Johns Hopkins 2025

[Typical Lax Dad]

Dropping standardized tests was yet another example of Daniels trying to break what wasn't broken.

Every single elite school went test optional during Covid. A lot of them are bringing the requirement back now. It's not a Daniels thing. It's a higher education thing. It also won't impact recruiting.

Freshmen move in tomorrow and then fall ball starts the following week. Alumni game set for Oct. 5. Not sure when/where the other fall games will be.

Some schools made it optional before COVID. One coach that had kids commit early at a test optional school, threatened to drop kids if he found out they were sitting for a standardized test as he didn’t want to be “better dealed”.

any coach that threatens me is getting dropped. what a world we live in.

Yep. Any coach that gave my son a deadline to commit or told to pick a sport would have been on the losing end of that decision.

[The Orfling]

Pat Stevens has the Jays #9 in his "way early" 2025 rankings: https://www.usalacrosse.com/magazine/co ... sion-i-men

Obviously this is all just for fun and meant to generate clicks/discussion — like what I am about to do. So from that standpoint, good job Mr. Stevens. You have succeeded. But I predict this will not age well. Hopkins getting leapfrogged by three Ivy league teams that either didn't make the playoffs at all (Yale, Cornell) or got destroyed in the first round (Princeton), and weren't able to reload through the transfer portal (in fact one of Yale's best players last year is now wearing blue). Just seems a little optimistic.

Think he underrates the Big Ten in general with Maryland at #6, PSU at #11, and Michigan at #13 (behind Towson? ok). I like Princeton a lot — that attack is for real — but they were not particularly close to a Final Four type team last year and now they lose Gianforcaro. Seems like a bit of a leap. As for Yale, they lose Brandau, but scoring has never been their problem. They have not earned the benefit of the doubt on defense. Till proven otherwise, not sure how you have that team ahead of the Jays. I buy the argument for Cornell — they lose the least out of the Ivy teams and return arguably the best player in the country. And were the only team to give Notre Dame trouble (aside from Georgetown early on).

Duke at #7 is purely a bet on Danowski because their roster is going to look *completely* different this season.

Your analysis is insightful. By the nature of projections, I tend to think teams with high-powered offenses get overvalued and teams with really good team defense can get undervalued. I was impressed with Hopkins’s approach to defense the last couple of years and it seemed like they used the portal to plug some of the likely defensive holes (goalie, ssdm). I could see Hop cracking the top five or, at the least, knocking on that door (and displacing Princeton and Yale to do so).

[Typical Lax Dad]

Pat Stevens has the Jays #9 in his "way early" 2025 rankings: https://www.usalacrosse.com/magazine/co ... sion-i-men

Obviously this is all just for fun and meant to generate clicks/discussion — like what I am about to do. So from that standpoint, good job Mr. Stevens. You have succeeded. But I predict this will not age well. Hopkins getting leapfrogged by three Ivy league teams that either didn't make the playoffs at all (Yale, Cornell) or got destroyed in the first round (Princeton), and weren't able to reload through the transfer portal (in fact one of Yale's best players last year is now wearing blue). Just seems a little optimistic.

Think he underrates the Big Ten in general with Maryland at #6, PSU at #11, and Michigan at #13 (behind Towson? ok). I like Princeton a lot — that attack is for real — but they were not particularly close to a Final Four type team last year and now they lose Gianforcaro. Seems like a bit of a leap. As for Yale, they lose Brandau, but scoring has never been their problem. They have not earned the benefit of the doubt on defense. Till proven otherwise, not sure how you have that team ahead of the Jays. I buy the argument for Cornell — they lose the least out of the Ivy teams and return arguably the best player in the country. And were the only team to give Notre Dame trouble (aside from Georgetown early on).

Duke at #7 is purely a bet on Danowski because their roster is going to look *completely* different this season.

Princeton played a lot of freshmen last year. Should be much improved this year. Whether that means final four, who knows. The team should be much better though.

