LaxMag: Countdown to 2017 | Syracusefan.com

LaxMag: Countdown to 2017

OrangeXtreme

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The 2016 college lacrosse season concluded just a week ago. And while it's ridiculously soon to look ahead to next year, it's still a fun exercise. Over the next five days, Lacrosse Magazine will make an early attempt to size up a Division I top 25 (plus a bonus team) for 2017.

Early Look: DI No. 25-21 For 2017
 
Early 2017 Rankings: Men's Division I Nos. 16-20

No. 20 Army
2016 record: 10-7 (5-3 Patriot)
Last seen: Closing out the season with lopsided losses against Loyola and Notre Dame; the Black Knights went 1-5 against NCAA tournament teams and 9-2 against everyone else.
Senior starts lost: 83 of 170 (48.8 percent)
Senior scoring departing: 81 of 300 points (27 percent)

Initial forecast: At first blush, the data on Army's senior class reveals either that a good chunk of the Black Knights' defense is graduating or that there's a fair bit of offensive balance in place. Consider it a little from Column A and a little from Column B. While Connor Cook and Jimbo Moore depart, the Black Knights will bring back Cole Johnson (35 goals, 38 assists) and Nate Jones (36 goals as a freshman) to pace an offense as willing to run at least three midfields as anyone in the country. The defense does lose a pair of starters, but goalie A.J. Barretto is just getting started after a solid freshman year. Toss in this six-year trend of goals-against averages — 8.67, 9.33, 7.79, 7.21, 8.00 and 8.00. Rare is the season when Joe Alberici's team doesn't play capable defense, and next year should be no difference. Army will be near the top of the Patriot League, and might have an NCAA run in it if the offense can improve against high-end foes (just 7.7 goals per game in 2016 against eventual postseason teams).
 
Early 2017 Rankings: Men's Division I Nos. 11-15

No. 13 Virginia
2016 record: 7-8 (0-4 Atlantic Coast)
Last seen: Sealing a sub-.500 season with a blowout loss against Brown during ACC tournament weekend. A little more than three weeks later, the school opted to make a coaching change, ending Dom Starsia's 24-year run in Charlottesville.
Senior starts lost: 29 of 150 (19.3 percent)
Senior scoring departing: 75 of 239 points (31.4 percent)

Initial forecast:
Start with the obvious: Who's the coach? And will whoever arrives in Charlottesville look to do a massive overhaul on a program five years removed from its last final four, or more modest tweaks for a team that would have made the NCAA tournament if it reversed two of its three-goal losses (High Point, Notre Dame and Syracuse)? The Cavaliers' overall level of talent isn't the same as it once was, and Virginia was missing a charismatic, high-end No. 1 option while averaging 10.6 goals this season. Two of Virginia's top three in points (James Pannell and Greg Coholan) graduate, and getting goalie Matt Barrett right after a rough junior year will be a priority. It might be a few years before the Cavaliers are back in the conversation for Memorial Day weekend. A trip back to the postseason is much more plausible, especially if a midfield that could feature Zed Williams and Ryan Conrad can alleviate some pressure on a Ryan Lukacovic-led attack.
 
Early 2017 Rankings: Nos. 10-6 (MD1)

No. 10 ALBANY
2016 record: 12-4 (6-0 America East)
Last seen: Dropping back-to-back tournament games, falling to Hartford in a conference tournament shocker before being overtaken by Syracuse in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
Senior starts lost: 46 of 160 (28.8 percent)
Senior scoring departing: 49 of 341 points (14.4 percent)

Initial forecast: This much seems certain --- the Great Danes will score, they'll be fun to watch and they'll probably be the class of the America East so long as they don't get demolished at the faceoff X. In other words, just a normal year for Scott Marr's team. In its four losses, Albany won just 31.8 percent of its draws (27 of 85); the rest of the time, it was a perfectly solid 54.5 percent. The Great Danes will return plenty of knowns on offense, from Connor Fields to Seth Oakes to Justin Reh, and a close defense that shaved a few points off its opponents' shooting percentage returns intact. The underrated John Maloney graduates, leaving Albany without its best midfielder, and there will be a big hole in the cage with third team All-America pick Blaze Riorden's departure. Yet things went quite well in the first year post-Lyle Thompson, and Albany is a candidate to do even more damage next year. If the Great Danes can find steady goalie play, they'll be a final four sleeper in 2017.

