2025 Preseason Top 20 Lookahead

[Zack80]

ND is back to back champs and returns the best roster in the country. i do not like them one bit, but they fully deserve to be #1 and in their own tier...really their only question mark is in goal. they are littered with talent at every other position

I believe ND loses 3 of their top 6 scorers: P.Kavanagh, McLane, and Dobson. The IL guys were mentioning that Faison had gotten banged up playing football. So I don't think they are on their own tier. I would rank them #1.

 

[nyclax]

I believe ND loses 3 of their top 6 scorers: P.Kavanagh, McLane, and Dobson. The IL guys were mentioning that Faison had gotten banged up playing football. So I don't think they are on their own tier. I would rank them #1.

faison is already back. he missed like 1-2 games

they have one of the frontrunners for the tewaaraton and arguably the best finisher in the game. they will be fine on offense

 

[Zack80]

faison is already back. he missed like 1-2 games

they have one of the frontrunners for the tewaaraton and arguably the best finisher in the game. they will be fine on offense

ND should do alright on offense, but will they be a step above all the other top teams? You and the IL guys are putting them on a tier by themselves.

 

[nyclax]

ND should do alright on offense, but will they be a step above all the other top teams? You and the IL guys are putting them on a tier by themselves.

yes they are 30-3 the last two years and have fewer question marks than every other team

 

[Zack80]

yes they are 30-3 the last two years and have fewer question marks than every other team

Who is going to replace P.Kavanagh's 80 points and 49 assists?

 

[Powellfan]

Who is going to replace P.Kavanagh's 80 points and 49 assists?

I imagine it will be a group effort. I'm guessing Faison will produce more for them. Matt Jeffery and Brady Pokorny will probably produce a fair amount of points as freshmen. They have a very deep midfield. Perhaps they don't score as much as last year, and maybe they lose more than one game.

To me, the fact that ND is "on another plane" is more about how much other top teams lost compared to the Irish. Who is going to replace Dyson Williams, Josh Zawada and Brennan O'Neil's 224 points? Conor Shellenberger and Payton Cormier's 162 points? Jacob Angelus and Garrett Degnon's 123 points? You can play this game each and every offseason.

Maryland is obviously an interesting case since Tillman pumped and dumped his roster over the offseason. That said I'm not totally sure I trust guys who put up their point totals for Binghamton, Fairfield and in DIII to be sure things next season.

The bottom line is the teams that return most of their offensive firepower next year were very young last season (Syracuse, Princeton) or didn't make the playoffs (Yale, Cornell). Notre Dame has by far the fewest questions of the "contenders" in play for next year.

 

[Zack80]

Jeffery and Pokorny are freshman. Jeffery is a midfielder and sometimes they take a year to develop. Pokorny mysteriously dropped to #12 in IL's rankings. Maybe they will put up a lot of points. Maybe they won't.

P.Kavanagh and McLane totaled 125 points and are gone for ND.

Fairfield is in a middle of the pack conference with Towson and Hofstra. It is Inside Lacrosse who puts a lot of emphasis on Maryland's transfers. I hope Maryland will get some sort of contribution from them, but I am also think some of Maryland's young players might step up.

Syracuse was young last year, but most of their key players are juniors this year - and we are ranking this year.

 

[nyclax]

i dont know if ND necessarily will 3-peat and im not saying they can't be caught. they def can...but to me it makes sense to separate them from the pack and discuss them on their own for the purposes of things like the inside lacrosse video, rather than lump them in with a big group of teams that have more questions to answer and are starting from a lower place

heard osu's van buren may be hurt already again...and just when i was feeling a little bit optimistic about them. still believe they will be better than rutgers...could make things interesting with mich and psu for 3rd/4th in the b1g

 

[Zack80]

I have my top 2 teams #1 Notre Dame #2 Syracuse together on the top tier. I like Syracuse's offensive group better than ND"s. A lot of teams on the 2nd tier. I'm not sure I'd put Duke on the 2nd tier.