[HopFan16]

Your analysis is insightful. By the nature of projections, I tend to think teams with high-powered offenses get overvalued and teams with really good team defense can get undervalued. I was impressed with Hopkins’s approach to defense the last couple of years and it seemed like they used the portal to plug some of the likely defensive holes (goalie, ssdm). I could see Hop cracking the top five or, at the least, knocking on that door (and displacing Princeton and Yale to do so).

No one was hit harder by injuries than Yale last season. Losing two starting attackmen and a starting midfielder is tough as it is, but then losing both FOGOs late in the year was the death knell. The fact that they were still in the mix despite all that is a testament to good coaching and solid depth. BUT the three straight years of defensive mediocrity is just too clear of a pattern to ignore, IMO. There were times last season when it looked like they were struggling with simply rotating and basic slide + recovery. Pretty bizarre given we all know Shay can coach. But something just isn't clicking and we're at the point where it should now be the expectation until proven otherwise.

Agree re: Hopkins. The defense was Final Four quality, but the offense — particularly late in the season — was not. I think you could see a similar dynamic again in 2025. But they've been to the quarters two years in a row now, so dropping them out of the top 8 in favor of three Ivy teams that haven't been there since 2022 just feels a bit like wishcasting to me.

Princeton played a lot of freshmen last year. Should be much improved this year. Whether that means final four, who knows. The team should be much better though.

They had the two freshmen on attack, and then Wade got a bunch of run at midfield in the second half of the year. But were there really many others? Playing 3-4 freshmen consistently by the end of the year might be a little bit more than average, but not by much. Hopkins played about the same amount of freshmen: Chauvette, Ayers, Kilrain, and Martin.

Princeton's senior class probably wasn't as deep or impactful as the prior year's, but it still had a bunch of guys that will need to be replaced, namely Gianforcaro and Billings. I agree that they were younger than most teams overall, and very well could be better in 2025, but top four still feels like the "trendy" pick and maybe not necessarily the most likely outcome. We'll see!

[Typical Lax Dad]

Your analysis is insightful. By the nature of projections, I tend to think teams with high-powered offenses get overvalued and teams with really good team defense can get undervalued. I was impressed with Hopkins’s approach to defense the last couple of years and it seemed like they used the portal to plug some of the likely defensive holes (goalie, ssdm). I could see Hop cracking the top five or, at the least, knocking on that door (and displacing Princeton and Yale to do so).

No one was hit harder by injuries than Yale last season. Losing two starting attackmen and a starting midfielder is tough as it is, but then losing both FOGOs late in the year was the death knell. The fact that they were still in the mix despite all that is a testament to good coaching and solid depth. BUT the three straight years of defensive mediocrity is just too clear of a pattern to ignore, IMO. There were times last season when it looked like they were struggling with simply rotating and basic slide + recovery. Pretty bizarre given we all know Shay can coach. But something just isn't clicking and we're at the point where it should now be the expectation until proven otherwise.

Agree re: Hopkins. The defense was Final Four quality, but the offense — particularly late in the season — was not. I think you could see a similar dynamic again in 2025. But they've been to the quarters two years in a row now, so dropping them out of the top 8 in favor of three Ivy teams that haven't been there since 2022 just feels a bit like wishcasting to me.

Princeton played a lot of freshmen last year. Should be much improved this year. Whether that means final four, who knows. The team should be much better though.

They had the two freshmen on attack, and then Wade got a bunch of run at midfield in the second half of the year. But were there really many others? Playing 3-4 freshmen consistently by the end of the year might be a little bit more than average, but not by much. Hopkins played about the same amount of freshmen: Chauvette, Ayers, Kilrain, and Martin.

Princeton's senior class probably wasn't as deep or impactful as the prior year's, but it still had a bunch of guys that will need to be replaced, namely Gianforcaro and Billings. I agree that they were younger than most teams overall, and very well could be better in 2025, but top four still feels like the "trendy" pick and maybe not necessarily the most likely outcome. We'll see!