No. 9 DUKE
2016 record: 11-8 (2-2 Atlantic Coast)
Last seen: Getting steamrolled at Loyola on the first weekend of the NCAA tournament, the Blue Devils' second consecutive exit after a decade as a Memorial Day weekend regular
Senior starts lost: 91 of 190 (47.9 percent)
Senior scoring departing: 240 of 408 points (58.8 percent)

Initial forecast: Not to put too fine a point on it, but what exactly are the Blue Devils going to do in the midfield next year? No one rode their first midfield harder than Duke this spring, and the presence of seniors Deemer Class and Myles Jones had plenty to do with that ongoing decision. So, too, did the lack of developed options behind them, and the Blue Devils will need an accelerated learning curve from some younger offensive options if Jack Bruckner and Justin Guterding are going to receive much help. Brad Smith was solid on Duke's seldom-used second midfield line, but it's telling that faceoff man Kyle Rowe (two goals, two assists) will be the Blue Devils' fourth-leading returning scorer. There's also the matter of the defense, which showed some improvement in the final month of the regular season only to get torched at Loyola in the tournament. With the offense likely needing some time to establish an identity, Duke might ask more of its defense in 2017 than at any point in John Danowski's tenure in Durham. It needs to be up to the task.


No. 7 SYRACUSE
2016 record: 12-5 (2-2 Atlantic Coast)
Last seen: Taking every easy-to-stop outside look it could while getting carved up on the defensive end in a 13-7 quarterfinal loss to Maryland, leaving the Orange at home during Memorial Day weekend for the sixth time in seven years.
Senior starts lost: 91 of 170 (53.5 percent)
Senior scoring departing: 133 of 331 points (40.2 percent)

Initial forecast: Syracuse lost three overtime games, but also got run out of the Carrier Dome by Notre Dame. It wasn't particularly effective against Maryland, but it joined 2011 Duke as the only teams to claim two victories against the eventual NCAA tournament champions (those Blue Devils were also, coincidentally, bounced from the postseason by Maryland). It started the season with questions about offense, but it was the defense that was last to come around. In short, the Orange just went through quite the zigzagging season. It's hard enough to make sense of it, let alone try to figure what's to come next year. Expect the usual cutthroat, Darwinian competition for playing time on offense, where midfielders Nick Mariano and Sergio Salcido will head into the season as the biggest and most capable knowns. But as has been the case the last three years, can Syracuse do enough to stop good teams? The Orange's defense played better in front of goalie Evan Molloy than Warren Hill, though Molloy did more than his share to help, too. If the Orange solve that end of the field, they'll contend for a title. And if they don't --- and they really haven't for a while, now --- the quarterfinals could again prove to be the ceiling.
 
Early 2017 Rankings: Nos. 5-1 (MD1)

No. 5 NOTRE DAME
2016 record: 11-4 (3-1 Atlantic Coast)
Last seen: Having few answers for North Carolina at either end of the field in a surprisingly lopsided NCAA quarterfinal loss.
Senior starts lost: 76 of 150 (50.7 percent)
Senior scoring departing: 90 of 252 points (35.7 percent)

Initial forecast: It would be overly melodramatic to suggest the Fighting Irish missed the best chance they'll get to break through for their first national title. But it isn't an exaggeration to assert this was a missed opportunity based on the depth of the program's senior class. Still, outside of a rout of Syracuse in the Carrier Dome, this is a bunch that lived a bit dangerously against most of the good (and a few of the average) teams on its schedule. There will be holes at the defensive end next season, and while the memory of North Carolina shredding the Irish at will is still fresh, it's worth remembering the Tar Heels were the only team to score 10 on Notre Dame in regulation this season. History suggests the defense will be fine, and a nucleus of Ryder Garnsey, Sergio Perkovic and Mikey Wynne is a decent place to start at the other end. Notre Dame will be fine next year, but there shouldn't be as much national title chatter as there was coming into 2016.

