Johns Hopkins 2022

[mdlaxfan]

i have a question if anyone knows... were most students not wearing sweatpants back then?

The womens lacrosse players were a singularly special group only found talking to themselves, football players, and male lacrosse players and almost always clad in sweatpants. The crew teams which had funding and were canceled by the Daniels group had members who led and participated in a wide variety of things on campus including that bike ride across America that was wildly popular and the famed pep band. I also noticed that the womens lacrosse team page includes 3 minorities out of 50 players/staff which doesn't quite square w/Daniels obsessive diversity equity inclusion mission.

How many minorities are on the men’s team? 3. And that’s with about 10 more players on the roster than the women’s team.

[mdlaxfan]

I liked the athletes when I was there. Dated some

No you didn't, you tried and failed and still hate them for it 20 years later and cry about it on a lacrosse message board

Ha! You hit the nail on the head there!

[kramerica.inc]

I think its off-base to be talking about how many JHU athletes are minorities or satisfy diversity and inclusion. We’re not privy to their backgrounds…or how they identify. Nor is it appropriate for this forum, really.

[Homer]

And yes the defining images of maryland remain those riots they had after basketball games. When people think terp u they think riots, basketball that was always an also ran to duke/unc in the acc and a school no one in the big ten understands why it's there. Lacrosse fans know they've had a few good years of late, but there's not a national reputation of any sort of greatness athletically, academics, alumni or campus wise.

He's achieved orbital velocity.

[HopFan16]

Throw out the Maryland game. The offense prior to this past Saturday has averaged, what, just over 10 goals a game? I commented earlier that I thought they needed to do more in transition. You responded that goalie play even limits transition opportunities. Running big-little, 2-man games where there's no off ball movement...and that's been a feature not a bug all season...isn't working. If it really is just all about Jimmys and Joes, then what's the point of coaching at all? Just to recruit, roll the ball out there, and let 'em play? You're really just giving Milliman and his staff a pass on all of it because, well, they inherited no talent and there's nothing more that can be done.

You see this sometimes in other sports where a coach gets locked in to his/her own system and just believes in it to the point where they get stubborn about it. JGJr has certainly forgotten more about lacrosse than I've ever even known, but that offense...the game plans, the in game adjustments...hasn't exactly bolstered the argument that Grant is an offensive mastermind. Maybe that's just me because I do think that coaching matters and can overcome talent deficiencies. Maybe not enough to overcome chasm in talent between Hop and some of the teams they've played this year but certainly enough to beat teams like Navy and Delaware or even pop an upset against Ohio State.

I'm not giving them a "pass" per se, I acknowledge the possibility that they have made mistakes and that there may be a version of this team out there in the multiverse somewhere that's performing a little bit better. But that version is not fundamentally different.

But, again, I point to the 2020 season, under Benson. That team averaged almost the exact same number of goals per game, and that included games against MSM and the aforementioned historically bad Towson team. AND it had Cole Williams and Owen Murphy. On top of that, this 2022 team actually has a better shooting percentage and a higher percentage of assisted goals than the 2020 team. So that was at least one other offensive coach who similarly had few answers, and we know from his previous years at Hopkins and now at Maryland that he has some idea of how to put players in positions to succeed.

[flalax22]

You want to talk about PM’s game day relevance? Freshman FOGO finally gets his chance v Penn State and wins 78% of draws. Wins Big10 rookie and specialist of the week. Goes 6-3 v MDs All American and GET PULLED. That says it all.

I was puzzled by this management of the fogos too

[OCanada]

Had Hopkins not let the coach go this years team would be better than what we have now. Next year’s team as well. Players left and recruits decommitted. Add back those players snd it becomes a different team.

Game prep and practices aren’t setting the world on fire either.

Hopkins played 6 games in 2020. Not a full schedule,

[steel_hop]

The basics of the offense look really similar to me, like he's shuffling around players to better fit an offensive scheme that just doesn't have the players to work instead of installing a different offense. Hop jumped into a 10-man for one possession in the MD game. Why not try more of that earlier? When the close defense picks up GBs, why not tell them to push more often? Right now, it just looks like lining up and going 3 yards off tackle every single play.

