Maryland 2023

[PulpExposure]

I didn’t realize Long had 5 turnovers. That’s unbelievable for him. Credit due to the Loyola defense and goalie - both were
stout. Maryland just got stuffed in it’s settled offense and when they did get a good look, the team couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn. Loyola definitely attacked the Maryland SSDMs with success. And McNaney was not seeing the ball at all, especially low to high shots. I just hope he’s ok.

No one thought this years Maryland would go undefeated, so a loss is not unexpected. Good learning experience hopefully to push the team forward into improving.

[GreyingHound]

Very awkward play for McNaney,
did not look good,

a freak hustle play where you simply land wrong.

Expecting worst case news there.

I was sitting behind the Loyola bench, close to where McNaney went down. Not sure how much was visible on TV, but he was on the ground for a while unable to get up. The Loyola staff and players tried to get the attention of the refs and the MD staff, but given the game was still in progress and he had landed out of bounds behind the Loyola bench, it took a while for everyone to realize he was down. Eventually, McNaney managed to get himself up and hop on one foot to the MD sideline. He didn't put any weight on his right leg.

I felt bad for the guy. I hope the injury ends up not being serious, but it didn't look good.

[TheBigIguana]

Very awkward play for McNaney,
did not look good,

a freak hustle play where you simply land wrong.

Expecting worst case news there.

I was sitting behind the Loyola bench, close to where McNaney went down. Not sure how much was visible on TV, but he was on the ground for a while unable to get up. The Loyola staff and players tried to get the attention of the refs and the MD staff, but given the game was still in progress and he had landed out of bounds behind the Loyola bench, it took a while for everyone to realize he was down. Eventually, McNaney managed to get himself up and hop on one foot to the MD sideline. He didn't put any weight on his right leg.

I felt bad for the guy. I hope the injury ends up not being serious, but it didn't look good.

He came back out to shake hands and was kind of walking but not putting a ton of weight down. As he went off again one of the trainers helped him. I expect he'll miss time unfortunately.

[wgdsr]

Hilarious that you pompous bitches only scheduled 12 games, hope you don't get in.

the 12 game nazis are back.
you of course realize hop used to schedule the least amount of games possible during the glory years, no?
fanlax is hilare.

[TheBigIguana]

Hilarious that you pompous bitches only scheduled 12 games, hope you don't get in.

the 12 game nazis are back.
you of course realize hop used to schedule the least amount of games possible during the glory years, no?
fanlax is hilare.

It's fair to questions schools that can schedule midweek bus trip games not having midweek games.

[nyjay]

Biggest problem is we don’t have a go to guy on offense anymore….when the offense is flowing like last week we are fine, but when we get bogged down there is no Wisnauskas, DeMaio, or Bernhardt that can create their own shot. Also credit to their goalie for some amazing plays…

Didn't really notice Murphy today. Thought he'd be the able to pick up the mantle of being "the guy".

[jrn19]

I mean, they’re not gonna play 12 games. They’re going to play a minimum of 13. It’s entirely possible they play 15 games before the tournament.

[ObxTerpFan]

Can someone who watched the game, share if the offense looked different than it did under Coach Benson?

[Bmk2222]

Biggest problem is we don’t have a go to guy on offense anymore….when the offense is flowing like last week we are fine, but when we get bogged down there is no Wisnauskas, DeMaio, or Bernhardt that can create their own shot. Also credit to their goalie for some amazing plays…

Didn't really notice Murphy today. Thought he'd be the able to pick up the mantle of being "the guy".

He is a great shooter but doesn’t seem to be a guy that’s going to run you over to get a goal…..
Really until someone steps up as that traditional #1 we will have days like theses…..

[Wheels]

Can someone who watched the game, share if the offense looked different than it did under Coach Benson?

It's the same offense that Tills and Reppert installed in 2020. They tweak it to fit the players' strengths. The difference between 2023 and the previous 3 seasons (2022, 2021, 2020) is that the Terps don't have an attackman who can be counted on to win a match-up, especially behind the net. Eric Malever's injury hurt this offense more than Benson's departure to PVD.