I think OSU losing Van Buren makes things a little more interesting between Michigan and OSU for 4th or 5th, which was close anyhow.

I have PSU #2 in the Big 10.

 

[Zack80]

and as DMV said, kevin brown is a maryland alum and a huge terp homer. matt kinnear is also a maryland alum although not as homerish as brown. 2/3 of that panel are literally maryland alums. you sure do like to complain...

I went to UMd back before the turn of the century.
Maryland is a large school. I knew a number of guys at UMd, who while they were sports fans, they didn't really root for UMd. Some even looked at UMd with disdain. Perhaps, they had hoped to go to a fancier school but couldn't get into it or couldn't afford a fancier school, who knows?

Matt Kinnear hasn't shown much support for UMd and didn't even know Hernandez wasn't on the roster. Kinnear didn't play lacrosse at UMd. I suspect Kinnear is in the group I mention above.

Watching the IL thing, it seemed to me that they promoted the teams they usually like to promote ND, Duke, and Hopkins - and they liked the Ivy league teams, particularly Princeton and Penn. They seemed to give Syracuse short shrift, along with saying ND has no holes, to promote their idea that ND is on a tier by itself.

 

[Powellfan]

I went to UMd back before the turn of the century.
Maryland is a large school. I knew a number of guys at UMd, who while they were sports fans, they didn't really root for UMd. Some even looked at UMd with disdain. Perhaps, they had hoped to go to a fancier school but couldn't get into it or couldn't afford a fancier school, who knows?

Matt Kinnear hasn't shown much support for UMd and didn't even know Hernandez wasn't on the roster. Kinnear didn't play lacrosse at UMd. I suspect Kinnear is in the group I mention above.

Watching the IL thing, it seemed to me that they promoted the teams they usually like to promote ND, Duke, and Hopkins - and they liked the Ivy league teams, particularly Princeton and Penn. They seemed to give Syracuse short shrift, along with saying ND has no holes, to promote their idea that ND is on a tier by itself.

Kinnear literally states, "John Tillman is inevitable" and "You should never rank Maryland outside of the top 5 before a season, no matter how much they lose". Doesn't sound like a guy who doesn't like the Terps!

They don't talk much about Syracuse which is disappointing. For every other team they go up and down the roster highlighting key players at every position who is either coming back or needs to be replaced. For SU they list everyone on offense and discuss Michael Leo maybe being the left handed attackman. Like DMV pointed out they didn't mention the defense (Mike Grace briefly) or the face-off or the goalie.

Kinnear wonders why the same Syracuse team that scored seven goals against Denver last year should be ranked this high. Foy counters that it's more about how much other teams lost, and everyone on offense getting better after last year. Not a bad question/discussion at all, but feels like they give everyone else a lot more airtime.

IL's top 10 is:

1. Notre Dame - really good everywhere, need a goalie
2. Syracuse - brings back a ton, needs to make the jump to the next level.
3. Princeton - similar to Syracuse, one year behind, experienced at replacing good players.
4. Maryland - lots of transfers mixed with exciting freshmen.
5. Cornell - needs to fix the defense but offense is very good.
6. Virginia - Millon's time to shine, exciting transfers. Sidenote but IL was pretty negative towards the Hoo's after their scrimmage vs G-town, specifically their offense. IL is almost never negative.
7. Duke - McAdory's time to shine, good defense. Malever should be better. People sleeping on transfer from Richmond. Sidenote but I cannot understand how Duke is top 10 after everything they lost.
8. Yale - can they fix the defense? IL can't really explain why the defense has been so bad recently. Offense should be good despite losing Brandau.
9. Johns Hopkins - loses the most but somehow still has a lot of depth. Kind of mixed messaging. No stars on the team but guys who fill roles.
10. Penn - defense, led by Carroll is really good. Expect young offensive players to step up.

