Johns Hopkins 2023

[DocBarrister]

There is some truth to the "it's hard to beat the same team twice" narrative, especially when the coach of the other team is Tillman. He made the adjustments they needed to make and that's why he makes the Final Four pretty much every year.

The Jays have not played their best after emotional wins. This has been a trend all season. Beat then-#3 Georgetown by one? Lay an egg against UNC a week later. Beat Petro/Cuse up in the Dome? Come out flat against Navy and almost blow a game to an inferior opponent. Get the Rutgers monkey off your back on senior day? Blow a big first quarter lead and lose in 2OT to PSU. Beat Maryland in the Rivalry game?....lose to Maryland in the Rivalry game. It's been a pretty clear pattern.

I'm not really worried about the off-ball miscues today. I would be if that were a longterm trend, but that hasn't really been a problem all year. They'll sort it out. I don't know what they're going to do in goal though. I can't see them making a move now after we've gotten this far but it goes without saying #10 has to step up if this team is going to make a run.

I hope they don't abandon the deep midfield because of this loss. It has been a boon for us all year. We didn't lose today because we played too many guys. What's *very* clear to me though is Brooks English should not be rotated out ever. He creates offense every single time he steps on the field. If they want to mix and match Evans, Chauvette, Peshko, etc. then fine but don't play those games with Collison and English. Get them out there every other shift at absolute minimum.

Maryland has the best off-ball offense in college lacrosse. Blue Jays can do better (as we saw in the first game), but they have done a good job defending off-ball this season.

Frankly, I think the Blue Jays should solidify their lineups for their top two midfields and keep them together the rest of the way. Want to play three midfields … sure, keep those legs fresh. But I think the mix-and-match should stop.

Agree with keeping Collison and English on the field. Collison’s work against the Maryland triple team (for an assist) was eye-opening. He is fearless and I think Collison is the best true middie Hopkins has.

DocBarrister

[10stone5]

Collison——

“ I think I’ll run through the entire Terps defense,
yeah, that’s the ticket. “

[laxalife]

So, who should JHU fans be rooting for in the conference tournaments to get Hopkins the highest possible NCAA seed (or at least to ensure we’re in for sure). I assume today’s debacle rules out a 4 seed, but what’s out there? If Michigan were to win Saturday, would the Big10 really get 4 teams in? And if not, who’s out in that scenario. Just wondering.

[HopFan16]

So, who should JHU fans be rooting for in the conference tournaments to get Hopkins the highest possible NCAA seed (or at least to ensure we’re in for sure). I assume today’s debacle rules out a 4 seed, but what’s out there? If Michigan were to win Saturday, would the Big10 really get 4 teams in? And if not, who’s out in that scenario. Just wondering.

Yes if Michigan gets the AQ, the B1G will get 4 teams in. That'd be very bad news for a team from the Yale/Penn/Denver/Villanova group.

#4 seed does seem pretty unlikely at this point but #5 is very much in play. The team that is most likely to bump us down to #6 or #7 is Cornell, if they win the Ivy tournament. Just beating Yale but then losing to Penn/Princeton won't be enough for them to jump us, IMO. But we're still probably rooting against Cornell in general. I don't think the other games matter a ton.

Michigan beating Maryland might bump Maryland behind us in the RPI, but then it'd also lose us a top 5 RPI win.

Wish we coulda won today but it's a whole lot more fun watching the games this weekend knowing we won't have to sweat out Selection Sunday and are just thinking about seeding.

[jhu06]

So, who should JHU fans be rooting for in the conference tournaments to get Hopkins the highest possible NCAA seed (or at least to ensure we’re in for sure). I assume today’s debacle rules out a 4 seed, but what’s out there? If Michigan were to win Saturday, would the Big10 really get 4 teams in? And if not, who’s out in that scenario. Just wondering.

Yes if Michigan gets the AQ, the B1G will get 4 teams in. That'd be very bad news for a team from the Yale/Penn/Denver/Villanova group.