[Wheels]

Biggest problem is we don’t have a go to guy on offense anymore….when the offense is flowing like last week we are fine, but when we get bogged down there is no Wisnauskas, DeMaio, or Bernhardt that can create their own shot. Also credit to their goalie for some amazing plays…

Didn't really notice Murphy today. Thought he'd be the able to pick up the mantle of being "the guy".

He is a great shooter but doesn’t seem to be a guy that’s going to run you over to get a goal…..
Really until someone steps up as that traditional #1 we will have days like theses…..

Turnovers have been his issue. He's just not used to carrying the ball that much or being the distributor. He probably has those skills, but he's learning how to be that guy.

[ObxTerpFan]

Can someone who watched the game, share if the offense looked different than it did under Coach Benson?

It's the same offense that Tills and Reppert installed in 2020. They tweak it to fit the players' strengths. The difference between 2023 and the previous 3 seasons (2022, 2021, 2020) is that the Terps don't have an attackman who can be counted on to win a match-up, especially behind the net. Eric Malever's injury hurt this offense more than Benson's departure to PVD.

Thank you

[Pork42]

I didn’t realize Long had 5 turnovers. That’s unbelievable for him. Credit due to the Loyola defense and goalie - both were
stout. Maryland just got stuffed in it’s settled offense and when they did get a good look, the team couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn. Loyola definitely attacked the Maryland SSDMs with success. And McNaney was not seeing the ball at all, especially low to high shots. I just hope he’s ok.

No one thought this years Maryland would go undefeated, so a loss is not unexpected. Good learning experience hopefully to push the team forward into improving.

Goalies coming in Loyola have a hard time seeing the ball on that one end with the sun and that big white dome bubble on at the other end of the field. You could see Loyola taking advantage of that it was the Maryland defense that should of defended it. Hats off to Loyola for making the shots. Tills was smart Bringing in Teddy Dolan a great insurance policy if McNaney is done for the year.

[fsclax]

Can someone who watched the game, share if the offense looked different than it did under Coach Benson?

One thing that I noticed against Loyola (I haven't seen the Richmond game) is that the Terps were much less compressed yesterday than they were in 2022. That jumped out at me very early in the game. Last year they kept most of the offense between the football hash marks much more than most teams but they got their hands free with a lot of circular motion. This meant that every player was a threat most of the time. Their quick ball movement led to poor defensive approaches which turns an average dodger into a good one. Yesterday it looked like there was a defender in the lap of every Terp when he received the ball which caused the carousel to break down.

[keno in reno]

Can someone who watched the game, share if the offense looked different than it did under Coach Benson?

One thing that I noticed against Loyola (I haven't seen the Richmond game) is that the Terps were much less compressed yesterday than they were in 2022. That jumped out at me very early in the game. Last year they kept most of the offense between the football hash marks much more than most teams but they got their hands free with a lot of circular motion. This meant that every player was a threat most of the time. Their quick ball movement led to poor defensive approaches which turns an average dodger into a good one. Yesterday it looked like there was a defender in the lap of every Terp when he received the ball which caused the carousel to break down.

The #2 preseason ranking was just lazy voting/"expert" predictions. This is not last year's offense. This was not a top 10 offense starting last June, and that was with Malever. Terps are usually ranked preseason around 4-7 and ultimately work their way up in May. That's where this year's team should have fairly been ranked, and that's only because of the fogo and 4 defensive guys.

Maryland always has games like this (even last year vs Princeton, Syracuse and ND). This is also not last year's defense. The bigger concern right now is the 2 or 3 links on the defensive chain. Toomey exploited them and got his guys some easy looks (with freshmen of his own). Even Richmond got a ton of open looks last week.