 

[UrbanaOrange]

It's disappointing to see a reluctance and laziness to provide the same level of attention and coverage (across their print/podcasts), especially considering the 'Cuse widespread support. I get it that there are geographic considerations, but the trend to gloss over one of the top brands in the sport is perplexing.

 

[DoctahLexus]

Kinnear wonders why the same Syracuse team that scored seven goals against Denver last year should be ranked this high. Foy counters that it's more about how much other teams lost, and everyone on offense getting better after last year. Not a bad question/discussion at all, but feels like they give everyone else a lot more airtime.

I was certainly disappointed as hell after the Denver performance, but to put up 8 goals “against Denver” is not something that makes it more embarrassing. Denver had one of the best defenses in D1 last year. Not sure if he was saying that as some sort of gotcha, but pretty lame if that is the case. Perfectly fine to question if we will actually be the number 2 team in the country next year, but we have bigger question marks than the offense. That line would work better if we blew it against a weak defense.

 

[Zack80]

Kinnear literally states, "John Tillman is inevitable" and "You should never rank Maryland outside of the top 5 before a season, no matter how much they lose". Doesn't sound like a guy who doesn't like the Terps!

They don't talk much about Syracuse which is disappointing. For every other team they go up and down the roster highlighting key players at every position who is either coming back or needs to be replaced. For SU they list everyone on offense and discuss Michael Leo maybe being the left handed attackman. Like DMV pointed out they didn't mention the defense (Mike Grace briefly) or the face-off or the goalie.

Kinnear wonders why the same Syracuse team that scored seven goals against Denver last year should be ranked this high. Foy counters that it's more about how much other teams lost, and everyone on offense getting better after last year. Not a bad question/discussion at all, but feels like they give everyone else a lot more airtime.

IL's top 10 is:

1. Notre Dame - really good everywhere, need a goalie
2. Syracuse - brings back a ton, needs to make the jump to the next level.
3. Princeton - similar to Syracuse, one year behind, experienced at replacing good players.
4. Maryland - lots of transfers mixed with exciting freshmen.
5. Cornell - needs to fix the defense but offense is very good.
6. Virginia - Millon's time to shine, exciting transfers. Sidenote but IL was pretty negative towards the Hoo's after their scrimmage vs G-town, specifically their offense. IL is almost never negative.
7. Duke - McAdory's time to shine, good defense. Malever should be better. People sleeping on transfer from Richmond. Sidenote but I cannot understand how Duke is top 10 after everything they lost.
8. Yale - can they fix the defense? IL can't really explain why the defense has been so bad recently. Offense should be good despite losing Brandau.
9. Johns Hopkins - loses the most but somehow still has a lot of depth. Kind of mixed messaging. No stars on the team but guys who fill roles.
10. Penn - defense, led by Carroll is really good. Expect young offensive players to step up.

I thought it was Foy, who said that one shouldn't rank UMd outside the top 5 with Tillman around.

They said ND had no holes, because they have T.Ricciardelli, who was a top recruit a couple of years back. I don't think they mentioned that McLane (45 pts) was gone from the midfield, although they did mention Dobson was done. They spent a lot of time discussing C.Kavanagh moving into his brother's role and lauding Jake Taylor. Then at the end, they mentioned the 3rd attackman as being Brady Pokorny (the #12 ranked freshman).

For the Terps, most of the discussion wound around who would be the bigger hole for the Terps losing Zappitello or Wierman. They mentioned Hernandez as Zappitello's replacement, when Hernandez isn't on the roster. Will Schaller is probably going to take Zappitello's role (Schaller was a top 10 recruit) - and the Terps have two other regular D-men returning (Burlace and Canfield) along with 5-star Laake showing up. The Terps have 5-star sophomore Sean Creter to replace Wierman. So these shouldn't even be holes by their ND-logic.

They went through UVa pretty quick without much optimism. UVa has had a fair amount of success in the past with promoting a player like Sunderland and getting a lot out of him --- and let's be clear Sunderland was a top 5 recruit - so UVa losing Shellenberger is not a hole for UVa according to their logic for ND.

