Johns Hopkins 2022

[DocBarrister]

doc,
didn't think you could have hotter takes than transformative class, top 10 yr end 2021 and by osmosis 2022 hopkins, but... kudos!!!

Thank you, thank you very much.

It takes a special skill and talent.

DocBarrister

[FlyEaglesFly]

I won't say whom but Rutgers already has at least 3 transfers lined up, two of whom I am not sure are even in the portal, with hooks in a few more. Should be an interesting offseason. Let the games begin!

If that's true then Brecht has committed multiple NCAA violations. The transferring players could also lose their eligibility. Not sure I'd be talking about it publicly. As the portal becomes more common, the NCAA is going to start cracking down on these practices.

Seriously. Are you Brian Brecht? If he truly has committed these violations, I can’t imagine he would have told a soul.

[suffolk]

Nothing out of the ordinary by Rutgers. Other schools have lined up some of their transfers as well. Maryland women already have three that I know of coming in, including one of the best, if not the best player in the Ivy League.

[Big Dog]

I won't say whom but Rutgers already has at least 3 transfers lined up, two of whom I am not sure are even in the portal, with hooks in a few more. Should be an interesting offseason. Let the games begin!

If that's true then Brecht has committed multiple NCAA violations. The transferring players could also lose their eligibility. Not sure I'd be talking about it publicly. As the portal becomes more common, the NCAA is going to start cracking down on these practices.

The NCAA is going to become more and more irrelevant, even in supposedly “non-revenue” sports like lacrosse.

Even the AD of tradition-bound Notre Dame is stating publicly that certain teams and conferences in FBS football are going to break away from the NCAA.

Imagine if ESPN somehow convinces the ACC, B1G, Patriot League, and Big East lacrosse teams to break away from the NCAA and participate in a more directly lucrative FBS-like championship structure. ESPN would set up a special NIL firm that would pay every player on each team’s roster, even the bench warmers, on a set scale, with the superstars raking in big cash.
______
Anyway, imaginings are done for now.

DocBarrister

I'll have what Doc is having.

(Doc, the BiG won't even televise its own men's lax tourney on Thursday. How can you possibly imagine espn being interested in such a thing?)

[DocBarrister]

I won't say whom but Rutgers already has at least 3 transfers lined up, two of whom I am not sure are even in the portal, with hooks in a few more. Should be an interesting offseason. Let the games begin!

If that's true then Brecht has committed multiple NCAA violations. The transferring players could also lose their eligibility. Not sure I'd be talking about it publicly. As the portal becomes more common, the NCAA is going to start cracking down on these practices.

The NCAA is going to become more and more irrelevant, even in supposedly “non-revenue” sports like lacrosse.

Even the AD of tradition-bound Notre Dame is stating publicly that certain teams and conferences in FBS football are going to break away from the NCAA.

Imagine if ESPN somehow convinces the ACC, B1G, Patriot League, and Big East lacrosse teams to break away from the NCAA and participate in a more directly lucrative FBS-like championship structure. ESPN would set up a special NIL firm that would pay every player on each team’s roster, even the bench warmers, on a set scale, with the superstars raking in big cash.
______
Anyway, imaginings are done for now.

DocBarrister

I'll have what Doc is having.

(Doc, the BiG won't even televise its own men's lax tourney on Thursday. How can you possibly imagine espn being interested in such a thing?)

ESPN is just a stand in.

It could be a hedge fund or private equity fund or Elon Musk. Whatever ….

There is probably a way to monetize and profit from college lacrosse, to a much greater degree than anything being done today.

DocBarrister

[Homer]

I stated this before. Theory seems to be shared.

I'm assuming the theory you're referring to is what you said in your post just before? Apologies in advance if you were actually talking about a different theory. But what you wrote does an impressive job of distilling something I gather a number of people really think, so I'm going to respond to that. I'll call this Theory A, but it needs a better name. Seriously, with the weird line formatting it's almost like poetry:

The sport of lacrosse has become more
widespread throughout the country and few
teams dominate the way Johns Hopkins
once did. It's hard for the Blue Jays to
compete in the Big Ten with teams like Ohio
State, Penn State, Maryland and Michigan,
which have big-time facilities and major
college football programs.
The lure of those golden days when Johns
Hopkins dominated is gone, and the Blue
Jays program has started to fade with it.

I am not surprised that this theory seems to be shared. That's because the alternative theory is what I'll call Theory B. Theory B is that the particular individuals charged with stewardship of the program screwed things up by making bad strategic choices, or by encouraging and enabling those choices, the effects of which will probably be felt for a long time, but which are in principle reversible by new people coming in, cleaning house, and doing things differently.

