JeremyCuse
Renowned lacrosse analyst
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First of great win on Saturday, with the team being off until next Tuesday after tomorrow I will do a post about ND later in the week (sorry Reed) but wanted to get something out on Hobart with the game about 24 hours.
Great last two weeks with the Top 10 wins over Duke and ND but a loss tomorrow would effectively cancels those great wins out so we really need to take care of business tomorrow.
Hobart has been a weird team this year, dusted Bingo and Canisius in there last game and beat a pretty good Colgate team 12-11. On the other hand they lost to Siena earlier in the year, got blown out by Cornell and PSU before they got hot and they lost to St. Joes 6-5.
I give Hobart a few edges going into tomorrow that may give them a shot at the upset.
1. A week off - Hobart last played on 3/27 so they will have a week to prepare for Syracuse, on the other hand SU will essentially have one day with Easter, recipe for trouble.
2. Faceoffs - Pedicine took over the job early in the season and hasn't looked back. He is at 68% or so I believe on the year and his worst game was a 2-4 performance against PSU in the season opener. To me this is clearly the biggest concern about tomorrow. Varello cant give us another 2-12 performance at the X like he did at Duke or were going to be in a whole world of trouble. Delisle needs to be ready same for Martin. I have no idea why Hutchings took a draw against ND but I hope that was a one time experiment. Garlow must be injured as he has been MIA since the Bingo game. I was a little surprised Delisle didn't get a single draw on Saturday but his numbers (37%) on the year are less then stellar. Varello is pretty much at 50% (73-147) and I would certainly take a 50% performance from him tomorrow. If he does struggle will be interesting to see if Dekso goes to Delisle or Marin first. Phaup seems like an emergency option at this point. Wing play will again be absolutely enormous. As I noted above this is by far my biggest concern about tomorrow.
3. Letdown game - I know its for the Krauss-Simmons trophy but let's be honest this is the definition of a trap game. ND on Sat and Cornell waiting next Tuesday, this is a classic mid-week upset alert type of game. The Offense did not play great vs ND on Saturday despite the win so fingers crossed they can have a Duke type of game tomorrow. I worry a bit about the d coming off such an extended performance vs ND and the potential for Hobart to dominate possession via the faceoff. Desko and the staff will need to rely on our depth and hopefully continued strong performances from Mellen and Bomberry. Madonna having a letdown performance after how brilliant he was against ND is cause for concern as well. Need him to have another strong outing (captain obvious).
From our perspective this game does present some areas where SU should have an advantage. Hobart's offense really comes down to two players - Chris Aslanian (40pts 20/20) and Justin Scott (25pts 23/2). When they play well Hobart has a chance to beat most teams when they don't there going to lose most games. SU has had an uneven history against Hobart and top players, the last few years they have faired better but they really struggled with Alex Love for a few years despite him being the clear #1 option at the time. I think its clear SU is going to put Mellen on Aslanian and hope he repeats the performances he put up against Gutdering and Garnsey when he was utterly dominant. Scott is the Barts top midfielder and will draw Fusco/Helmer at LSM. Scott is comign off a multiweek injury and just came back against Canisius last week. The other top scorers are Eric Holden -A (27pts) and our old friend Ryan Archer (25pts). I suspect Archer will be pumped for this game when you consdier all of the variables. I expect Bomberry to draw Holden and for Cunningham/Kennedy to take Archer. Those 4 dominate the Hobart scoring, the next closest player has 8 pts. Hobarts offense can click when Alsanian and Scott are on but they have almost zero depth outside the top 6 and aren't a great shooting team. Don't be suprised if SU plays some zone this game. Hobart can also get sloppy and start throwing the ball away. Their last four games they have 14, 17, 12 and 12 turnovers. The last 3 opponents Wagner, St. Joes, and Canisius aren't exactly Duke JHU and ND.
The biggest issue Hobart is likely to have is defense especially their Goalie. He ha had some absolutely brutal performances including a 20% save percentage against Siena and a 36% in their last game against Canisius. Hobart has struggled to contain any high end offense all year. PSU scored 15, Cornell 15 and Gtown 12. Hobart did beat Colgate 12-11 but that did occur just after Colgate lost Abadessa for the year. Hobart has also struggled to contain fast breaks and unsettled plays, something SU has had some success with this year. The main issue SU has had against Hobart in the real close games in the series - 2012, 2013(loss) and 2015 (somewhat close) was that the goalies would stand on there heads and have some crazy perfromances. In 2012 and 2013 the goalie had 18 saves in both games. Hobart hasn't faired as well the past few years as SU has gone on early runs and then traded goals before pulling away late the last two years.
So what happens tomorrow? Tough to say. SU has a lot of depth especially on offense but this will be our first mid week game against an opponent who clearly set up the schedule to give themselves a week off before playing SU and will come out like its the National Championship game. Id feel a lot better if this was a weekend game or even being played on Wed to give SU that extra day. I would like to see Desko use our depth as a strength but to be smart about it. If its a 2-1 game late in the first I don't think we necessarily need the 3rd mid line yet. I would rather see him mix the second line up like we have been doing since the RU and Duke games. Faceoffs and Mellen/Fusco will be enormous. If Mellen and Fusco can slow down or shut down Alsanian and Scott its hard to see SU losing. Defensively I would like to see SU be aggressive and push transition if its there. Should we struggle at the X and get down early, zone might be a good switch up. In the end this game is very difficult to get a handle/read on as every SU opponent since Bingo has been a top 20 team even though Army is scuttling a bit here the past few weeks. It's hard to know how these guys will react to a game where on paper at least they are the clearly better team.