-- and Johnstone will be a great midfielder for Duke also --- and the highly ranked freshman d-man will step in for Brower.

Among the Ivy leagues, I'm not sure they showed as much love for Cornell or Yale as for Princeton and Penn.

Speaking of Cornell, Pehlke did a piece on Cornell recently:

 

[Powellfan]

 

[Powellfan]

Well this is something. Luck certainly keeps shining on the Irish. Curious if he stays at midfield or moves back to his natural attack position.

 

[Zack80]

Dang! I thought he was done.

 

[Zack80]

Tiffany has his descriptions of the players up on the bios on the roster:

Men's Lacrosse

The Official Athletic Site of the Virginia Cavaliers, partner of WMT Digital. The most comprehensive coverage of Virginia Cavaliers Men’s Lacrosse on the web with highlights, scores, game summaries, schedule and rosters.

virginiasports.com

He sounds like he likes Johnny Hackett
“The Ignition Switch! No one gets our offense jump-started quicker from above the goal than Johnny does with his multiple-step dodges. He keeps the opposing defender guessing when the burst will occur due to his exceptional and varied footwork. Johnny will focus as a midfielder this upcoming spring, responsible for drawing a lot of attention or making a defense pay for not sliding to him. Johnny has smoothly made the transition into a new locker room, embracing our men and culture.”

 

[Laxfanshutt]

 

[Zack80]

Is Hopkins going to have enough offense to be top 10 this Spring?

Matt Collison 23g, 10a; 33 pts
Russell Melendez 19g, 8a - 27 pts
Dylan Bauer 10g, 14a - 24 pts
Hunter Chauvette 14g, 1a - 15 pts
Jamie Ayers 6g, 2a - 8 pts

Patrick Hackler (Yale) 16g, 6 a - 22 pts

Gabriel Sorichetti - A - #40 recruit last year
Ciaran McCleary - M - #45 recruit 2024
Reece DCicco - M - #83 recruit 2024
Liam Gregorek - M - #85 recruit 2024

I don't really see it.

 

[JeremyCuse]

Is Hopkins going to have enough offense to be top 10 this Spring?

Matt Collison 23g, 10a; 33 pts
Russell Melendez 19g, 8a - 27 pts
Dylan Bauer 10g, 14a - 24 pts
Hunter Chauvette 14g, 1a - 15 pts
Jamie Ayers 6g, 2a - 8 pts

Patrick Hackler (Yale) 16g, 6 a - 22 pts

Gabriel Sorichetti - A - #40 recruit last year
Ciaran McCleary - M - #45 recruit 2024
Reece DCicco - M - #83 recruit 2024
Liam Gregorek - M - #85 recruit 2024

I don't really see it.

Your forgetting English who is coming off that knee injury who apparently looked good in the fall and was a big loss early for them last year. They also have a couple of incoming kids who could push for time especially at middie.

I assume most Hopkins fan expect Ayers and Chauvette to take another big step forward, Chauvette especially and that Melendez will look more like the 23 version versus the guy who struggled for most of 24. Hackler should help in transition as well, as he could easily play 1st midline on most teams.

That said there are definitely some potential pitfalls for Hop on offense. Angelus is a massive loss, he was clearly main initiator for that team and when he played well Hop usually won. With him gone they don't really a true QB type to lead the offense. Degnon again is also a major loss as he forced teams to choose whether to put their top cover guy on himself or Angelus. I suspect Hop fans hope Chauvette can step into that role but he's been mostly a catch and shoot guy who is going to need to develop more of an off ball/dodging game as he struggled once teams eventually just started shadowing him and his defender not sliding.

The other issue fo HOp is what does Melendez give them. If he's more like the 23 version that's a big boon. If he's more like the 24 version that went MIA at times and looked off for most of the year, that's gonna be a major problem. Collison is also key for them. He had another very good year but will need to carry more of the load with Angelus and Degnon gone.