I genuinely do not know whether Theory A or Theory B is correct. I am, however, very certain that some people are deeply invested in denying that Theory B is even conceivable. And that group significantly overlaps with the group of people most likely to have enough firsthand knowledge to be able to assess which theory is right. So we may never really know. My point is just that there may be reasons for Theory A's popularity that are completely unrelated to its likelihood of being true.

From where I sit, which is far from the action, Theory B makes a lot of sense. It's consistent with all the publicly available evidence, and with what I hear from people who have close connections to the program but no particular interest in exonerating themselves for their role in its collapse.

Theory A, by contrast, seems like arbitrarily grasping at some random event that happens to fit the timeline and can be vaguely associated with Hopkins, and then insisting that it explains everything even though the supposed connection doesn't make any logical sense.

The idea, I think -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- is roughly that, by the early 2010s you have a lot of TV money flowing into the P5 schools, and concurrently those that have men's lacrosse teams are getting more interested in supporting them and finding a deeper pool of recruits to tap into, and right as these trends are converging Hopkins joins the Big Ten for lacrosse, and [steps not really specified, but....] sic transit gloria mundi.

The first problem with this theory is that how competitive Hopkins has been with the Big Ten schools actually very closely tracks how competitive Hopkins has been with everybody else. In all of the below, I'm counting B1G tournament games in the B1G W-L totals.

In 2015 and 2018, Hopkins went 11-7 and 6-1 in the B1G, and 12-5 and 5-2 in the B1G, respectively.
In 2016, 2017, and 2019, Hopkins went either 8-7 or 8-8, and in the B1G went either 3-3 or 4-3.
In 2020, Hopkins only played non-B1G opponents, and went 2-4. In 2021, Hopkins played only B1G opponents, and went 4-9.
So far this season, Hopkins has gone 2-3 against the B1G, and 4-5 against everybody else.

It seems to me that it's approximately as hard for Hopkins to compete against "teams like Ohio State, Penn State, Maryland, and Michigan, which have big-time facilities and major college football programs," as it is for Hopkins to compete against anybody else.

But Theory A is actually much loopier than that. It doesn't seem to depend on the notion that having posh facilities and spending lots of money actually helps the football-factory schools be good at lacrosse. The sheer fact of their existence is enough to drag Hopkins down, irrespective of whether they're actually winning games against Hopkins, or even winning games at all.

So we end up with the hypothesis that Penn State and Michigan having big-time facilities accounts for Hopkins losing games this year to Navy and Delaware -- although not, interestingly enough, to Michigan or Penn State.

Nor does this strange force-field projected by bad teams with good facilities appear to ensnare anybody besides Hopkins. I have yet to see the varying fortunes of Cornell or High Point or Providence or Denver or Stony Brook explained in terms of B1G schools spending ludicrous football money.

tl;dr, I think this is a bad theory that gets propagated because it suits certain parties' interests, not because it's likely to be true.

[Homer]

There is probably a way to monetize and profit from college lacrosse, to a much greater degree than anything being done today.

DocBarrister

Yeah. My original idea was that you could have a tax-advantaged entity offer a service to individuals who agree to "be on the lacrosse team" in exchange for a nominal discount to a sticker price that can be set at an arbitrarily high level each year in order to subsidize the actual price paid by regular people, only the very fact of getting a de minimis discount labeled "athletic scholarship" turns out to be weirdly prestigious for parents to talk about at Fairfield County cocktail parties and highly sought after, so much so that in order to get it people will commit to what amounts to a full-time job with a high risk of physical injury but no worker's comp or other standard employment protections.

But on second thought, there's probably a more lucrative model out there. I just don't think it'll have anything to do with expecting people to watch the product.

[Dip&Dunk]

There is probably a way to monetize and profit from college lacrosse, to a much greater degree than anything being done today.

DocBarrister

Yeah. My original idea was that you could have a tax-advantaged entity offer a service to individuals who agree to "be on the lacrosse team" in exchange for a nominal discount to a sticker price that can be set at an arbitrarily high level each year in order to subsidize the actual price paid by regular people, only the very fact of getting a de minimis discount labeled "athletic scholarship" turns out to be weirdly prestigious for parents to talk about at Fairfield County cocktail parties and highly sought after, so much so that in order to get it people will commit to what amounts to a full-time job with a high risk of physical injury but no worker's comp or other standard employment protections.

But on second thought, there's probably a more lucrative model out there. I just don't think it'll have anything to do with expecting people to watch the product.

Nice.

[HopFan16]

tl;dr, I think this is a bad theory that gets propagated because it suits certain parties' interests, not because it's likely to be true.

You're correct, IMO.