Yes. There were two freshmen SSDM that saw a lot of time. Billings and Gianforcaro are big holes to fill though. I don’t look at preseason top 4 as a final four prediction but a lot of people do.

[DocBarrister]

https://hub.jhu.edu/2024/08/16/undergra ... quirement/

About time. Might make recruiting harder, however.

Come on … Hopkins admitted a pretty good player with a 2.7 HS GPA not too long ago. Doubt his SATs made any difference.

DocBarrister

I suspect those days are long gone. And who was this? Did they win a championship?

Former Colorado state athlete of the year. Two year Hopkins starter on attack.

DocBarrister

[51percentcorn]

i dont know why in this instance we are dancing around the name - Wilkins Dismuke posted on his own recruiting video - now well over 10 years ago - that his GPA was 2.7. So its relevance to any discussion now is very questionable. Again, I think '16 is correct - no real impact on reinstating standardized tests. On the narrow margins might help a kid with good test scores and a slightly lower GPA - could work the other way too - hard to tell since none of us work in the Hopkins admissions department.

There was a post on X of the freshmen moving in - Coach Kelly was prominent in one of the pics

[jhu06]

i dont know why in this instance we are dancing around the name - Wilkins Dismuke posted on his own recruiting video - now well over 10 years ago - that his GPA was 2.7. So its relevance to any discussion now is very questionable. Again, I think '16 is correct - no real impact on reinstating standardized tests. On the narrow margins might help a kid with good test scores and a slightly lower GPA - could work the other way too - hard to tell since none of us work in the Hopkins admissions department.

There was a post on X of the freshmen moving in - Coach Kelly was prominent in one of the pics

Real players are putting on real uniforms soon and doing hopefully real positive lacrosse things. I don't want to spend a few pages on admissions bs especially since most of us have no idea what we're talking about and our experiences with the process ourselves were decades ago.

Hopefully there are no "bad surprises" with kids picking up summer injuries or moving on.

[norcalhop]

i dont know why in this instance we are dancing around the name - Wilkins Dismuke posted on his own recruiting video - now well over 10 years ago - that his GPA was 2.7. So its relevance to any discussion now is very questionable. Again, I think '16 is correct - no real impact on reinstating standardized tests. On the narrow margins might help a kid with good test scores and a slightly lower GPA - could work the other way too - hard to tell since none of us work in the Hopkins admissions department.

There was a post on X of the freshmen moving in - Coach Kelly was prominent in one of the pics

Real players are putting on real uniforms soon and doing hopefully real positive lacrosse things. I don't want to spend a few pages on admissions bs especially since most of us have no idea what we're talking about and our experiences with the process ourselves were decades ago.

Hopefully there are no "bad surprises" with kids picking up summer injuries or moving on.

Just hope english actually stays healthy a full year

[nyjay]

Pat Stevens has the Jays #9 in his "way early" 2025 rankings: https://www.usalacrosse.com/magazine/co ... sion-i-men

Duke at #7 is purely a bet on Danowski because their roster is going to look *completely* different this season.

For what it's worth, I think predicting next year is going to be tough for everyone. First year in a while with huge amounts of turnover basically everywhere. Almost everyone lost a lot. I tend to think Hop will end up better than #9, but I am a Hop homer.

Not sure I'd be betting on Danowski at this point - I tend to think Duke is in the slippage phase at the end of a very good (though slightly underwhelming in terms of national championships) run and that changes will be coming fairly soon.

[HopFan16]

Pat Stevens has the Jays #9 in his "way early" 2025 rankings: https://www.usalacrosse.com/magazine/co ... sion-i-men

Duke at #7 is purely a bet on Danowski because their roster is going to look *completely* different this season.

For what it's worth, I think predicting next year is going to be tough for everyone. First year in a while with huge amounts of turnover basically everywhere. Almost everyone lost a lot. I tend to think Hop will end up better than #9, but I am a Hop homer.