#4 seed does seem pretty unlikely at this point but #5 is very much in play. The team that is most likely to bump us down to #6 or #7 is Cornell, if they win the Ivy tournament. Just beating Yale but then losing to Penn/Princeton won't be enough for them to jump us, IMO. But we're still probably rooting against Cornell in general. I don't think the other games matter a ton.

Michigan beating Maryland might bump Maryland behind us in the RPI, but then it'd also lose us a top 5 RPI win.

Wish we coulda won today but it's a whole lot more fun watching the games this weekend knowing we won't have to sweat out Selection Sunday and are just thinking about seeding.

The defense and goaltending was phenomenal to start the game. Watch the video. The offense had about a half dozen turnovers early which gave maryland momentum and the last 3 quarters looked we were watching 2006-2020 petro against acc and in the ncaa tournament. You can blame marcille, but he was fine early and when the defense shuts down a top 5 opponent and the faceoff guys are winning the matchup against an elite guy like weirman the offense is supposed to cash in. UVA, Duke, I don't know Notre Dame, but if those offenses were spotted the start the defense and the fogo gave our offense today the game would be out of reach for their opponent.

PM dumped HF16's bffs peshko and grimes from man up because they were ineffective as they've been throughout their careers. They had 2 weeks post maryland to reload and didn't feel strongly enough about them to keep them there. That speaks volumes about their futures with this program which should end this summer. Remember deso keogh and epstein went bye bye and we got better. If you watch the interview with Tessitore and Dixon who looked dumb all game asking why Dunn hadn't played when he had taken a faceoff and won the gb on it, PM laid out his frustration in the first half with the offense not attacking the goal, not having the focus to kill off maryland after the strong first start and not having the mental toughness to complete passes. Frankly I thought they also loafed it on too many gbs especially peshko and degnon. These were narratives we've seen all year. I don't know how many games they've had where they either didn't come out strong or started strong especially defensively and instead of mounting 9-3, 10-2 leads shmucked their way to 6-5 leads or like today trailing 6-4. This is part of moving from a loser program that's struggling just to establish an identity to a winning program like maryland, uva, that expects to win and just consistently all game long does the right things until it either crushes you or hangs around to beat you. Maybe they should play a trash team next year just so they can learn how to run up the score on someone and to play with confidence and consistency.

51 wanted to know why it was so quiet this week and the reality is after 15 games you basically know everything you're going to know about your team except the final score of the games. The defense has 1-2 elite/good quarters a game in them, will give up a massive run or now season killing run, melendez/angelus/degnon/mazzone/narewski-dunn are going to make plays to give the team a chance and then the goaltending and rest of the offense are wildcards that could either be all conference or all done for the season. English and Collison have bright offensive futures, but they don't have the confidence in their own games yet and are too deferential to veteran players.

FWIW the shooting was also garbage today. Collison and degnon in the 3rd had shots that were just awful. They were afraid to go inside which is disturbing considering the sizes of guys like collison peshko degnon and grimes among others.

[Wheels]

Angelus and Melendez are the entire keys to the offense. Hop doesn't win when those two don't produce. Degnon, Collison, Grimes, and Peshko are great complementary players, but they can't take over games the way Angelus and Melendez can. In Round 1 vs the Terps, Angelus and Melendez combined for 5 and 4. Tonight they went 2 and 1 with all 3 points in the 1st quarter. Those two guys will take the Blue Jays as far as they can. The defense is good enough to get to the Final 4. When Angelus is dealing and Melendez is dodging, the offense is good enough to go to the Final 4, too.

[jhu06]

Angelus and Melendez are the entire keys to the offense. Hop doesn't win when those two don't produce. Degnon, Collison, Grimes, and Peshko are great complementary players, but they can't take over games the way Angelus and Melendez can. In Round 1 vs the Terps, Angelus and Melendez combined for 5 and 4. Tonight they went 2 and 1 with all 3 points in the 1st quarter. Those two guys will take the Blue Jays as far as they can. The defense is good enough to get to the Final 4. When Angelus is dealing and Melendez is dodging, the offense is good enough to go to the Final 4, too.

