the game but it feels like the faceoff woes and the revolving door on offense have contributed to the scoring struggles. The offense still lacks athleticism and dodgers but if either of those two things get better in the second half of the year the offensive inconsistency may be less pronounced. That's the optimistic view. The other view is that Narewski is seemingly never returning and even after he does he may not be his usual self and that even with Grimes back and the offense at full strength it still lacks guys who can consistently draw slides.

Glad Navy is back on the schedule. One game at a time but after the showing against Georgetown it's a little hard not to be worried about the Friday-Sunday stretch.

We hardly agree on much but this is probably my general view. I think the team is average and that two average teams play a so-so game yesterday. Don't get me wrong, the game was exciting but neither team blew me away with how great they are and should be booking a hotels for MD. With the right breaks, both teams can make the tournament though neither are guaranteed to do so.

The defense should be commended for playing well yesterday and Kirson has certainly turned around his game from last year and from the 1st few games. 8 pipes is an unbelievable number. While some of that is SU players' sticks getting tight in their hands most of the pipes were in the 1st half of the game. A couple of inches in the other direction and this board would have a different view of the game.

Clearing is awful. full stop. Some of this is on Kirson not getting the ball out of his stick on stops quickly enough. Some of it is on players making some just mind boggling bad decisions. Some of it seems to be just poor schemes on Hopkins part.

Injuries are part of the game and every team has them but with little depth it hurts Hopkins more. Next guy has to step up.

Lastly, I thought QK and Carc were fine yesterday. The game did lead itself to interject some comments. It wasn't like they were running and gunning. Some sets Hopkins took forever to get into a set offense. Though their comments that the B10 was the superior conference this year given that 3 teams lost this weekend seemed pushing an agenda a little.

[steel_hop]

Second game in a row where the opponent was not flagged for a penalty. I wonder when the last time that happened?

Even while they scored at a reasonable pace when they had the ball - this really wide set where everybody started out as far as possible from each other and it took 60 seconds to even start the offense was a little off to me. Certainly given the amount of defense played there were times when they needed to hold the ball but I often wondered what the object of the deal was. I didn't see a motion offense really and Q directly accused them of standing around ball watching - which I think had some truth.

It makes me wonder what Epstein said to the ref that got him the penalty when you see the SU player scream (Berkman?) at the ref after the call on the shot out of bounds when the Hopkins kid dove to get the possession.

I think the spread out offense was an alteration from the 1st half. I don't think they were in as wide of sets/spread out as much as they were in the 2nd half. Though I could be wrong. But, I agree, the offense has a lot to be desired. NCAA has them ranked 40th averaging 11 goals a game without yesterday's 10 goal output. Part of that is due to bad FO percentage, bad clearing and TOs driving the number of possessions down but averaging less than 11 goals a game is not good given some of the offenses Hopkins will face moving forward.

As a note, Hopkins defense isn't even ranked in the top 50 before yesterday's game. Regardless of the statistics, I think most posters would agree that overall the defense is playing better than the offense.

[jhu06]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjIog726y9g

at 1730 in this is where carc goes on the record for the first time with what a lot of you have said which is the idea the administration is putting the academic handcuffs on the program. He discusses something "called the drive for 5"-Hopkins goal to be a top 5 us news school.

[HopFan16]

Couple of points addressing the posts above:

- "Academic handcuffs on the program" is both untrue and an attempt to absolve the previous staff of any responsibility. I don't think we need to hear from Cuse alums on the matter, even ones with brothers who played at Homewood

- Big Ten is 5-2 against the ACC and has a much better out-of-conference record. I'm just the messenger.

- You have to account for SOS when looking at team stats. We have the #1 SOS in the country so far according to Lax Reference. So comparing our offensive or defensive output to that of, say, 5-0 BU, which has the #31 SOS, doesn't make sense.

- Berkman may have yelled at a different ref than the one who flagged Epstein, who may have a lower tolerance for mouthing off. The call Epstein complained about was indeed terrible but he's got to shut his mouth.

- Jacksonville dropped from like 16 all the way to 25 in the RPI just for PLAYING Bellarmine. The rest of their schedule is garbage. We can't count on that finishing as a top 20 win. Cuse, Towson, and Loyola are all more likely to.

- "Good riddance to Petro" — give me a break. The guy is and will always be a Hopkins legend. Show some class.

- Yes yes we keep hearing about all the pipe shots but Cuse also got a dumb fluke goal from Dordevic off an attempted cross-crease pass, and we hit 2 pipes of our own

[DerArzt]

Is the Hopkins-Syracuse game rebroadcast, & if so, where & when?

[Sagittarius A*]

- "Good riddance to Petro" — give me a break. The guy is and will always be a Hopkins legend. Show some class.

Hey, he was a great player and the first 8 years of his coaching tenure were terrific.
But he also tortured us for years with passive defense, horrendous ssdm play, and awful goalie play.
And all we got from him were excuses. And yes, I'm bitter about it.
At least this staff fixes their problems on the field.
Yes the clearing is still an adventure, but I think it's fixable. The style of defense is paying dividends.
You can feel hopeful about this team, whereas in 2020 if felt like the wheels had fallen off the cart and the program was in disarray.

[51percentcorn]

at 1730 in this is where carc goes on the record for the first time with what a lot of you have said which is the idea the administration is putting the academic handcuffs on the program. He discusses something "called the drive for 5"-Hopkins goal to be a top 5 us news school.