The great thing is that you can beat anyone when you get the ball first 18 out of 22 times (how ugly would this game have been with a bad fogo???). So a few tweaks and individual improvements could get this team back toward the top. Kelly is warming up; he probably could have had about 7 goals with a little more accuracy. Spanos may become a reliable matchup win, but maybe not. I don't know if Dante's stick skills are good enough to play on offense, but it could be nice if the ssdm unit stabilized to the point where Trader could play some offense; I'd imagine he could beat any short stick one on one and get other guys open (like Kelly and Murphy).

Either way, Loyola had this game circled for 8 months and they earned the win. Tough to follow up '22 and even '21 because every opponent will want their long-awaited revenge on Maryland. Even the Hopkins cockroaches are starting to show up in the fanlax kitchen...

[BlueJaySince1947]

Hilarious that you pompous bitches only scheduled 12 games, hope you don't get in.

the 12 game nazis are back.
you of course realize hop used to schedule the least amount of games possible during the glory years, no?
fanlax is hilare.

The Blue Jay haters are everywhere.
Please be specific...when did these scheduling issues happen...which years specifically.

[Bmk2222]

Hilarious that you pompous bitches only scheduled 12 games, hope you don't get in.

the 12 game nazis are back.
you of course realize hop used to schedule the least amount of games possible during the glory years, no?
fanlax is hilare.

The Blue Jay haters are everywhere.
Please be specific...when did these scheduling issues happen...which years specifically.

This is a MD thread. Why are BJ fans even talking?
I’m damn sure not going to read their post especially not post on their post!

[Wheels]

Can someone who watched the game, share if the offense looked different than it did under Coach Benson?

One thing that I noticed against Loyola (I haven't seen the Richmond game) is that the Terps were much less compressed yesterday than they were in 2022. That jumped out at me very early in the game. Last year they kept most of the offense between the football hash marks much more than most teams but they got their hands free with a lot of circular motion. This meant that every player was a threat most of the time. Their quick ball movement led to poor defensive approaches which turns an average dodger into a good one. Yesterday it looked like there was a defender in the lap of every Terp when he received the ball which caused the carousel to break down.

The #2 preseason ranking was just lazy voting/"expert" predictions. This is not last year's offense. This was not a top 10 offense starting last June, and that was with Malever. Terps are usually ranked preseason around 4-7 and ultimately work their way up in May. That's where this year's team should have fairly been ranked, and that's only because of the fogo and 4 defensive guys.

Maryland always has games like this (even last year vs Princeton, Syracuse and ND). This is also not last year's defense. The bigger concern right now is the 2 or 3 links on the defensive chain. Toomey exploited them and got his guys some easy looks (with freshmen of his own). Even Richmond got a ton of open looks last week.

The great thing is that you can beat anyone when you get the ball first 18 out of 22 times (how ugly would this game have been with a bad fogo???). So a few tweaks and individual improvements could get this team back toward the top. Kelly is warming up; he probably could have had about 7 goals with a little more accuracy. Spanos may become a reliable matchup win, but maybe not. I don't know if Dante's stick skills are good enough to play on offense, but it could be nice if the ssdm unit stabilized to the point where Trader could play some offense; I'd imagine he could beat any short stick one on one and get other guys open (like Kelly and Murphy).

Either way, Loyola had this game circled for 8 months and they earned the win. Tough to follow up '22 and even '21 because every opponent will want their long-awaited revenge on Maryland. Even the Hopkins cockroaches are starting to show up in the fanlax kitchen...

Good point about compressing defenses. This is exactly related to the quick ball movement that we've become accustomed to over the last 3 seasons but is a little slower right now. You could see teams slowly collapsing in previous season as the Terps moved the ball around. But this also had something to do with having a real threat behind the goal that defenses slowly gravitated towards. When you have Bernhardt back there or Khan back there or Malever back there, your defense will sink toward GLE because they're worried about having to slide too far to stop that dodge from X. So the ball is spinning, defenses are hedging low, and then the Terps would throw the skip pass to a 10 yard shot. The attempted skip passes yesterday were almost always knocked down. Yes, the Hounds played fundamentally sound with their sticks in the lane, but they could do that because they weren't threatened. They weren't watching ready to slide. They were watching for passes.