Not sure I'd be betting on Danowski at this point - I tend to think Duke is in the slippage phase at the end of a very good (though slightly underwhelming in terms of national championships) run and that changes will be coming fairly soon.

Yeah. I don't think the bottom will fall out there like it did under late-stage Petro, Desko, or Starsia (and arguably what is happening to Breschi now) but I also don't think they did a ton last season to warrant a preseason #7 ranking this year even if they weren't losing so much. They looked like probably the worst team in the quarterfinals. And they were just so erratic in the second half of the year, some nice wins sure but the loss to Carolina was eye-opening and then they were simply not competitive against ND in the ACC tournament before turning into UMass Lowell in the 4th quarter vs. Maryland. They played with such little emotion all year. Something felt way, way off, even more than the usual. They lose so much that maybe counterintuitively a full reset will be good for them overall and from a culture standpoint. Wouldn't bet on it though.

[NereoOscar12]

The important is not the result if not that team can build a good group of players that can get good results

[norcalhop]

Pat Stevens has the Jays #9 in his "way early" 2025 rankings: https://www.usalacrosse.com/magazine/co ... sion-i-men

Duke at #7 is purely a bet on Danowski because their roster is going to look *completely* different this season.

For what it's worth, I think predicting next year is going to be tough for everyone. First year in a while with huge amounts of turnover basically everywhere. Almost everyone lost a lot. I tend to think Hop will end up better than #9, but I am a Hop homer.

Not sure I'd be betting on Danowski at this point - I tend to think Duke is in the slippage phase at the end of a very good (though slightly underwhelming in terms of national championships) run and that changes will be coming fairly soon.

Yeah. I don't think the bottom will fall out there like it did under late-stage Petro, Desko, or Starsia (and arguably what is happening to Breschi now) but I also don't think they did a ton last season to warrant a preseason #7 ranking this year even if they weren't losing so much. They looked like probably the worst team in the quarterfinals. And they were just so erratic in the second half of the year, some nice wins sure but the loss to Carolina was eye-opening and then they were simply not competitive against ND in the ACC tournament before turning into UMass Lowell in the 4th quarter vs. Maryland. They played with such little emotion all year. Something felt way, way off, even more than the usual. They lose so much that maybe counterintuitively a full reset will be good for them overall and from a culture standpoint. Wouldn't bet on it though.

Duke vs Hopkins would have been a very intriguing matchup.

[nyjay]

Pat Stevens has the Jays #9 in his "way early" 2025 rankings: https://www.usalacrosse.com/magazine/co ... sion-i-men

Duke at #7 is purely a bet on Danowski because their roster is going to look *completely* different this season.

For what it's worth, I think predicting next year is going to be tough for everyone. First year in a while with huge amounts of turnover basically everywhere. Almost everyone lost a lot. I tend to think Hop will end up better than #9, but I am a Hop homer.

Not sure I'd be betting on Danowski at this point - I tend to think Duke is in the slippage phase at the end of a very good (though slightly underwhelming in terms of national championships) run and that changes will be coming fairly soon.

Yeah. I don't think the bottom will fall out there like it did under late-stage Petro, Desko, or Starsia (and arguably what is happening to Breschi now) but I also don't think they did a ton last season to warrant a preseason #7 ranking this year even if they weren't losing so much. They looked like probably the worst team in the quarterfinals. And they were just so erratic in the second half of the year, some nice wins sure but the loss to Carolina was eye-opening and then they were simply not competitive against ND in the ACC tournament before turning into UMass Lowell in the 4th quarter vs. Maryland. They played with such little emotion all year. Something felt way, way off, even more than the usual. They lose so much that maybe counterintuitively a full reset will be good for them overall and from a culture standpoint. Wouldn't bet on it though.