Without the Big Ten, things would have been even worse. We wouldn't have made the NCAA tournament in 2015 or 2019 (maybe not 2018 either?). The B1G is what allowed us to turn bad/mediocre seasons into decent/good ones. Since 2014, we'd have made just two tournaments and won 0 playoff games. Hell, it nearly saved our ass last year after a bad season, and that won't be the last time it does. That was the whole point of joining and the Jays have had more success in-conference since inception than anyone outside of Maryland.

People want to come up with all sorts of reasons but I don't think it's that complicated. Petro botched early recruiting. The guy has admitted as much. During his yearlong sabbatical he went on every lacrosse podcast under the sun and was extremely candid about two things he regretted during the second-half of his tenure here: Relying so heavily on early recruiting, and not delegating defensive coordinator duties. I also think — and this is something he did not admit — that he left behind a pretty broken culture. I don't think it was a particularly positive environment, relative to some peer institutions, at least. That's going to take a bit of time to change.

[steel_hop]

I won't say whom but Rutgers already has at least 3 transfers lined up, two of whom I am not sure are even in the portal, with hooks in a few more. Should be an interesting offseason. Let the games begin!

If that's true then Brecht has committed multiple NCAA violations. The transferring players could also lose their eligibility. Not sure I'd be talking about it publicly. As the portal becomes more common, the NCAA is going to start cracking down on these practices.

Come on, seriously? I can think of a number of ways Brecht could bring kids in without committing an NCAA violation. Heck, he probably isn't even involved in the conversations at all. It is probably kids talking to other kids via social media or the like. Then they pop on the portal and are already to go to school X.

[steel_hop]

tl;dr, I think this is a bad theory that gets propagated because it suits certain parties' interests, not because it's likely to be true.

You're correct, IMO.

Without the Big Ten, things would have been even worse. We wouldn't have made the NCAA tournament in 2015 or 2019 (maybe not 2018 either?). The B1G is what allowed us to turn bad/mediocre seasons into decent/good ones. Since 2014, we'd have made just two tournaments and won 0 playoff games. Hell, it nearly saved our ass last year after a bad season, and that won't be the last time it does. That was the whole point of joining and the Jays have had more success in-conference since inception than anyone outside of Maryland.

If we want to play hypotheticals. He doesn't get into the tournament in 2015 - he doesn't get an extension and is fired sooner. So we can play these type of games all we want.

[HopFan16]

tl;dr, I think this is a bad theory that gets propagated because it suits certain parties' interests, not because it's likely to be true.

You're correct, IMO.

Without the Big Ten, things would have been even worse. We wouldn't have made the NCAA tournament in 2015 or 2019 (maybe not 2018 either?). The B1G is what allowed us to turn bad/mediocre seasons into decent/good ones. Since 2014, we'd have made just two tournaments and won 0 playoff games. Hell, it nearly saved our ass last year after a bad season, and that won't be the last time it does. That was the whole point of joining and the Jays have had more success in-conference since inception than anyone outside of Maryland.

If we want to play hypotheticals. He doesn't get into the tournament in 2015 - he doesn't get an extension and is fired sooner. So we can play these type of games all we want.

No one is "playing games" — I'm stating a fact. We wouldn't have made the tournament that year if we were still independent. That's it.

Come on, seriously? I can think of a number of ways Brecht could bring kids in without committing an NCAA violation. Heck, he probably isn't even involved in the conversations at all. It is probably kids talking to other kids via social media or the like. Then they pop on the portal and are already to go to school X.

It's a clear-cut violation. I don't make the rules. Don't shoot the messenger.

http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/eligibility_cen ... ansfer.pdf

"Q7: What happens if a student-athlete had impermissible communications, directly or
indirectly, with coaching staff or boosters at the Division I school to which they transfer?

A7: Existing recruiting rules prohibit communication and contact with a student-athlete
enrolled at another NCAA school prior to the student-athlete appearing in the NCAA
Transfer Portal. These rules also prohibit the indirect use of third parties contacting
individuals on the student-athlete’s behalf (e.g., family member, scholastic or no scholastic
coach, advisor). Certain violations of these rules can constitute a significant breach of
conduct as it relates to the NCAA infractions process. A student-athlete’s eligibility can be
jeopardized at the school that engaged in impermissible communication."

I don't doubt other schools have done it or plan to do it. But usually they're just more quiet about it.