Great last two weeks with the Top 10 wins over Duke and ND but a loss tomorrow would effectively cancels those great wins out so we really need to take care of business tomorrow.
Hobart has been a weird team this year, dusted Bingo and Canisius in there last game and beat a pretty good Colgate team 12-11. On the other hand they lost to Siena earlier in the year, got blown out by Cornell and PSU before they got hot and they lost to St. Joes 6-5.
I give Hobart a few edges going into tomorrow that may give them a shot at the upset.
1. A week off - Hobart last played on 3/27 so they will have a week to prepare for Syracuse, on the other hand SU will essentially have one day with Easter, recipe for trouble.
2. Faceoffs - Pedicine took over the job early in the season and hasn't looked back. He is at 68% or so I believe on the year and his worst game was a 2-4 performance against PSU in the season opener. To me this is clearly the biggest concern about tomorrow. Varello cant give us another 2-12 performance at the X like he did at Duke or were going to be in a whole world of trouble. Delisle needs to be ready same for Martin. I have no idea why Hutchings took a draw against ND but I hope that was a one time experiment. Garlow must be injured as he has been MIA since the Bingo game. I was a little surprised Delisle didn't get a single draw on Saturday but his numbers (37%) on the year are less then stellar. Varello is pretty much at 50% (73-147) and I would certainly take a 50% performance from him tomorrow. If he does struggle will be interesting to see if Dekso goes to Delisle or Marin first. Phaup seems like an emergency option at this point. Wing play will again be absolutely enormous. As I noted above this is by far my biggest concern about tomorrow.
3. Letdown game - I know its for the Krauss-Simmons trophy but let's be honest this is the definition of a trap game. ND on Sat and Cornell waiting next Tuesday, this is a classic mid-week upset alert type of game. The Offense did not play great vs ND on Saturday despite the win so fingers crossed they can have a Duke type of game tomorrow. I worry a bit about the d coming off such an extended performance vs ND and the potential for Hobart to dominate possession via the faceoff. Desko and the staff will need to rely on our depth and hopefully continued strong performances from Mellen and Bomberry. Madonna having a letdown performance after how brilliant he was against ND is cause for concern as well. Need him to have another strong outing (captain obvious).
From our perspective this game does present some areas where SU should have an advantage. Hobart's offense really comes down to two players - Chris Aslanian (40pts 20/20) and Justin Scott (25pts 23/2). When they play well Hobart has a chance to beat most teams when they don't there going to lose most games. SU has had an uneven history against Hobart and top players, the last few years they have faired better but they really struggled with Alex Love for a few years despite him being the clear #1 option at the time. I think its clear SU is going to put Mellen on Aslanian and hope he repeats the performances he put up against Gutdering and Garnsey when he was utterly dominant. Scott is the Barts top midfielder and will draw Fusco/Helmer at LSM. Scott is comign off a multiweek injury and just came back against Canisius last week. The other top scorers are Eric Holden -A (27pts) and our old friend Ryan Archer (25pts). I suspect Archer will be pumped for this game when you consdier all of the variables. I expect Bomberry to draw Holden and for Cunningham/Kennedy to take Archer. Those 4 dominate the Hobart scoring, the next closest player has 8 pts. Hobarts offense can click when Alsanian and Scott are on but they have almost zero depth outside the top 6 and aren't a great shooting team. Don't be suprised if SU plays some zone this game. Hobart can also get sloppy and start throwing the ball away. Their last four games they have 14, 17, 12 and 12 turnovers. The last 3 opponents Wagner, St. Joes, and Canisius aren't exactly Duke JHU and ND.
The biggest issue Hobart is likely to have is defense especially their Goalie. He ha had some absolutely brutal performances including a 20% save percentage against Siena and a 36% in their last game against Canisius. Hobart has struggled to contain any high end offense all year. PSU scored 15, Cornell 15 and Gtown 12. Hobart did beat Colgate 12-11 but that did occur just after Colgate lost Abadessa for the year. Hobart has also struggled to contain fast breaks and unsettled plays, something SU has had some success with this year. The main issue SU has had against Hobart in the real close games in the series - 2012, 2013(loss) and 2015 (somewhat close) was that the goalies would stand on there heads and have some crazy perfromances. In 2012 and 2013 the goalie had 18 saves in both games. Hobart hasn't faired as well the past few years as SU has gone on early runs and then traded goals before pulling away late the last two years.
So what happens tomorrow? Tough to say. SU has a lot of depth especially on offense but this will be our first mid week game against an opponent who clearly set up the schedule to give themselves a week off before playing SU and will come out like its the National Championship game. Id feel a lot better if this was a weekend game or even being played on Wed to give SU that extra day. I would like to see Desko use our depth as a strength but to be smart about it. If its a 2-1 game late in the first I don't think we necessarily need the 3rd mid line yet. I would rather see him mix the second line up like we have been doing since the RU and Duke games. Faceoffs and Mellen/Fusco will be enormous. If Mellen and Fusco can slow down or shut down Alsanian and Scott its hard to see SU losing. Defensively I would like to see SU be aggressive and push transition if its there. Should we struggle at the X and get down early, zone might be a good switch up. In the end this game is very difficult to get a handle/read on as every SU opponent since Bingo has been a top 20 team even though Army is scuttling a bit here the past few weeks. It's hard to know how these guys will react to a game where on paper at least they are the clearly better team.