What offense are they supposed to run against elite defenses when they don't have any dodging? Scoring goals is predicated on having guys who can force slides (or punish the D for deciding not to). Everything trickles down from that. You need somebody who can get a step on their man, period. And as 51 has pointed out many times, other than Degnon they *also* lack stretch shooters to keep the defense honest. What scheme better fits the players they have? Junior scored 1,500 pts in his MLL career, my guess is he has a pretty good idea schematically of what needs to happen to score more goals. And, again, the last we saw this offense in 2020 under a different coach/coordinator, it looked awfully similar and one could argue it was more talented then.

Throw out the Maryland game. The offense prior to this past Saturday has averaged, what, just over 10 goals a game? I commented earlier that I thought they needed to do more in transition. You responded that goalie play even limits transition opportunities. Running big-little, 2-man games where there's no off ball movement...and that's been a feature not a bug all season...isn't working. If it really is just all about Jimmys and Joes, then what's the point of coaching at all? Just to recruit, roll the ball out there, and let 'em play? You're really just giving Milliman and his staff a pass on all of it because, well, they inherited no talent and there's nothing more that can be done.

You see this sometimes in other sports where a coach gets locked in to his/her own system and just believes in it to the point where they get stubborn about it. JGJr has certainly forgotten more about lacrosse than I've ever even known, but that offense...the game plans, the in game adjustments...hasn't exactly bolstered the argument that Grant is an offensive mastermind. Maybe that's just me because I do think that coaching matters and can overcome talent deficiencies. Maybe not enough to overcome chasm in talent between Hop and some of the teams they've played this year but certainly enough to beat teams like Navy and Delaware or even pop an upset against Ohio State.

Luckily, Hop gets Penn State this weekend. I'd be pretty shocked by a loss there. I don't care how well they played last weekend against RU. PSU isn't a good team.

Because HOP16 has been and will be a defender of the status quo. He was like that all through the Petro regime and only at the end started to acknowledge the fact he had to go. H16 certainly has a more critical eye (because he knows infinitely more about lax than Doc does about 8th grade soccer) than cheerleader Doc but he still doesn't go into the questions you raise. I don't think it is a difficult question to raise when you ask what the team is doing on offense because it generally doesn't look like it knows what it wants to do. A lot of it is talent but some of it is absolutely on the coaches putting players in the right position or determine the best scheme for players to succeed. So far JG and PM have not done a great job in the least. And just because a coach is a great player doesn't make him a great coach...in fact, it is usually the opposite.

If there was a system that players knew there would certainly be more fluidity in the offense because players would be 2 years into the system. If this continues into next year, you will have to say it is schemes because you'd have turned over about 30-40% of your roster and kids still aren't getting it. Right now, it looks like a pass the ball around until there are about 15 seconds left on the shot clock and then scramble to get a shot off. I completely agree that the team should be pushing the ball in transition...who cares if you lose 28-14 instead of 22-7. At least you are giving yourself a chance to score because right now, I could go out there and do something similar by just passing the ball around the perimeter.

[Hail to the Victors]

...
So far JG and PM have not done a great job in the least. And just because a coach is a great player doesn't make him a great coach...in fact, it is usually the opposite.

Thank you for this. That's a recurring moronic take around here. It's comes in the form of "who wouldn't want to play for / learn from JGjr?" The real question is "who wouldn't want to be able to play like JGjr?" Worlds apart.

[HopFan16]

The basics of the offense look really similar to me, like he's shuffling around players to better fit an offensive scheme that just doesn't have the players to work instead of installing a different offense. Hop jumped into a 10-man for one possession in the MD game. Why not try more of that earlier? When the close defense picks up GBs, why not tell them to push more often? Right now, it just looks like lining up and going 3 yards off tackle every single play.

What offense are they supposed to run against elite defenses when they don't have any dodging? Scoring goals is predicated on having guys who can force slides (or punish the D for deciding not to). Everything trickles down from that. You need somebody who can get a step on their man, period. And as 51 has pointed out many times, other than Degnon they *also* lack stretch shooters to keep the defense honest. What scheme better fits the players they have? Junior scored 1,500 pts in his MLL career, my guess is he has a pretty good idea schematically of what needs to happen to score more goals. And, again, the last we saw this offense in 2020 under a different coach/coordinator, it looked awfully similar and one could argue it was more talented then.