Defensively is where Hop will likely excel, Staudt should be good in goal and while they won't have near the SSDM depth they had last year their close defense will be very good especially after they somehow got Scott Smith another year miraculously.


FOGO and overall offense are definitely their biggest question marks.

 

[nyclax]

their offense cant get much worse than it was in the second half of last season...id expect them to push the pace more this year with the additions of hackler and monfort and milliman now coaching the offense...crawley was a petro & benson disciple who was taught to sloooow things down...it all hinges on melendez...if it's the 23 version they will be fine...if it's 24 then they could struggle again. i heard he played through some injuries last yr so maybe that contributed..

penn state and michigan also lose some very important pieces on offense...big ten is going to look differnet this season

 

[ColdAnger]

Your forgetting English who is coming off that knee injury who apparently looked good in the fall and was a big loss early for them last year. They also have a couple of incoming kids who could push for time especially at middie.

I assume most Hopkins fan expect Ayers and Chauvette to take another big step forward, Chauvette especially and that Melendez will look more like the 23 version versus the guy who struggled for most of 24. Hackler should help in transition as well, as he could easily play 1st midline on most teams.

That said there are definitely some potential pitfalls for Hop on offense. Angelus is a massive loss, he was clearly main initiator for that team and when he played well Hop usually won. With him gone they don't really a true QB type to lead the offense. Degnon again is also a major loss as he forced teams to choose whether to put their top cover guy on himself or Angelus. I suspect Hop fans hope Chauvette can step into that role but he's been mostly a catch and shoot guy who is going to need to develop more of an off ball/dodging game as he struggled once teams eventually just started shadowing him and his defender not sliding.

The other issue fo HOp is what does Melendez give them. If he's more like the 23 version that's a big boon. If he's more like the 24 version that went MIA at times and looked off for most of the year, that's gonna be a major problem. Collison is also key for them. He had another very good year but will need to carry more of the load with Angelus and Degnon gone.


Defensively is where Hop will likely excel, Staudt should be good in goal and while they won't have near the SSDM depth they had last year their close defense will be very good especially after they somehow got Scott Smith another year miraculously.


FOGO and overall offense are definitely their biggest question marks.

They also have to replace a quite creative, highly regarded offensive mind in John Crawley at OC

 

[Powellfan]

9. Is Syracuse the team least affected by the landscape-wide upheaval in Division I lacrosse?​

Yes. The Orange are ranked No. 2 in the Way Ahead Rankings not just because they lost comparatively fewer contributors, but because comparatively more of their contributors were just sophomores last year and there’s even more improvement built into any projection for them in ’25. It’s reasonable to expect that Joey Spallina, Finn Thomson, Michael Leo, Luke Rhoa, Billy Dwan and Riley Figueiras will return for their third season in the Dome even more improved than they were between year one and two, and that forms a significant core to compliment seniors like Owen Hiltz, Sam English and Carter Rice. The Orange will have to replace their face-off specialist and goalie, but if they still have fewer question marks than almost all of their peers.

 

[DoctahLexus]

9. Is Syracuse the team least affected by the landscape-wide upheaval in Division I lacrosse?​

Yes. The Orange are ranked No. 2 in the Way Ahead Rankings not just because they lost comparatively fewer contributors, but because comparatively more of their contributors were just sophomores last year and there’s even more improvement built into any projection for them in ’25. It’s reasonable to expect that Joey Spallina, Finn Thomson, Michael Leo, Luke Rhoa, Billy Dwan and Riley Figueiras will return for their third season in the Dome even more improved than they were between year one and two, and that forms a significant core to compliment seniors like Owen Hiltz, Sam English and Carter Rice. The Orange will have to replace their face-off specialist and goalie, but if they still have fewer question marks than almost all of their peers.

At FOGO we have a sophomore who had the exact same faceoff percentage as Kohn last season. Not nearly as good has having both of them, especially with Kohn's offensive skills, but still a far better situation than most programs have replacing a FOGO. Goalie and LSM are the main question marks for us next season, not FOGO.