[51percentcorn]

I have a question:
Would you - and you know who the collective "you" are - actually be happy if Hopkins beats Penn State? I know with absolute certainty what you'll do if they lose but if they win will it give you any of the emotional joy (for lack of a better phrase) that typically results from being a "fan" of a team? Will you think "good for them - they took the worst punch in the gut you could possibly take in a competition but they didn't quit"
And if they somehow were 10-4 next year and made the NCAAs - and clearly I am not saying that will happen - but if it did would you be happy? Would you sit in your La-Z-Boy and drink a beer to the Jays or would you seethe inside that you can't blame that on Ron Daniels - Jen Baker and Peter Milliman?
You do understand these are young men - generally somewhere 19-23 years old playing a game right? And that Milliman and Baker in particular would like to see the team succeed? As in they are competitive people and it helps them too?
I get it that it sucks to lose games and I am critical of the team - but I say things like - the goalie is at 40+%- that's not good enough or they don't have enough quality dodgers to get a defense rotating. I don't "Thank God" if a goalie is removed or off the team or blame a coach for not recruiting someone else or say Schmidlap is horrible person because he doesn't score enough goals for my liking. I still want and hope that whomever is playing does well.
Some folks here - I wonder - it seems like the more the results fit your narrative the better - for you.

While some of this is opinion alot of it happens to be true:
- The reasons for Petro's dismissal are more likely long and varied than simply - the admin didn't like him - didn't help that the admin were not fans but not the only reason - and less we forget - the employee has a role in not garnering that support - sometimes as much or more as the employer
- While individual tactics can be questioned - Milliman has certainly tried as many things as he can think of - he has not sat on the status quo - a prime example being DeSimone. In his first 2 full years with Petro/BB he had 35 points - and most seem to agree he was mismanaged. Last two years - espec. if they play 2 games - he can reach 85 points. I submit he might not have been the X attackman in 21 under the prior coaching admin so the question is would they have found a better one - Murphy for example and would his production account for all the differences and enough to make the differences in the team overall? Questionable at best.
- Murphy - again best left alone - but if you think Milliman arrived and basically said "I'm here to kick a$$ and drink whiskey and I'm all out of whiskey Murphy you're gone" You are CLUE LESS. Many things happened and I hope we can identify the only 2 people that really know the entire story.
- If another coach was here instead of Milliman the results would be almost exactly the same - maybe another coach schedules things differently that would have worked out slightly better - but if you want to maintain the rivalries you can't pick the years in which you play them. So you can't duck UVA if you want to play for the Doyle Smith Cup in the future. In hindsight you probably might have wanted to avoid Georgetown and doubling up on 2 games in 48 hours was not a great call - but when we thought we might be on the ascent boy were the posters thrusting chests out about how tough Hopkins schedule was, is and always should be.
- Transfers - Again if you think Milliman is not out there looking at the portal and evaluating everybody I think you're crazy. He will contact Handley when he graduates from Penn - I assure you. But the odds have to be long - get over it. For whatever issues Hopkins has for a high school recruit they are probably more for a transfer and graduate school player. You can sell an inocming recruit that he can be part of a 4 year story - you can't sell Chris Gray/Donville/Khan etc that story. They need a one or two year story. At 2-4 and almost losing to MSM there was no 1 year story. Then there's the academic fit - as '16 pointed out if your lacrosse player wants to go to journalism school well he's going to pick Maryland or Syracuse. Then there's money/distribution of scholarship money/impacts on current roster/team chemistry/future recruiting - a gazillion things to consider. And yet, right out of the box Milliman got IL's #1 ranked transfer - Fernandez - I guess PM should have known he would blow out his knee again.
- The new coaching staff arrived under extremely difficult circumstances - replacing a legend - can't meet with your team - can't even see them for 7 months - one recruiting class decimated through no fault of your own (would have happened with any new coach) - can't attend any recruiting events

Again - what did you expect?

[steel_hop]

But usually they're just more quiet about it.

Fair point.

I look at the portal stuff for the best guys as much like NFL free agency. Some how there is no communication between teams and players but some how within the 1st couple of hours teams have deals in place with players even though there is no communication.

I also think the portal is awful but it is very much don't hate the player, hate the game aspect of the sport that needs to be played.

[steel_hop]

I have a question:
Would you - and you know who the collective "you" are - actually be happy if Hopkins beats Penn State? I know with absolute certainty what you'll do if they lose but if they win will it give you any of the emotional joy (for lack of a better phrase) that typically results from being a "fan" of a team? Will you think "good for them - they took the worst punch in the gut you could possibly take in a competition but they didn't quit"
And if they somehow were 10-4 next year and made the NCAAs - and clearly I am not saying that will happen - but if it did would you be happy? Would you sit in your La-Z-Boy and drink a beer to the Jays or would you seethe inside that you can't blame that on Ron Daniels - Jen Baker and Peter Milliman?

I doubt this is pointed at me. But, I'll answer the question. It would be nice to win because that means the team gets another game to play and as former college athlete, the memories (even getting killed) are an important part of my life. I wouldn't wish it on any kid to have one less game (thought the obvious caveat is that one team plays one less game). I also think the PSU is going to win this game - rematches are tough to win when you won the first game - particularly between bad teams. No matter what, this team is going to end the season with a loss...be it tomorrow, against UMD, or, I guess, we can throw in the improbably loss in the B1G championship game or NCAA tournament.

