General thoughts on Bingo and look ahead to Army

[JeremyCuse]

BC needs to get their heads out of their asses and fully fund a Men's LAX team like they used to.

Solves the New England problem.

Solves the autobid problem.

Don't hold your breath, Title 9 and funding issues at BC. There's a better chance of Uconn fielding a D1 team at this point then BC>

 

[CuseAlum87]

Maybe they could drop Fencing or Sailing ?

Then what would Chad, Biff, and Skip do?

 

[DoctahLexus]

The two players in our defense that concern me so far are Aviles and (as sholokov2 mentioned) DePietro. With Aviles I am happy that he has the athleticism to play D1 defense right out of the gate and he certainly seems to have the necessary quickness, but compared to the other three guys on SSDM he seems to both give his man too much of an angle to the goal, whether that is giving up the middle or giving to much of an angle to shoot down the alley, and be incapable of pushing his man off of his path. Our other three guys are able to use their body to push a guy to a worse position but I haven't seen it from Aviles. I worry it could be a bigger problem against the big strong stable of middies that Army always has. Right now my favorite ssdms are Dearth and Spencer Small (number 25). I hope Dami is back for this one.

DePietro has a Bomberryesque style of defense but seems a little slower than even he was. A couple guys on Binghamton just ran hard in one direction and drew a slide easily. Never seemed to be quite that big a problem with Bomberry who had sneaky good lateral movement. Did a great job against Robertson in the Duke game. Army in the Rutgers game was getting a lot of looks by just drawing a slide behind the goal and skipping it to a middie up top who could fire a rocket at seemingly 110 MPH in typical Army fashion. We can't have a longpole getting beat strait up that easily so I worry about a mismatch where he leaves a big burly offball guy and ends up on Nichtern or something like that. Would love to see a lineup of Murphy, Mellen, and Kennedy when Mellen gets healthy as I believe Murphy can take the body just as well as DePietro while still being much quicker.

 

[CuseAlum87]

I think that Depietro is more like Cunningham than like T Bomb. Even without Mellen, I think the Orange close D matches up pretty well with the Army attack. Kennedy on Nichtern, Murphy on O'Brien, Depietro on Silva(who is primarily an inside guy and not fast).

 

[Orangelax]

My other concern with DP at times is his off ball. He tends to ball watch some. Multiple goals vs Gate and 1 vs Bingo were due to him having his back to his man. Heard people screaming at him in fall the against Lehigh & Denver for similar issues.

 

[DoctahLexus]

My other concern with DP at times is his off ball. He tends to ball watch some. Multiple goals vs Gate and 1 vs Bingo were due to him having his back to his man. Heard people screaming at him in fall the against Lehigh & Denver for similar issues.

Yes this too. Against Colgate they scored on man up because of him getting badly backdoored by a guy right on the crease. Then on the next man up they had a couple minutes later the exact same thing happened, but fortunately the Colgate guy didn't handle the pass that time. How could he not adjust to the play that just lead to a goal?

 

[Powellfan]

The two players in our defense that concern me so far are Aviles and (as sholokov2 mentioned) DePietro. With Aviles I am happy that he has the athleticism to play D1 defense right out of the gate and he certainly seems to have the necessary quickness, but compared to the other three guys on SSDM he seems to both give his man too much of an angle to the goal, whether that is giving up the middle or giving to much of an angle to shoot down the alley, and be incapable of pushing his man off of his path. Our other three guys are able to use their body to push a guy to a worse position but I haven't seen it from Aviles. I worry it could be a bigger problem against the big strong stable of middies that Army always has. Right now my favorite ssdms are Dearth and Spencer Small (number 25). I hope Dami is back for this one.

DePietro has a Bomberryesque style of defense but seems a little slower than even he was. A couple guys on Binghamton just ran hard in one direction and drew a slide easily. Never seemed to be quite that big a problem with Bomberry who had sneaky good lateral movement. Did a great job against Robertson in the Duke game. Army in the Rutgers game was getting a lot of looks by just drawing a slide behind the goal and skipping it to a middie up top who could fire a rocket at seemingly 110 MPH in typical Army fashion. We can't have a longpole getting beat strait up that easily so I worry about a mismatch where he leaves a big burly offball guy and ends up on Nichtern or something like that. Would love to see a lineup of Murphy, Mellen, and Kennedy when Mellen gets healthy as I believe Murphy can take the body just as well as DePietro while still being much quicker.