Throw out the Maryland game. The offense prior to this past Saturday has averaged, what, just over 10 goals a game? I commented earlier that I thought they needed to do more in transition. You responded that goalie play even limits transition opportunities. Running big-little, 2-man games where there's no off ball movement...and that's been a feature not a bug all season...isn't working. If it really is just all about Jimmys and Joes, then what's the point of coaching at all? Just to recruit, roll the ball out there, and let 'em play? You're really just giving Milliman and his staff a pass on all of it because, well, they inherited no talent and there's nothing more that can be done.

You see this sometimes in other sports where a coach gets locked in to his/her own system and just believes in it to the point where they get stubborn about it. JGJr has certainly forgotten more about lacrosse than I've ever even known, but that offense...the game plans, the in game adjustments...hasn't exactly bolstered the argument that Grant is an offensive mastermind. Maybe that's just me because I do think that coaching matters and can overcome talent deficiencies. Maybe not enough to overcome chasm in talent between Hop and some of the teams they've played this year but certainly enough to beat teams like Navy and Delaware or even pop an upset against Ohio State.

Luckily, Hop gets Penn State this weekend. I'd be pretty shocked by a loss there. I don't care how well they played last weekend against RU. PSU isn't a good team.

Because HOP16 has been and will be a defender of the status quo. He was like that all through the Petro regime and only at the end started to acknowledge the fact he had to go. H16 certainly has a more critical eye (because he knows infinitely more about lax than Doc does about 8th grade soccer) than cheerleader Doc but he still doesn't go into the questions you raise. I don't think it is a difficult question to raise when you ask what the team is doing on offense because it generally doesn't look like it knows what it wants to do. A lot of it is talent but some of it is absolutely on the coaches putting players in the right position or determine the best scheme for players to succeed. So far JG and PM have not done a great job in the least. And just because a coach is a great player doesn't make him a great coach...in fact, it is usually the opposite.

If there was a system that players knew there would certainly be more fluidity in the offense because players would be 2 years into the system. If this continues into next year, you will have to say it is schemes because you'd have turned over about 30-40% of your roster and kids still aren't getting it. Right now, it looks like a pass the ball around until there are about 15 seconds left on the shot clock and then scramble to get a shot off. I completely agree that the team should be pushing the ball in transition...who cares if you lose 28-14 instead of 22-7. At least you are giving yourself a chance to score because right now, I could go out there and do something similar by just passing the ball around the perimeter.

Some of you really struggle to read through posts and digest what they say before firing off your takes. I acknowledged they've probably made mistakes and that there may exist some tinkering that could get the offense to score a few more goals. I don't know what it is. Bobby Benson didn't know what it was either. I certainly did not and have never said they are doing a "great job." But that's two completely different sets of coaches who had no answers. At some point you have to ask yourself if there is an answer. When you've got kids who can dodge it opens up a world of possibilities. When you don't, your options are incredibly thin.

You need a goalie who can throw good, quick outlet passes to be a transition team. And you need a rope unit that can execute. We lack speed in the middle of the field and a goalie who can initiate transition effectively. We have two athletic poles in Smith and McManus who can do it themselves on occasion but that is not a real or reliable solution. They already have the green light to go whenever they want or need to, and to shoot when uncovered. I LOVE transition lacrosse and always wished Petro did it more. But you need the personnel. They struggle mightily to clear the ball and now you want them to play like 2016 Brown? So far your only fix is "I dunno I guess do more transition" as if that is somehow anything other than putting a bandaid on a gushing wound. Congrats we lost by 14 instead of 15.

News flash, Maryland's defense is really freaking good. Are you shocked the offense looked decent against Michigan and Penn State but bad against Maryland? Please let me know what strategy that should be running instead when you don't have a player who can draw a slide or beat their man.

Looking at the next two classes, it looks like they have really prioritized speed and athleticism in the middle of the field. So maybe they will become more of a transition team in the next year or two? Who knows.