No. 4 JOHNS HOPKINS
2016 record: 8-7 (3-2 Big Ten)
Last seen: Absorbing a trouncing in the first round of the NCAA tournament at the hands of Brown, a team that proved to be the Blue Jays' nightmare matchup.
Senior starts lost: 26 of 150 (17.3 percent)
Senior scoring departing: 85 of 294 points (28.9 percent)

Initial forecast: A little high for Hopkins? Maybe. It's easy to bullish about one of the field, but not the one that historically is the most reliable for a Dave Pietramala team. The Blue Jays never had Connor Reed and Joel Tinney in their midfield and lost Drew Supinski halfway through the season, and yet they averaged 12.3 goals and made the most of what they had. In short, coordinator Bobby Benson and the offense maxed out what they had, and the return of a lot of midfield talent should more than offset the graduation of attackman Ryan Brown (41 goals, 16 assists). The other end of the field is a bit dicier, especially since much of the same talent will be in place from a unit that was startlingly vulnerable throughout the year. Patrick Foley and Robert Kuhn are fine pieces to build around after solid freshman years, though it's not difficult to envision Hopkins getting into its share of 14-13 and 13-12 games next spring. That won't be much fun for Pietramala, but Hopkins has enough firepower to come out on the front end of a lot of those sorts of contests.

No. 3 NORTH CAROLINA
2016 record: 12-6 (3-1 Atlantic Coast)
Last seen: Celebrating the program's first national championship since 1991 in the wake of Chris Cloutier's extra-man goal in overtime against Maryland on Memorial Day.
Senior starts lost: 47 of 180 (26.1 percent)
Senior scoring departing: 115 of 353 points (32.6 percent)

Initial forecast: North Carolina loses only five players off its national championship team, so there's great temptation to anoint the Tar Heels as the early favorite for 2017. Yet while Joe Breschi's bunch finally obliterated the narrative of North Carolina continuously falling flat upon arriving in postseason every year, this was still a team that entered May at 8-6. In short: Expect the Tar Heels to be quite good, but they're one of several credible national title contenders. Carolina must find another lead attackman with Steve Pontrello (49 goals, 21 assists) graduating, but the Tar Heels enjoyed enough success with moving pieces around this year that they'll probably thrive just fine. Over the long haul, North Carolina's defensive questions will pop up again like they did throughout the regular season this year, only the Heels won't have the benefit of second team All-America short stick Jake Matthai to solve some problems. And then there's the question of expectations, something that will return to Chapel Hill after a one-year hiatus. Bottom line: North Carolina will be talented and capable and quite frightening at its best. Whether it will be consistent remains to be seen.


No. 2 DENVER
2016 record: 13-3 (5-0 Big East)
Last seen: Taking back-to-back losses to close out the season, including a 10-9 setback against Towson in the first round of the NCAA tournament to quickly end the Pioneers' title defense.
Senior starts lost: 26 of 160 (16.3 percent)
Senior scoring departing: 61 of 359 points (17.0 percent)

Initial forecast: The early postseason exit left Denver out of sight and out of mind, but this was still a team that was 13-1 in early May, can dominate possession thanks to Trevor Baptiste and should have one of the best players in the country next year in senior attackman Connor Cannizzaro. Overall, the Pioneers will return four first team All-America picks (Zach Miller and Christian Burgdorf are also back). In short, a couple late-season losses do not portend the collapse of a program that's delivered on a consistent basis since it first reached Memorial Day weekend in 2011. There are areas for improvement, particularly a defense that hid some of its vulnerabilities thanks to the team's penchant for playing make it/take it. Foes shot 29.4 percent against Denver, a considerable jump from 25.8 percent the year before and the highest since Bill Tierney arrived in the Mile High City. Tighten up the defense, and Denver will find itself contending for another national title.


No. 1 MARYLAND
2016 record: 17-3 (5-0 Big Ten)
Last seen: Nearly bring an end to a 41-year title drought, only to allow the final three goals to North Carolina in one of the best national championship games in recent memory.
Senior starts lost: 78 of 200 (39 percent)
Senior scoring departing: 102 of 363 points (28.1 percent)

Initial forecast: No, Maryland did not win the national title this year. But it was the most complete team of 2016, with the fewest vulnerabilities, and one of the benefits of that is it has fairly established answers for nearly all of the graduation hits it absorbs. The entire starting attack returns, including second team All-America choice Matt Rambo. After running two midfields heavily this spring, the Terrapins can better handle losses in that area. Bryce Young saw plenty of time and is a good bet to slide into Matt Dunn's old starting spot. Matt Neufeldt will return from injury and reclaim his long pole spot from the graduating Greg Danseglio. Goalie Kyle Bernlohr leaves a substantial hole, but "fourth-year junior who played well in limited work" describes Dan Morris going into next year just as well as it did Bernlohr entering 2015. One of these days, Maryland will break through and finally win its first title since 1975. It had an excellent chance to do so this year, and its window for winning a championship is far from shut. No one should be surprised if the Terps make it back to Memorial Day for the fifth time in seven years next spring.
 

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