Agree with a lot of this. I like Aviles too but have been a bit struck by HOW much people like him so far. He does look athletic and its encouraging to see him "starting" but he's been beaten more than a couple of times, and I agree with Doctah, it doesn't seem like he does much to effect the guy he is guarding. I think Desko really likes SSDMs who can do damage in transition (Ciferri and Gillis saw a lot of time) but I'd like to see more of Small (who is not small at all at 6'2 190) and Barlow. Desko might be planning for the future with Aviles but in crunch time I would trust others. Plus Dearth offers you plenty in transition.

I can't help but feel like SU will be facing some sort of combination of the Persians in the Battle of Thermopylae and the Carthaginians in the battle of Cannae. Can someone give us some sort of hope for Sunday? Seems like Army might not be the best at face-offs, but if the goalie is saving at 80% it doesn't really matter if you win all the face-offs. Does SU favor a fast game? Does the Army goalie have any sort of weakness? From the looks of it doesn't sound like SU will have any encouraging tape to draw from.

 

[CuseAlum87]

I would pump the brakes on the whole goalie with 80% saves thing. He is good, but he didn't beat out Barretto last year and wasn't handed the job in the fall, he had to win it. UMASS took a lot of poor shots, they did not look good at all. NJIT is very weak. Rutgers is weak at the midfield and was dominated at the x. I think the Orange has to run its offense and not settle for poor shots--that play's into Army's hand.

 

[JeremyCuse]

Agree with a lot of this. I like Aviles too but have been a bit struck by HOW much people like him so far. He does look athletic and its encouraging to see him "starting" but he's been beaten more than a couple of times, and I agree with Doctah, it doesn't seem like he does much to effect the guy he is guarding. I think Desko really likes SSDMs who can do damage in transition (Ciferri and Gillis saw a lot of time) but I'd like to see more of Small (who is not small at all at 6'2 190) and Barlow. Desko might be planning for the future with Aviles but in crunch time I would trust others. Plus Dearth offers you plenty in transition.

I can't help but feel like SU will be facing some sort of combination of the Persians in the Battle of Thermopylae and the Carthaginians in the battle of Cannae. Can someone give us some sort of hope for Sunday? Seems like Army might not be the best at face-offs, but if the goalie is saving at 80% it doesn't really matter if you win all the face-offs. Does SU favor a fast game? Does the Army goalie have any sort of weakness? From the looks of it doesn't sound like SU will have any encouraging tape to draw from.

I think Aviles is still learning the position at this point and should continue to get better as the season goes on. Dami sounds like he will take a starting role once he is ready to go (I think that will be this week) and then as you noted there are multiple guys like Small and Barlow who the staff will turn to if Aviles struggles against better offenses which is likely to happen. I think the staff likes him as he appears to be extremely athletic, is comfortable pushing the ball as a 2 way middie and and has the size/speed/athleticism combo that the staff is looking for. There definitely is going to be a learning curve though and we have seen that a bit already. Teams are going to take whoever the other SSDM is opposite of Dearth.

Army has been very impressive so far, they look like a top 5 team. That said it does appear that they are definitely in a stretch that they can't possibly keep up for a large portion of the season. They are a very good team but Army isn't UVA 06 or SU 90. At some point ( hopefully this weekend) they are going to come back down to earth a bit. I think they have done an excellent job of ambushing teams early and their goalie and midfield play has been excellent start the year. They haven't missed a beat despite losing 3 high end Defensive players including two AA. Army is also a very difficult team to come back on as they don't make a ton of mistakes and are happy to grind games out so they limit possessions and their usually good a the X and in goal making it difficult but no impossible to go on an extended run. That said there is no way their goalie is going to be able to sustain an .800% save % and inevitably a few teams will keep pace early or actually jump out to a lead and force Army to play catch up. SU has the offensive depth and talent to score on this team for sure. I am a little bit concerned about the attack based on Cook's youth and Rehfuss's history of going MIA at times but with these two midfield lines plus Scanlan and a guy like Seebold off the bench there is no excuse. Defensively there are definitely some concerns but if Mellen is back we will be by far the best defensive team they have seen all year.

 

[JeremyCuse]

I would pump the brakes on the whole goalie with 80% saves thing. He is good, but he didn't beat out Barretto last year and wasn't handed the job in the fall, he had to win it. UMASS took a lot of poor shots, they did not look good at all. NJIT is very weak. Rutgers is weak at the midfield and was dominated at the x. I think the Orange has to run its offense and not settle for poor shots--that play's into Army's hand.

Yes, Rutty got some good looks in the first half from what I saw but either missed the cage or the Army goalie made a real nice save. Then they started to press and took bad shots when they got the ball which became less and less as they started to get dominated at X. Syracuse will definitely need to be a bit more patient then they were the first two games against this Army team and we need to cash in on doorstep and man up opportunities.