In the playoffs it's an automatic that teams are going to try to take away your knowns. They either have to overcome it or your other guys have to step up. Neither did it today.

[jrn19]

"Tessitore and Dixon"

incredible stuff as always

[HopFan16]

"Tessitore and Dixon"

incredible stuff as always

Smooth brain

[jhu06]

"Tessitore and Dixon"

incredible stuff as always

Smooth brain

they didn't know dunn had been on the field, all game.

[jff97]

I get major Indiana men's basketball fan vibes from this board. Win and everything is great, the coach is the man, we're going all the way. Lose and it's time to fire everybody and wonder whether they'll ever win a game again. You guys have taken another step forward this year, which is a good thing. Took Milliman some time, but he's starting to get results. And for those saying Marcille is struggling because he's too short, last year's Final Four MOP if I recall was a short goalie.

[HopFan16]

I get major Indiana men's basketball fan vibes from this board. Win and everything is great, the coach is the man, we're going all the way. Lose and it's time to fire everybody and wonder whether they'll ever win a game again. You guys have taken another step forward this year, which is a good thing. Took Milliman some time, but he's starting to get results. And for those saying Marcille is struggling because he's too short, last year's Final Four MOP if I recall was a short goalie.

McNaney is listed at 5'10'' — I think that is pretty generous but he still probably has a couple inches on Marcille.

In any case I don't think Marcille's struggles have much to do with his height. He started off hot yesterday but after he let in a couple it looked like he lost trust in his instincts and started to guess, e.g. Brennan's goal down the alley when Tim dropped his stick and the ball whizzed by him right at ear level. He has been described as something of a lacrosse savant with as high of an IQ as they come...well sometimes I think that comes back to bite him and he overthinks instead of just reacting. If that were true he'd probably be the first to identify it as an issue but that kind of thing is difficult to overcome in-season.

To be clear it was not a good defensive performance in front of him. Easily the worst since the UVA game in early March. But there were a solid handful of less-obvious shots that you'd like to see the goalie save.

I have a lot more faith this year than in prior years that they'll regroup.

[jhu06]

I get major Indiana men's basketball fan vibes from this board. Win and everything is great, the coach is the man, we're going all the way. Lose and it's time to fire everybody and wonder whether they'll ever win a game again. You guys have taken another step forward this year, which is a good thing. Took Milliman some time, but he's starting to get results. And for those saying Marcille is struggling because he's too short, last year's Final Four MOP if I recall was a short goalie.

Coach Knight has been gone a long long time. Apples and Oranges.

[Sagittarius A*]

I get major Indiana men's basketball fan vibes from this board. Win and everything is great, the coach is the man, we're going all the way. Lose and it's time to fire everybody and wonder whether they'll ever win a game again. You guys have taken another step forward this year, which is a good thing. Took Milliman some time, but he's starting to get results. And for those saying Marcille is struggling because he's too short, last year's Final Four MOP if I recall was a short goalie.

Coach Knight has been gone a long long time. Apples and Oranges.

It sure would have been nice having Mr. Murphy playing for us yesterday.
That would have been a six goal swing.
Oooooooops!

[steel_hop]

outside of the 1st 5 minutes or so the rest of the game was about as bad as you can get. Thankfully, it was what amounts to a meaningless game for playoff purposes and wasn't in the NCAAs. Hey, need to find some good news in what was a thorough beat down.

Hopkins has won a lot of close games this year. That means that they are pretty mentally tough but it also means some breaks have gone their way. Today, we saw what happens when just about every break goes the other way. Congrats to the Twerps in capitalizing on those. Hopkins off ball defense was just about the worst defense effort by them all season - not sure why they were surprised by what UMD was going to do today. From the last game, UMd started to see a success in off ball cuts and that Hopkins never adjusted to. Same thing yesterday.