Re: Petro, yes I did not advocate to move on until 2020, though it's not like things were miserable prior to that. They won the B1G and made the quarters in 2018 so he was obviously never going to get fired after that, and then they beat Maryland twice, played well against a great Penn State team and made the NCAAs again in 2019 (though the loss to ND in the first round was pathetic) and had a budding superstar in Joey Epstein so I didn't think it made a ton of sense to fire him then either. Some alums had a conniption when they fired him after a 2-4 season, can you imagine if they had done so after a much better year in 2019? The 2020 debacle made it clear that a change was needed. Not exactly sure why you're re-litigating it.

[primitiveskills]

Had Hopkins not let the coach go this years team would be better than what we have now. Next year’s team as well. Players left and recruits decommitted. Add back those players snd it becomes a different team.

Game prep and practices aren’t setting the world on fire either.

Hopkins played 6 games in 2020. Not a full schedule,

Pure speculation. One could reasonably argue that this year's team (and next) would look like Cuse this year, since Petro is effectively coaching that team. Six games in 2020, paired with the direction of the program for many years prior to that, supports the argument as well.

[Ruffled_Feathers]

News flash, Maryland's defense is really freaking good. Are you shocked the offense looked decent against Michigan and Penn State but bad against Maryland? Please let me know what strategy that should be running instead when you don't have a player who can draw a slide or beat their man.

Yeah it may be counter intuitive but this is definitely the problem I think many make when they are evaluating "what is our offense trying to do?". You likely need to look more at the games where they did well or were at least competitive in some capacity to see the proper picture of what the plan is. Doing a post mortem on the Maryland game you run head first into a skill gap problem where nothing is going to look right because we are simply outclassed. I think it was the Rutgers postgame presser or something where Milliman had the quote of "we thought they were going to slide more". Whether that quote is to be taken as "we couldn't win our individual matchups" or "we gameplanned wrong" I suppose is left to the viewer to decide but I'm not entirely sure what kind of offensive set you are supposed to run effectively against a near as makes no difference man to man defensive scheme when no one is getting the defense rotating.

The boys are dodging straight up, they are trying to dodge off a pick, from up top, from behind, from the wings. When you never actually win a matchup and gain a step Its all going to give you the same results of nothing gained and a pass to the adjacent man on the outside so he can also give it a shot or move the ball along to the next guy. Admittedly I do think the guys who end up on the inside during a set are perhaps a little more stagnant off ball than they should be but its hard to do a backdoor cut or find space when the guy covering you doesn't have much concern that he might need to slide somewhere.

[HopFan16]

Admittedly I do think the guys who end up on the inside during a set are perhaps a little more stagnant off ball than they should be but its hard to do a backdoor cut or find space when the guy covering you doesn't have much concern that he might need to slide somewhere.

Bingo. Well said.

There were two times Maryland got caught ball-watching or helped create offense for us by sliding. The first, DeSo got to the middle of the field, and the shortie who was covering Grimes hedged toward DeSo for a split second, DeSo recognized and found Grimes open underneath. The second, Keogh got a half-step on his man down the alley and Makar slid off Epstein, leaving him absolutely wide open in the middle — a mistake uncharacteristic of both Makar and the Maryland defense as a whole. Those were the only two times it happened. Any thoughts why? They were the only times we had a dodger who put actual pressure on the defense and forced a help defender to make a decision (in settled 6v6, that is — DeSo also had a nice move at GLE that sent Puglise skidding across the turf, but that was on the EMO off a GB scramble). If we could dodge more consistently, guess what, we'd have scored more goals. Maryland is able to move the ball so well because they have...5? 6? guys who can force the D to rotate. And that's overkill. You really only need a couple.

[lilax]

Admittedly I do think the guys who end up on the inside during a set are perhaps a little more stagnant off ball than they should be but its hard to do a backdoor cut or find space when the guy covering you doesn't have much concern that he might need to slide somewhere.

Hopkins tried adjusting their offense multiple times in the game. They went with wing dodges, there were a couple backside picks for Epstein and Degnon. They set a bunch of picks on the crease and tried going big/little with Angelus at X and on the wing.