 

[ivorytower]

All good posts again, enjoy the takes. Lol Powell at the 300 reference .Their main fogo Grabher is at 67% but Phaup will be the best he's faced. Alberici is letting them play and Nichtern is orchestrating the band as dual threat . Their D is disciplined and in sync. Not a goalie expert by any means but he appears to position himself a little further out than most which helped cut off angles and made goalmouth look smaller, lanky athlete showed really quick reactions on both high and low shots . looked taller than listed. He beat out a Baretto clone in Coleman who was very good. No goalie is gonna maintain that crazy save % but Army still wins Umass and Rutgers comfortably even if he was at 50%. Cant see this being a low scoring affair despite the good goalies on each

 

[JeremyCuse]

A couple comments about Army: they are fierce in GB battles especially in their offensive end. I noticed that Di Pietro reached entirely too much against a less than dominant Bing attack. He was a step behind and needed help too many times. He can pick up the ball but is slow to remove himself from scrums, a devastating flaw against Army. Too many turnovers in the SU defensive end could lead to a tired defense and late game problems. The one aspect constant in Army teams is less than average overall speed. They depend on determination, smarts and stamina to gobble GBs. Kennedy and Dearth have both size and speed and could shine at the defensive end, but they are in for the fight of their ...

Agreed about DiPetro, this is his first time seeing extended minutes as a starter and while he hasn't played badly at all he does seem a step behind as compared to say Cunningham or Bomberry last year. DiPetro is not slow by any stretch but he's fleet of foot either, he's a solid defender but he's clearly the 3rd cover guy and constantly needing to be be bailed out via a slide or a double will result in disaster against a large portion of our scheduled ie pretty much every team left to play but teams like UVA Cornell and Army especially not mention the rest of the ACC schedule. I think we have to go with the assumption that as he sees more PT he will start to come around more and we will see less "reaching" as you noted. If not, once Mellen is back we may need to roll with a lineup of Mellen Kennedy and Murphy and make Dipetro the 4th guy. I definitely share your concern about having to slide to often to Dipetro, that is something that will be a major issue moving forward and something to keep a close eye on.

 

[CuseAlum87]

Army @ Marist streaming now, access through Inside Lacrosse, no commentary

 

[JeremyCuse]

6-4 Marist 2 min to go in the 1st. I guess the .800+ save % is over.

 

[DoctahLexus]

Marist putting up more goals in the first quarter than Rutgers did in their entire game? What the heck is the deal with this Army squad? Marist currently winning 5-4. Are they actually a legit team? Gave Richmond a run for there money a week after Richmond nearly beat Maryland. Total chaos in February as usual.

 

[CuseAlum87]

Marist putting up more goals in the first quarter than Rutgers did in their entire game? What the heck is the deal with this Army squad? Marist currently winning 5-4. Are they actually a legit team? Gave Richmond a run for there money a week after Richmond nearly beat Maryland. Total chaos in February as usual.

It's only 1 period, but Army was not tested in each of its first 3 games. I watched most of all 3 and Army is good but the competition was not there. If Marist would stop Leaving Silva (number 4) alone on the crease they would be up by 2 more. Good scouting here

 

[JeremyCuse]

7-4 Marist, they are dominating at the X and drawing penalites. On the man up now

 

[JeremyCuse]

Army man down just killed 2 different man ups or the score would be worse. Maris goalie doing a nice job as well.

 

[JeremyCuse]

Army goalie with a few nice stops despite giving up 7 goals, could easily be 9 or 10 Marist goals right now.

 

[DoctahLexus]

7-4 Marist, they are dominating at the X and drawing penalites. On the man up now

Face-off X. That is how we win. Still hope Army wins for strength of schedule reasons but I think it is better to have them coming into the Dome shaken up a bit instead of feeling invincible.

 

[JeremyCuse]

It's only 1 period, but Army was not tested in each of its first 3 games. I watched most of all 3 and Army is good but the competition was not there. If Marist would stop Leaving Silva (number 4) alone on the crease they would be up by 2 more. Good scouting here

Agreed, let me note Army is a very good team but they were playing at a rate that was simply not sustainable. It would be like us expecting SU to play like they did versus the 2nd half of the Hobart game for the entire season. Its impossible.

 

[JeremyCuse]

Marist about to go man up again, drawing a ton of penalties. Army appears to be struggling with their speed.

 

[JeremyCuse]

8-4 Marist, man up goal

 

[Capt. Tuttle]

It's LAX.

I doubt there's an overnight stay involved for a 3.5 hour bus ride.

They bivouac the night before. Always training, always ready. Army!!!!

 

[JeremyCuse]

9-4 Marist, really dominating at the X.