Marcille is the goal. Sure, it would be nice to see him make more saves. But, at this point in the season, you are going to let it ride and are only pulling him unless it the team is already getting blown out.

As for Marquis and Chauvette, not sure why that was done but could guess there is an assumption that those 2 might play some role in the playoffs and used this game as a way to warm them up.

[OCanada]

they were great comments and anyone who has spent any time at homewood understands the safety issues.

That rules you out then. You haven't been on campus in 17 years.

Even if it was true, it was a random and pointless thing to mention in a top 20 lacrosse rankings column. Like, what's he hoping to achieve? Just some trolling to go along with his rudimentary lax analysis of games he admits he didn't watch because he was 1,500 miles away covering a spring football game? Mission accomplished I guess.

Yeah the issue for me is the comment came out of absolutely nowhere and was just flat out inappropriate. The Jays are 11-4, ranked #4 and no matter what happens in the B1G tournament they have likely already sewn up an NCAA home game so Quint has nothing. Can't say anything about blown clears or a lack of dodgers or no toughness on GBs. There may be another day for that, but it's not today. So he resorts to truly desperate jabs that have nothing to do with lacrosse. The Jays are good and he's just a liiiiitle bit mad about it.

We almost let OC get away with his "Daniels shows up for a PR campaign with photos" comment. This is a fantastically stupid thing to say for two different reasons. First, Daniels did not know the team was going to win and there'd be an opportunity for photos. He was at the game win or lose. That's a hell of a way to spend a rainy Saturday night as a university president. Praying the team pulls off the upset so he can take a photo with the team. Sounds awful. Second, let's assume for a second that it is solely just a PR photo op. So? Who gives a sh*t? Who do you think he's trying to impress? The nerds at the Applied Physics Lab? He wants the Hopkins lacrosse community to like him. Now, why might he do that? Could it be because he actually does care and wants the team to do well? If he didn't care, why the hell show up? Why make the effort? This is a classic example of taking a good thing — the president shows up to support the team in a big game — and spinning it into a bad thing to fit a warped agenda.

nyjay, on your point #2 — Melendez was highly rated coming out of Spalding. IL top 70 recruit and first-team MIAA. I have no idea how he ended up at Marquette, there's probably a story there. Clearly, Petro passed on him. In that Glenn Clark interview from the other day Melendez said it was always his dream to play at Homewood and he jumped at the chance to transfer. Sounds like his injury issues may have spooked some other teams away and he was grateful we took a chance on him. He's quickly turning into my favorite player on the team.

As for #4, no one is going to confuse us with 2016 Brown but we have the horses to get out and go in transition. The poles can all handle the ball and Melendez is so good as the point man in those situations. He sees the field really well.

Ah yes. The House flack doing flack kinds of things. Daniels and attending an away game was only natural fandom at work. Regardless of 14? years of evidence to the contrary and the previous president attending more games in one year.

Bunch of non sequiturs. A photo op showing support for the team does not require winning a game. Establishing an association with the team after so many years is goal enuff. It was not more than a couple of years ago the lax community was wondering if Daniels could find Homewood field on his own. You are what your record of 14 years says you are. Records can always be modified so welcome bsck to the war. Maybe it will be repeated. It would help the program.

How does it feel to see the program in such a healthier, positive and more competitive place than where the last guy left it? You hate it, don't you?

You didn't actually address any of the points in my post about the reasoning behind his attendance. Talk about non sequiturs. You're the grandmaster.

Petro won a B1G title in 2018 i believe. Hopkind would have done much better the last couple of years had Crowley bern thete in lieu of Grant. Your duties as class flack create an almost predictable reflex action, In two years did you ever find fault with Grant’s offense. I don’t credit your points since they are so transparent. You do a nice job on players l. You don’t bend reality so much with them.

The record is the record. You like to avoid it.