While some of this is opinion alot of it happens to be true:

- While individual tactics can be questioned - Milliman has certainly tried as many things as he can think of - he has not sat on the status quo - a prime example being DeSimone. In his first 2 full years with Petro/BB he had 35 points - and most seem to agree he was mismanaged. Last two years - espec. if they play 2 games - he can reach 85 points. I submit he might not have been the X attackman in 21 under the prior coaching admin so the question is would they have found a better one - Murphy for example and would his production account for all the differences and enough to make the differences in the team overall? Questionable at best.

I think at the very least PM has attempted to make changes. He hasn't just sat out there throwing the same line-up out there week in and week out. At least there is some thought to changes. Whether the changes are good or not is unknown. Also, I can at least see his reasoning at this point for not switching in freshman that might play that could make some difference. At this point of the season and where the team is, no sense burning a year when the team isn't going anywhere. And I have no idea if this has happened or not just at this point of the season if it appears to click for a freshman and you aren't going anywhere, you don't play him.

- If another coach was here instead of Milliman the results would be almost exactly the same - maybe another coach schedules things differently that would have worked out slightly better - but if you want to maintain the rivalries you can't pick the years in which you play them. So you can't duck UVA if you want to play for the Doyle Smith Cup in the future. In hindsight you probably might have wanted to avoid Georgetown and doubling up on 2 games in 48 hours was not a great call - but when we thought we might be on the ascent boy were the posters thrusting chests out about how tough Hopkins schedule was, is and always should be.

That is tough to say. I think if someone like Nads, or Raymond, or Marr had come in there would be more consistency in the program between staffs. You probably don't lose the entire recruiting class and have to restart because he can talk about being a Petro disciple and the only real change is the name and that it is still Hopkins traditions, etc. and they wouldn't change all of that. This is all conjecture on my part.

- Transfers - Again if you think Milliman is not out there looking at the portal and evaluating everybody I think you're crazy. He will contact Handley when he graduates from Penn - I assure you. But the odds have to be long - get over it. For whatever issues Hopkins has for a high school recruit they are probably more for a transfer and graduate school player. You can sell an inocming recruit that he can be part of a 4 year story - you can't sell Chris Gray/Donville/Khan etc that story. They need a one or two year story. At 2-4 and almost losing to MSM there was no 1 year story. Then there's the academic fit - as '16 pointed out if your lacrosse player wants to go to journalism school well he's going to pick Maryland or Syracuse. Then there's money/distribution of scholarship money/impacts on current roster/team chemistry/future recruiting - a gazillion things to consider. And yet, right out of the box Milliman got IL's #1 ranked transfer - Fernandez - I guess PM should have known he would blow out his knee again.

All of this is correct and one of the reasons I don't really like the portal. It allows the "haves" to continue to cycle in players and the have nots to continue to lose players. It certainly allows for teams like MD to fill in a hole when a top player leaves. Maybe it blows up on you but I'd rather rely on a 22 or 23 year old guy that has demonstrated success at the D1 level than an 18 year kid that hasn't.

- The new coaching staff arrived under extremely difficult circumstances - replacing a legend - can't meet with your team - can't even see them for 7 months - one recruiting class decimated through no fault of your own (would have happened with any new coach) - can't attend any recruiting events

Again - what did you expect?

I think the overarching issue is that at the end of last year, the team - even based on record - appeared to moving in the right direction. The defense was playing extremely well at the end of last year. The offense was okay. Not great but seemed to be going in some type of direction. There was the hope that the rebuild wouldn't take that long. This year, the defense has continued to be a strength but the offense has clearly taken a step back from even appearing to know what it wants. Last year, there was only a 13 goal difference in GF and GA - works out to 1 goal a game last year. I's also argue last year's schedule with only big 10 teams was harder and you can't pad your stats against weaker teams. This year, the goal difference is 30.

And while rebuilding a program isn't a straight line up, this season has certainly dashed any thought that the team would be ready to compete to be a name in the NCAA tournament next year. Right now, it is more likely than not, not going to be a team anywhere near the tournament. There is just a lack of hope that I think has many people upset.

[HopFan16]

Re: the portal, it's an enormous factor now and will be for the next few seasons but once the extra Covid eligibility runs out it's quickly going to lose impact. You're not going to have all these All-Americans looking to play mercenary as grad students at other programs. There will still be some good players here and there who enter the portal as undergrads looking for a change (e.g. Chris Gray) but teams are not going to be able to plug all of their holes via the portal like they can now. For example, without the one-time Covid extra eligibility, Maryland wouldn't currently have Donville or Khan. They'd still have Murphy and would of course still be a good team but they wouldn't be the total juggernaut we're seeing right now. Rutgers wouldn't have half their team. Credit them for taking advantage while it's possible — I have no issue with it — but this surplus of talent to bring in is temporary and will diminish starting in summer 2024. Priority #1, longterm, should still be recruiting the old fashioned way.