As stated, the problem was the Jays couldn’t win any 1v1 matchups.

Maryland kept their game plan simple. They didn’t want to slide. They locked on the crease men, hedged hard off of the adjacent and they switched all off ball picks. There were several times Maryland’s defensemen had their backs to the ball while JHU was trying to attack the cage.

That means UMD didn’t care about on ball matchups and were comfortable leaving their SSDMs on islands, no matter the match up.

I don’t care if you have the best off ball movement in the world, if you can’t generate attention to the ball, off ball players are just going to follow their men.

If you want to see what Hopkins is trying to do offensively, turn on a Cornell game. Milliman and Junior are running the same offense PM did at Cornell.

[Wheels]

Just a quick note about Benson. A lot of people credit Benson with Maryland's current offense, which is understandable. However, Tillman and Reppert installed this offense after the 2019 UVA loss in the quarterfinals because they thought the Terps had become too predictable. You saw this current version of the offense debut in the 2020 COVID year. This isn't to say that Benson has not done great things as the OC at Maryland. He has. By all accounts, the players love playing for him. But the offense at Maryland has zero in common with the offenses he ran at Hop. None. Nada. Zilch.

What he coaches at Maryland now is more conceptual and player IQ-related. His EMO units run more patterns like he ran at Hop.

[lorin]

Just a quick note about Benson. A lot of people credit Benson with Maryland's current offense, which is understandable. However, Tillman and Reppert installed this offense after the 2019 UVA loss in the quarterfinals because they thought the Terps had become too predictable. You saw this current version of the offense debut in the 2020 COVID year. This isn't to say that Benson has not done great things as the OC at Maryland. He has. By all accounts, the players love playing for him. But the offense at Maryland has zero in common with the offenses he ran at Hop. None. Nada. Zilch.

What he coaches at Maryland now is more conceptual and player IQ-related. His EMO units run more patterns like he ran at Hop.

Yes Reppert offense is killing it at HC, please five year maybe some six year guys helps any offense period stop.

[Sagittarius A*]

Saturday's game against Penn State could go either way.

[Wheels]

Yes Reppert offense is killing it at HC, please five year maybe some six year guys helps any offense period stop.
[/quote]

System meets players.

Agreed.

More mature players help, but even the younger players have certain skills and traits.

[primitiveskills]

Just a quick note about Benson. A lot of people credit Benson with Maryland's current offense, which is understandable. However, Tillman and Reppert installed this offense after the 2019 UVA loss in the quarterfinals because they thought the Terps had become too predictable. You saw this current version of the offense debut in the 2020 COVID year. This isn't to say that Benson has not done great things as the OC at Maryland. He has. By all accounts, the players love playing for him. But the offense at Maryland has zero in common with the offenses he ran at Hop. None. Nada. Zilch.

What he coaches at Maryland now is more conceptual and player IQ-related. His EMO units run more patterns like he ran at Hop.

At Maryland, Benson has the luxury of having a set of very high IQ players who understand how devastating simple variations of "pass and move" can be, and players who are very active and intuitive off-ball. To his credit, he understands this and lets the guys play (many coach's egos would have them over-engineer this; he doesn't). He admitted, I think, after the first couple of games this year (when they were already averaging a kajillion goals a game!) that they hadn't run a single designed play. That said, I think he's one of the best out there in rolling out a great designed play when absolutely required. Look no further than the GWG drawn up for Hopkins' come-from-behind win over GT in the NCAAT and the game-tying goal for Maryland against ND in the NCAA QF last year (the same play, actually!). In fact, that game against ND was a perfect encapsulation: the designed game-tying goal followed by the OT winner, which was DeMaio setting a dummy pick for a simple give-and-go. That was Benson's gift as an OC encapsulated in a couple of minutes.

[HopFan16]

Look no further than the GWG drawn up for Hopkins' come-from-behind win over GT in the NCAAT and the game-tying goal for Maryland against ND in the NCAA QF last year (the same play, actually!).

Thought of the same play. We also ran it once or twice against, yes, Maryland in the B1G title game prior to the NCAAs against Georgetown. Wonder if Tillman remembered it and made sure it was added to the repertoire.