[51percentcorn]

Glad I was sitting down for the Black Hole's post - no one saw that coming. When Hopkins was winning 6 in a row - 7 of 8 including dfeating Mr. Murphy all of sudden things were OK - but of course that was only due to the OC and the volunteer assistant (who is likely the goalie coach) - and now we're back - Fire Milliman - Fire Baker - Fire Daniels

In terms of the goalie - I respectfully disagree with Steel because of the rest of the team - while they didn't play well yesterday for some reason - they have certainly played pretty well for most of the season. I don't think you have to live with 37/39/40/35/41 in 5 of your last 7 games. ANd the other two games in that stretch were 54 and 50 and the 50 was against Ohio State which only put 16 shots on goal. So you might ask well then what about last year - why was Kirson allowed to stay - and that's a good point except I recently rattled off 7 of the 9 losses where a goalie wouldn't have made a bit of difference and his real clunkers were twice against Maryland and at Rutgers and at UVA - Champs and Semi-finalist and Quarter finalist. The lone clunker where it would have made a difference was Navy.

I have nothing but the greatest respect for Marcille - and clearly there is no height or weight requirements to play goalie - but everything else being equal - bigger is better - and shooters have a ton of open space to look at. When on the last or next to last UM goal where Brennan brushed aside the d-mid and no slide came - the amount of net he had to look at was astounding in slow motion. Tim apparently guessed low near side and then looked bad trying to deflect it with his shoulder as it went right over his head. Now I am not saying he shuld have saved that particular shot but I think it demionstrated some of the issues. Ultimately it's how the coaches read the room - if the team would take that as a betrayal and it would affect them - you have to play Marcille - if not either back-up would be worth a try in my opinion. They need better play from on job #1 for a goalie.

Hopkins woudl have had the virtual exact same record with Crawley in 21/22 as with Grant - especially under those circumstances. It's the talent on the field

[nrthcrosslax]

Marquis was definitely a surprise but not sure why the shock over Chauvette? He's coming back from injury and has contributed with some nice goals this season. Not sure if he has ever made an appearance one EMO before but he is a guy the coaches have always tried to work into the offensive rotation

[wgdsr]

hopkins was 45th in the country on manup @ 35%. not out of the realm to try new things, including personnel. that's inclusive of new action, which i'm guessing they've at least tweaked. had they kept trotting out the same stuff or peeps without that and gotten similar results, i have an idea how that may have been received.

[HopFan16]

Petro won a B1G title in 2018 i believe. Hopkind would have done much better the last couple of years had Crowley bern thete in lieu of Grant. Your duties as class flack create an almost predictable reflex action, In two years did you ever find fault with Grant’s offense. I don’t credit your points since they are so transparent. You do a nice job on players l. You don’t bend reality so much with them.

The record is the record. You like to avoid it.

I criticized the offense the last two years a lot. Nobody could draw slides. Epstein was a shell of himself. Junior did not have a ton to work with but I also don't think he maximized the talent that he did have. I thought it was an intriguing hire at the time — as did a lot of people — but it didn't work out. Happy? Anyway, more non sequiturs from you. You can't address the substance of the original post. Moving on now. Maybe you'll re-emerge again in two weeks after a loss and we can continue this then. Do you have anything else to say ever?

Marquis was definitely a surprise but not sure why the shock over Chauvette? He's coming back from injury and has contributed with some nice goals this season. Not sure if he has ever made an appearance one EMO before but he is a guy the coaches have always tried to work into the offensive rotation

1000% agreed. The handwringing over subbing in two players to the EMO for precisely two opportunities (they scored on one of them) is ridiculous. It's not reason 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 why the team lost yesterday. God forbid they try to add a Canadian inside finisher to an extra man unit that wasn't exactly lighting it up before that. Crazy right?

I loved seeing Marquis out there. Good way to get the young man some game reps in a big game. We're going to need him eventually, if not this year then next or the one after. Maybe he had a great week of practice and they wanted to reward him over an upperclassman or two who wasn't getting it done. Again, how dare they implement a merit-based system where guys know they have a chance to get in the game if they play well! Screw PM and his tattoos!!