[Sagittarius A*]

I have a question:
Would you - and you know who the collective "you" are - actually be happy if Hopkins beats Penn State? I know with absolute certainty what you'll do if they lose but if they win will it give you any of the emotional joy (for lack of a better phrase) that typically results from being a "fan" of a team? Will you think "good for them - they took the worst punch in the gut you could possibly take in a competition but they didn't quit"
And if they somehow were 10-4 next year and made the NCAAs - and clearly I am not saying that will happen - but if it did would you be happy? Would you sit in your La-Z-Boy and drink a beer to the Jays or would you seethe inside that you can't blame that on Ron Daniels - Jen Baker and Peter Milliman?

I doubt this is pointed at me. But, I'll answer the question. It would be nice to win because that means the team gets another game to play and as former college athlete, the memories (even getting killed) are an important part of my life. I wouldn't wish it on any kid to have one less game (thought the obvious caveat is that one team plays one less game). I also think the PSU is going to win this game - rematches are tough to win when you won the first game - particularly between bad teams. No matter what, this team is going to end the season with a loss...be it tomorrow, against UMD, or, I guess, we can throw in the improbably loss in the B1G championship game or NCAA tournament.

While some of this is opinion alot of it happens to be true:

- While individual tactics can be questioned - Milliman has certainly tried as many things as he can think of - he has not sat on the status quo - a prime example being DeSimone. In his first 2 full years with Petro/BB he had 35 points - and most seem to agree he was mismanaged. Last two years - espec. if they play 2 games - he can reach 85 points. I submit he might not have been the X attackman in 21 under the prior coaching admin so the question is would they have found a better one - Murphy for example and would his production account for all the differences and enough to make the differences in the team overall? Questionable at best.

I think at the very least PM has attempted to make changes. He hasn't just sat out there throwing the same line-up out there week in and week out. At least there is some thought to changes. Whether the changes are good or not is unknown. Also, I can at least see his reasoning at this point for not switching in freshman that might play that could make some difference. At this point of the season and where the team is, no sense burning a year when the team isn't going anywhere. And I have no idea if this has happened or not just at this point of the season if it appears to click for a freshman and you aren't going anywhere, you don't play him.

- If another coach was here instead of Milliman the results would be almost exactly the same - maybe another coach schedules things differently that would have worked out slightly better - but if you want to maintain the rivalries you can't pick the years in which you play them. So you can't duck UVA if you want to play for the Doyle Smith Cup in the future. In hindsight you probably might have wanted to avoid Georgetown and doubling up on 2 games in 48 hours was not a great call - but when we thought we might be on the ascent boy were the posters thrusting chests out about how tough Hopkins schedule was, is and always should be.

That is tough to say. I think if someone like Nads, or Raymond, or Marr had come in there would be more consistency in the program between staffs. You probably don't lose the entire recruiting class and have to restart because he can talk about being a Petro disciple and the only real change is the name and that it is still Hopkins traditions, etc. and they wouldn't change all of that. This is all conjecture on my part.

- Transfers - Again if you think Milliman is not out there looking at the portal and evaluating everybody I think you're crazy. He will contact Handley when he graduates from Penn - I assure you. But the odds have to be long - get over it. For whatever issues Hopkins has for a high school recruit they are probably more for a transfer and graduate school player. You can sell an inocming recruit that he can be part of a 4 year story - you can't sell Chris Gray/Donville/Khan etc that story. They need a one or two year story. At 2-4 and almost losing to MSM there was no 1 year story. Then there's the academic fit - as '16 pointed out if your lacrosse player wants to go to journalism school well he's going to pick Maryland or Syracuse. Then there's money/distribution of scholarship money/impacts on current roster/team chemistry/future recruiting - a gazillion things to consider. And yet, right out of the box Milliman got IL's #1 ranked transfer - Fernandez - I guess PM should have known he would blow out his knee again.

All of this is correct and one of the reasons I don't really like the portal. It allows the "haves" to continue to cycle in players and the have nots to continue to lose players. It certainly allows for teams like MD to fill in a hole when a top player leaves. Maybe it blows up on you but I'd rather rely on a 22 or 23 year old guy that has demonstrated success at the D1 level than an 18 year kid that hasn't.

- The new coaching staff arrived under extremely difficult circumstances - replacing a legend - can't meet with your team - can't even see them for 7 months - one recruiting class decimated through no fault of your own (would have happened with any new coach) - can't attend any recruiting events

Again - what did you expect?