So it's definitely related, IMO. Slow developing dodges, defenders being able to stay in front of dodgers, slower ball movement...all of the sudden the skip pass has to go 12 yards instead of 10. The goalie has a little more time to turn and get positioned. Defenders can close out more easily.

Part of the reason why Hop's and Denver's offenses fell apart post shot clock was because they didn't have a lot guys who draw slides. So the ball just spun around until late in the shot clock where bad shots would happen. That's exactly what it looked like yesterday at Ridley. Lots of deep shot clock possessions. The ball spinning around the perimeter. Guys not drawing slides.

If Long doesn't move back to X, I wonder if Erksa does. He seems to have some wiggle and burst, especially at his size.

[Farfromgeneva]

Hilarious that you pompous bitches only scheduled 12 games, hope you don't get in.

the 12 game nazis are back.
you of course realize hop used to schedule the least amount of games possible during the glory years, no?
fanlax is hilare.

The Blue Jay haters are everywhere.
Please be specific...when did these scheduling issues happen...which years specifically.

This is a MD thread. Why are BJ fans even talking?
I’m damn sure not going to read their post especially not post on their post!

He’s clearly a Taylor Swift fan and everyone knows haters gonna hate hate hate…

[jrn19]

Can someone who watched the game, share if the offense looked different than it did under Coach Benson?

One thing that I noticed against Loyola (I haven't seen the Richmond game) is that the Terps were much less compressed yesterday than they were in 2022. That jumped out at me very early in the game. Last year they kept most of the offense between the football hash marks much more than most teams but they got their hands free with a lot of circular motion. This meant that every player was a threat most of the time. Their quick ball movement led to poor defensive approaches which turns an average dodger into a good one. Yesterday it looked like there was a defender in the lap of every Terp when he received the ball which caused the carousel to break down.

The #2 preseason ranking was just lazy voting/"expert" predictions. This is not last year's offense. This was not a top 10 offense starting last June, and that was with Malever. Terps are usually ranked preseason around 4-7 and ultimately work their way up in May. That's where this year's team should have fairly been ranked, and that's only because of the fogo and 4 defensive guys.

Maryland always has games like this (even last year vs Princeton, Syracuse and ND). This is also not last year's defense. The bigger concern right now is the 2 or 3 links on the defensive chain. Toomey exploited them and got his guys some easy looks (with freshmen of his own). Even Richmond got a ton of open looks last week.

The great thing is that you can beat anyone when you get the ball first 18 out of 22 times (how ugly would this game have been with a bad fogo???). So a few tweaks and individual improvements could get this team back toward the top. Kelly is warming up; he probably could have had about 7 goals with a little more accuracy. Spanos may become a reliable matchup win, but maybe not. I don't know if Dante's stick skills are good enough to play on offense, but it could be nice if the ssdm unit stabilized to the point where Trader could play some offense; I'd imagine he could beat any short stick one on one and get other guys open (like Kelly and Murphy).

Either way, Loyola had this game circled for 8 months and they earned the win. Tough to follow up '22 and even '21 because every opponent will want their long-awaited revenge on Maryland. Even the Hopkins cockroaches are starting to show up in the fanlax kitchen...

Maryland preseason ranking under Tillman

2022: #2
2021: #2
2020: #4
2019: #2
2018: #2
2017: #3
2016: #4

They haven’t started outside the Top 5 since 2015. They’ve been #2 in 5 of the last 6 years. No one ranks Maryland #7 to start the year. This is what happens when you make the Final Four and play for the championship basically every single season. We don’t gotta act like it was crazy for people to rank a team with a defense that is still pretty excellent and a faceoff man that is still excellent and an excellent goalie - albeit now unfortunately injured - #2 in the country to start the season in a season that we’ve already seen is going to be crazy to predict because they lost a game to start the year. The #3 team also just lost a game yesterday to a team that was unranked to start the year.

The loss was terrible, and the offense definitely was a work in progress, and they do have to find answers in terms of dodging. Also, they probably aren’t going to turn it over 20+ times and shoot <20% many games in the future either.