Agree that the bottom won't fall out immediately. But I think they're going to be outside looking in at memorial day weekend for a bit. And so don't think Dano Sr. will be head coach in, i dunno, 2027?

[jhu06]

Pat Stevens has the Jays #9 in his "way early" 2025 rankings: https://www.usalacrosse.com/magazine/co ... sion-i-men

Duke at #7 is purely a bet on Danowski because their roster is going to look *completely* different this season.

For what it's worth, I think predicting next year is going to be tough for everyone. First year in a while with huge amounts of turnover basically everywhere. Almost everyone lost a lot. I tend to think Hop will end up better than #9, but I am a Hop homer.

Not sure I'd be betting on Danowski at this point - I tend to think Duke is in the slippage phase at the end of a very good (though slightly underwhelming in terms of national championships) run and that changes will be coming fairly soon.

Yeah. I don't think the bottom will fall out there like it did under late-stage Petro, Desko, or Starsia (and arguably what is happening to Breschi now) but I also don't think they did a ton last season to warrant a preseason #7 ranking this year even if they weren't losing so much. They looked like probably the worst team in the quarterfinals. And they were just so erratic in the second half of the year, some nice wins sure but the loss to Carolina was eye-opening and then they were simply not competitive against ND in the ACC tournament before turning into UMass Lowell in the 4th quarter vs. Maryland. They played with such little emotion all year. Something felt way, way off, even more than the usual. They lose so much that maybe counterintuitively a full reset will be good for them overall and from a culture standpoint. Wouldn't bet on it though.

Agree that the bottom won't fall out immediately. But I think they're going to be outside looking in at memorial day weekend for a bit. And so don't think Dano Sr. will be head coach in, i dunno, 2027?

The close d and goaltending are memorial day caliber right now. When you look at the losses from Stevens 2025 lookahead there are not a lot of teams that going into fall ball can say "We have units that can win us a title". I think it will help the offense and faceoff units a lot especially early.

[LaxAllStars]

New HP coach John Crawley

https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show ... ey-e2ng33p

[HopFan16]

IL has the Jays at #9 in their "way-ahead" rankings, same as US Lax Mag.

Another piece riddled with errors. It lists Deans and Bauer as notable losses. They're both coming back — which is kind of crucial for the team's projection next year? The starting LSM and a first-line middie? Might want to get those right before making predictions?

Also apparently Carson Brown did not qualify as a returning "contributor" which feels rather harsh...yes he was demoted last season but he flashed star potential as a freshman with 21 GBs/14 CTs and is very likely to have an expanded role in '25.

Not sure if the mistakes ultimately would have impacted the ranking, but when they get such basic stuff wrong, it's hard to take it seriously. They also listed UNC as being an NCAA semi-finalist last year. Lol.

[5050roll]

IL' in general is haphazard at best when it comes to team and player rankings. They publish a lot of content and have a very small staff, and it shows with sloppy work and analysis.

They provide good reads for uniformed casual fans, but their opinions reflect an erratic approach influenced by a small and narrow network of people who are in their ears. Good for them though, it seems to be working for their own business when it comes to reach, audience, and hosting events.

[jhu06]

IL has the Jays at #9 in their "way-ahead" rankings, same as US Lax Mag.

Another piece riddled with errors. It lists Deans and Bauer as notable losses. They're both coming back — which is kind of crucial for the team's projection next year? The starting LSM and a first-line middie? Might want to get those right before making predictions?


Their editor in chief is a loyola of maryland grad. Only way it could be more unreadable is if it was led by a Terp or Orangemen.

Schedule last year came out around mid/late September. Anyone expecting any surprises or new wrinkles?

[jhu06]

Also I'd say that in the last 15 years I'd rate my excitement for this fallball behind only 2009 (Ranagans freshman fallball, class of 2013) and 2013 (Crawleys fallball freshman, post class of 2013) in terms of the new guys I'm excited to read about and get ready to watch the following spring. Lot of fresh faces, new narratives, positive vibes.