I think the overarching issue is that at the end of last year, the team - even based on record - appeared to moving in the right direction. The defense was playing extremely well at the end of last year. The offense was okay. Not great but seemed to be going in some type of direction. There was the hope that the rebuild wouldn't take that long. This year, the defense has continued to be a strength but the offense has clearly taken a step back from even appearing to know what it wants. Last year, there was only a 13 goal difference in GF and GA - works out to 1 goal a game last year. I's also argue last year's schedule with only big 10 teams was harder and you can't pad your stats against weaker teams. This year, the goal difference is 30.

And while rebuilding a program isn't a straight line up, this season has certainly dashed any thought that the team would be ready to compete to be a name in the NCAA tournament next year. Right now, it is more likely than not, not going to be a team anywhere near the tournament. There is just a lack of hope that I think has many people upset.

Your post captures my sentiments, although I think you've said it a lot better than I would have.
At the end of last season there was hope. At the end of this season, not so much.
I do agree with you that Marr or Nads, or even Raymond likely would have been better fits and the program would be in better shape right now. It's also possible that none of these three wanted the job, realizing that there would be more pressure than in their current roles. I do think Milliman et al. were way way overconfident coming in, as you could tell from their intro press conference. I think they are only just now realizing the magnitude of the rebuild ahead of them. I can't say I'm optimistic here at all and if I were them I would be looking for an exit ramp, although human nature tends to work against making changes before they are forced upon one.
Hopkins is a special place and unless you were part of that culture it's very difficult to have success here. I don't believe PM and company at this point will change that. Will Benson be the next HC here?

[Big Dog]

I stated this before. Theory seems to be shared.

I'm assuming the theory you're referring to is what you said in your post just before? Apologies in advance if you were actually talking about a different theory. But what you wrote does an impressive job of distilling something I gather a number of people really think, so I'm going to respond to that. I'll call this Theory A, but it needs a better name. Seriously, with the weird line formatting it's almost like poetry:

The sport of lacrosse has become more
widespread throughout the country and few
teams dominate the way Johns Hopkins
once did. It's hard for the Blue Jays to
compete in the Big Ten with teams like Ohio
State, Penn State, Maryland and Michigan,
which have big-time facilities and major
college football programs.
The lure of those golden days when Johns
Hopkins dominated is gone, and the Blue
Jays program has started to fade with it.

I am not surprised that this theory seems to be shared. That's because the alternative theory is what I'll call Theory B. Theory B is that the particular individuals charged with stewardship of the program screwed things up by making bad strategic choices, or by encouraging and enabling those choices, the effects of which will probably be felt for a long time, but which are in principle reversible by new people coming in, cleaning house, and doing things differently.

I genuinely do not know whether Theory A or Theory B is correct. I am, however, very certain that some people are deeply invested in denying that Theory B is even conceivable. And that group significantly overlaps with the group of people most likely to have enough firsthand knowledge to be able to assess which theory is right. So we may never really know. My point is just that there may be reasons for Theory A's popularity that are completely unrelated to its likelihood of being true.

From where I sit, which is far from the action, Theory B makes a lot of sense. It's consistent with all the publicly available evidence, and with what I hear from people who have close connections to the program but no particular interest in exonerating themselves for their role in its collapse.

Theory A, by contrast, seems like arbitrarily grasping at some random event that happens to fit the timeline and can be vaguely associated with Hopkins, and then insisting that it explains everything even though the supposed connection doesn't make any logical sense.

The idea, I think -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- is roughly that, by the early 2010s you have a lot of TV money flowing into the P5 schools, and concurrently those that have men's lacrosse teams are getting more interested in supporting them and finding a deeper pool of recruits to tap into, and right as these trends are converging Hopkins joins the Big Ten for lacrosse, and [steps not really specified, but....] sic transit gloria mundi.

The first problem with this theory is that how competitive Hopkins has been with the Big Ten schools actually very closely tracks how competitive Hopkins has been with everybody else. In all of the below, I'm counting B1G tournament games in the B1G W-L totals.

In 2015 and 2018, Hopkins went 11-7 and 6-1 in the B1G, and 12-5 and 5-2 in the B1G, respectively.
In 2016, 2017, and 2019, Hopkins went either 8-7 or 8-8, and in the B1G went either 3-3 or 4-3.
In 2020, Hopkins only played non-B1G opponents, and went 2-4. In 2021, Hopkins played only B1G opponents, and went 4-9.
So far this season, Hopkins has gone 2-3 against the B1G, and 4-5 against everybody else.

It seems to me that it's approximately as hard for Hopkins to compete against "teams like Ohio State, Penn State, Maryland, and Michigan, which have big-time facilities and major college football programs," as it is for Hopkins to compete against anybody else.

