OrangeXtreme
The Mayor of Dewitt
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IL: 2016 NCAA DI Face-Off Specialist Breakdown
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OrangeXtreme
The Mayor of Dewitt
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2011
- Messages
- 214,639
- Like
- 373,519
The All-Americans
When looking at the field of returning face-off guys, there are two names that are at the top of the list whether you look at face-off win percentage,McEwen FOGO Rating or postseason accolades, and there doesn’t seem to be a single person who pays attention to face-offs that thinks it’s a fluke in either case.
Denver’s Trevor Baptiste and Syracuse’s Ben Williams finished first and second in face-off win percentage, third and second in McEwen FOGO Rating and were the first- and second-team USILA All-Americans. They occupy the same first- and second-team spots on Inside Lacrosse’s Face-Off Yearbook Preseason All-America teams, and there is little doubt that they are the players everyone else is chasing.
It would be difficult to say too many good things about either of them as both are athletic and complete players at the X. Williams is probably a bit better at quickly winning control of the ball, which helped enable him to win more face-offs to himself as more than 59% of his wins came when he picked up the groundball compared with “just” 45% for Baptiste.
With eight goals and five assists, Baptiste was also an elite offensive threat from the X, and with those eight goals coming on just 22 shots with 16 on cage, an efficient enough shooter to force the defense to respect him enough to slide even when they were having to slide from a point man like Wesl Berg.
After starting hot with two goals on two shots and an assist during the first two games of the season, Williams would shoot just 1-for-11 the rest of the way and with goalies making seven saves against him. Defenses were often choosing to make him shoot rather than let him feed a dangerous Syracuse attack unit. Williams and the Syracuse face-off unit won a ton of face-offs in 2015, but relative to other elite face-off guys, they weren’t similarly elite in generating goals directly from those wins.
Both Baptiste and Williams do lose the wing players that picked up the most groundballs for them as Denver LSM Mike Riis (41 face-off winning groundballs) and Syracuse SSDM Mike Messina (25 face-off winning groundballs) both graduated. One thing to keep an eye on is that two Denver players who will get a good number of runs on the face-off wings at SSDM are Chris Hampton and Christian Thomas, who are also the backup face-off guys for the Pioneers. Thus, there might not be any wing players in the country with a better understanding of what their face-off guy is trying to do.
However, one of the unique things about the face-off position is that its head-to-head nature ensures that no one can win awards on reputation and merely a reasonably good season. As many of the previous All-Americans who returned to try and reclaim those honors found out, it’s a position where it’s incredibly tough to stay on top. Baptiste was the fourth straight underclassmen to be named the USILA first-team All-American, and the three before him were no higher than third team the following year.
So while Baptiste and Williams certainly have the best odds to be the top face-off specialists in the country, given the option between the two of them and the field, recent history says the smart money is on someone else to pass them. Winning nearly 70% of your face-offs in a season is tough and doing it twice in a row is that much more difficult.
When looking at the field of returning face-off guys, there are two names that are at the top of the list whether you look at face-off win percentage,McEwen FOGO Rating or postseason accolades, and there doesn’t seem to be a single person who pays attention to face-offs that thinks it’s a fluke in either case.
Denver’s Trevor Baptiste and Syracuse’s Ben Williams finished first and second in face-off win percentage, third and second in McEwen FOGO Rating and were the first- and second-team USILA All-Americans. They occupy the same first- and second-team spots on Inside Lacrosse’s Face-Off Yearbook Preseason All-America teams, and there is little doubt that they are the players everyone else is chasing.
It would be difficult to say too many good things about either of them as both are athletic and complete players at the X. Williams is probably a bit better at quickly winning control of the ball, which helped enable him to win more face-offs to himself as more than 59% of his wins came when he picked up the groundball compared with “just” 45% for Baptiste.
With eight goals and five assists, Baptiste was also an elite offensive threat from the X, and with those eight goals coming on just 22 shots with 16 on cage, an efficient enough shooter to force the defense to respect him enough to slide even when they were having to slide from a point man like Wesl Berg.
After starting hot with two goals on two shots and an assist during the first two games of the season, Williams would shoot just 1-for-11 the rest of the way and with goalies making seven saves against him. Defenses were often choosing to make him shoot rather than let him feed a dangerous Syracuse attack unit. Williams and the Syracuse face-off unit won a ton of face-offs in 2015, but relative to other elite face-off guys, they weren’t similarly elite in generating goals directly from those wins.
Both Baptiste and Williams do lose the wing players that picked up the most groundballs for them as Denver LSM Mike Riis (41 face-off winning groundballs) and Syracuse SSDM Mike Messina (25 face-off winning groundballs) both graduated. One thing to keep an eye on is that two Denver players who will get a good number of runs on the face-off wings at SSDM are Chris Hampton and Christian Thomas, who are also the backup face-off guys for the Pioneers. Thus, there might not be any wing players in the country with a better understanding of what their face-off guy is trying to do.
However, one of the unique things about the face-off position is that its head-to-head nature ensures that no one can win awards on reputation and merely a reasonably good season. As many of the previous All-Americans who returned to try and reclaim those honors found out, it’s a position where it’s incredibly tough to stay on top. Baptiste was the fourth straight underclassmen to be named the USILA first-team All-American, and the three before him were no higher than third team the following year.
So while Baptiste and Williams certainly have the best odds to be the top face-off specialists in the country, given the option between the two of them and the field, recent history says the smart money is on someone else to pass them. Winning nearly 70% of your face-offs in a season is tough and doing it twice in a row is that much more difficult.