Well - Carc - would know of course. I am sure he is sitting down with Ron and Jen - hope the dog is there - right now. Look - it may very well be true - I don't get to sit down with RP and JB either so I don't know but as Carc himself pointed out - the Ivies seem to be doing pretty well in lacrosse these days and when Uncle Bill was at Princeton. Last time I checked Yale, Princeton, Penn were kinda in the Top 5. So they corner the market on athletic geniuses?
Do the math - 100 lacrosse players - 6331 undrgraduates - that is 0.015 of the student body - they are not all chuckleheads. Ronnie can get to his lofty aspirations and still have a good lacrosse team.

Isn't Hopkins taking two native americans in the next two classes? I don't want to speculate at all on their academics but haven't the non Orange/Albany lacrosse world been commenting on how these kids can't get into other schools?

Finally, if its true - RD and his cabal are trying to strangle the two DI programs to achieve a world of academic records beyond compare - guess what there is very little to be done about it. Big Ron just got re-upped didn't he? The BOT seems to love him - so cheer the boys on - be a fan - give money if you can and want to - criticze within reason and maybe get a dog like Jen - they make your life better.

I usually agree with HF16 but I disagree with "the indeed terrible" call on DeSo. The horn sounded - it was plain as day - he paused thought about it and chucked the ball over the end line. First I believe he took he ball from the end line with 5 seconds left - he needed to chuck the ball then and there or feed the crease if somebody was there. He did not and the horn sounded and as a 5th year player he needed to drop the ball - got exactly what he deserved.

[Sagittarius A*]

I usually agree with HF16 but I disagree with "the indeed terrible" call on DeSo. The hord sounded - it was plain as day - he paused thought about it and chucked the ball over the end line. First I believe he took he ball from the end line with 5 seconds left - he needed to chuck the ball then and there or feed the crease if somebody was there. He did not and the horn sounded and as a 5th year player he needed to drop the ball - got exactly what he deserved.

Totally agree. This was inexcusable. His only stat line on the day was to basically giftwrap a Cuse goal for them. That and play catch with their goalie.

[rolldodge]

[passive defense, horrendous ssdm play, and awful goalie play

But it was pretty impressive that he was able to play all those positions at once.

[DocBarrister]

- "Good riddance to Petro" — give me a break. The guy is and will always be a Hopkins legend. Show some class.

Hey, he was a great player and the first 8 years of his coaching tenure were terrific.
But he also tortured us for years with passive defense, horrendous ssdm play, and awful goalie play.
And all we got from him were excuses. And yes, I'm bitter about it.
At least this staff fixes their problems on the field.
Yes the clearing is still an adventure, but I think it's fixable. The style of defense is paying dividends.
You can feel hopeful about this team, whereas in 2020 if felt like the wheels had fallen off the cart and the program was in disarray.

You really can’t do this.

Pietramala is one of the greatest players and coaches the game has ever seen. He’s not just a legend at Hopkins, but a legend of the sport. They will still be talking about the guy a century from now if lacrosse is still being played (and our android masters permit it).

Show some proper respect, please.

DocBarrister

[HopFan16]

I usually agree with HF16 but I disagree with "the indeed terrible" call on DeSo. The horn sounded - it was plain as day - he paused thought about it and chucked the ball over the end line. First I believe he took he ball from the end line with 5 seconds left - he needed to chuck the ball then and there or feed the crease if somebody was there. He did not and the horn sounded and as a 5th year player he needed to drop the ball - got exactly what he deserved.

I was talking about the "push" by McManus — that's the call Epstein mouthed off to the ref about. It wasn't about the delay of game on DeSo, which was definitely the right call.

Hey, he was a great player and the first 8 years of his coaching tenure were terrific.
But he also tortured us for years with passive defense, horrendous ssdm play, and awful goalie play.
And all we got from him were excuses. And yes, I'm bitter about it.
At least this staff fixes their problems on the field.
Yes the clearing is still an adventure, but I think it's fixable. The style of defense is paying dividends.
You can feel hopeful about this team, whereas in 2020 if felt like the wheels had fallen off the cart and the program was in disarray.

That's all great but "good riddance" is an unnecessary shot and just disrespectful to a guy who did a lot for this program. He's gone and has been gone for two years now. We don't need to be making comments like that.

[Sagittarius A*]

Hey, he was a great player and the first 8 years of his coaching tenure were terrific.
But he also tortured us for years with passive defense, horrendous ssdm play, and awful goalie play.
And all we got from him were excuses. And yes, I'm bitter about it.
At least this staff fixes their problems on the field.
Yes the clearing is still an adventure, but I think it's fixable. The style of defense is paying dividends.
You can feel hopeful about this team, whereas in 2020 if felt like the wheels had fallen off the cart and the program was in disarray.

That's all great but "good riddance" is an unnecessary shot and just disrespectful to a guy who did a lot for this program. He's gone and has been gone for two years now. We don't need to be making comments like that.

Let me double down on that. Good Riddance Petro!

[Catbird]

I usually agree with HF16 but I disagree with "the indeed terrible" call on DeSo. The horn sounded - it was plain as day - he paused thought about it and chucked the ball over the end line. First I believe he took he ball from the end line with 5 seconds left - he needed to chuck the ball then and there or feed the crease if somebody was there. He did not and the horn sounded and as a 5th year player he needed to drop the ball - got exactly what he deserved.

I was talking about the "push" by McManus — that's the call Epstein mouthed off to the ref about. It wasn't about the delay of game on DeSo, which was definitely the right call.

Had to LOL at the refs yesterday, they really bailed Cuse out of looking like fools trying to play bigboy lacrosse a couple times. We also got a flag because #35 ran full-barrel through a standing pick and injured himself? Thought you couldn't do that?

Epstein needs to keep his mouth shut, but can't say he was wrong. Didn't look like a cross check or anything, Curry initiated contact McManus just pushed him aside with the butt end of his stick.