But Theory A is actually much loopier than that. It doesn't seem to depend on the notion that having posh facilities and spending lots of money actually helps the football-factory schools be good at lacrosse. The sheer fact of their existence is enough to drag Hopkins down, irrespective of whether they're actually winning games against Hopkins, or even winning games at all.

So we end up with the hypothesis that Penn State and Michigan having big-time facilities accounts for Hopkins losing games this year to Navy and Delaware -- although not, interestingly enough, to Michigan or Penn State.

Nor does this strange force-field projected by bad teams with good facilities appear to ensnare anybody besides Hopkins. I have yet to see the varying fortunes of Cornell or High Point or Providence or Denver or Stony Brook explained in terms of B1G schools spending ludicrous football money.

tl;dr, I think this is a bad theory that gets propagated because it suits certain parties' interests, not because it's likely to be true.

Why is it either/or? Why can't it be both some of A and some of B: 1) the growth of lax across the country has changed the sport making big time sports schools and easy academic/admit schools (e.g., Jax) attractive to top high school lax players, and, 2) we made bad choices, with early recruiting being a prime example.

[Homer]

I have a question:
Would you - and you know who the collective "you" are - actually be happy if Hopkins beats Penn State? I know with absolute certainty what you'll do if they lose but if they win will it give you any of the emotional joy (for lack of a better phrase) that typically results from being a "fan" of a team? Will you think "good for them - they took the worst punch in the gut you could possibly take in a competition but they didn't quit"
And if they somehow were 10-4 next year and made the NCAAs - and clearly I am not saying that will happen - but if it did would you be happy? Would you sit in your La-Z-Boy and drink a beer to the Jays or would you seethe inside that you can't blame that on Ron Daniels - Jen Baker and Peter Milliman?

Your whole post is superb, but this especially is a great question. I certainly don't have a window into anybody's mind. But one thing that's become apparent to me over the past couple years is that there's a certain segment of the fan base that genuinely doesn't care about the wins and losses.

At least not around the margins. They might concede that going 16-3 and winning a National Championship is categorically good and going 2-12 is categorically bad, no matter who's at the controls. But they absolutely believe that going 7-8 with their guy at the helm is perfectly satisfactory and really the best anybody could possibly expect under the circumstances. And also that going 7-8 with some outsider who won't return their calls is a travesty and a farce and the poisoned fruit of Daniels's conspiracy to destroy the program.

And I ... guess I can't really fault them for that? I mean, it's harder to explain why you'd care about whether the team in the blue shirts or the team in the orange shirts throws the ball in the goal more times than it is to explain why you'd care about feeling like you and your friends are smart and competent and respected and deferred to and wanting to insulate that belief from the possibility that somebody else could walk in and do it better. The second thing is sort of obviously a more primal human urge, right?

What's weird here is that usually that dynamic doesn't play all that much of a role in sports fandom, but it seems to be more salient when it comes to Hopkins lacrosse. I think part of what's going on is that because the Hopkins fan base is defined less by caring about the school than by being connected geographically to the sport's traditional epicenter, it contains a number of people whose investment isn't really in seeing Hopkins win so much as it's in looking to whatever Hopkins is doing to vindicate a certain view of themselves and the people they grew up with as the proper custodians of the game.

In that perspective, your enemy isn't, like, say, Duke. You can always explain away the occasional first-round boatracing if necessary. Bet you didn't know Shack couldn't lift his arm above his shoulder? Etc. Your enemy is an administrator who says, forget you, you don't know what you're doing, I'm going to bring in somebody younger and cheaper and "socially awkward" (i.e., doesn't even pretend to like hanging out with you) and the worst that can happen is he gets the same results.

To be clear, I'm not by any means saying this is where everyone who's pessimistic about Milliman and the program's trajectory is coming from. But it'd take a lot at this point to convince me that the dynamic I'm describing isn't out there to some extent.

[HopFan16]

Why is it either/or? Why can't it be both some of A and some of B: 1) the growth of lax across the country has changed the sport making big time sports schools and easy academic/admit schools (e.g., Jax) attractive to high school 5* lax players, and, 2) we made bad choices, with early recruiting being a prime example.

A is why we don't make the Final Four every single year like we used to. I think B, however, is why we're struggling to make the playoffs at all. I think most people have come to terms with the fact that A is permanent and we're never going back to the good old days. But I think B can change with better recruiting and an improved culture and both of those things take more than 2 seasons to change. Hopefully it doesn't need 8, but more than 2. 4-5 is reasonable. Look what the Ivies + Georgetown are doing this year. That type of success is absolutely possible for us. As a reminder some of these Ivy teams playing well this year went through long periods of mediocrity or worse. There were probably some Yale and Penn fans who had given up hope of making and winning playoff games. That's not to say we need to endure as long of a drought as they did, but the point is it's real easy for people to say "things will never improve" when you're in the midst of the Bad Times.