DoctahLexus
Renowned lacrosse analyst
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- Jun 8, 2018
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While I agree we can always get better with turnovers, we did do well enough to be 3rd in the nation in least turnovers per game with 13.3. Part of that is on how good Spallina is at taking care of the ball. He had an insanely low turnover amount given how much he had the rock. I think it is easy to get frustrated with turnovers, but no team avoids them. 10 a game would be some kind of record.
Would love to see a better plan against the 10 man ride and a better plan to limit transition. Having our speedy guys 1 man clear is not the worst strategy when it is a normal ride, but trying that against the 10 man got us in a lot of trouble. Our clearing percentage went from elite to mediocre after a few 10 man ride games. There has to a better plan against that. We also gave up a lot in transition, most notably in the final four game against MD, but also other games like Duke in the regular season. It felt like we tried to hard to sub guys out at times. Sometimes the first goal just has to be to sprint back on defense even if you are an offensive player. If the other team is cruising downfield you can't even be thinking about subbing out.
The other huge one is PENALTIES! Don't get me wrong if you want to set the tone early in a game I am all for that, but we would commit some absolute bonehead ones down the stretch in games that killed us. Often the culprit was Billy Dwan. He had freaking 13 penalties last year. Some of them were totally unnecessary late hits. One against MD when we first played them basically ended the game for sure, and it was so unnecessary. Add that with a turnover amount worse than a lot of our offensive players, and it was a disappointing season from him. He needs to show way more discipline as a senior team captain.
Would love to see a better plan against the 10 man ride and a better plan to limit transition. Having our speedy guys 1 man clear is not the worst strategy when it is a normal ride, but trying that against the 10 man got us in a lot of trouble. Our clearing percentage went from elite to mediocre after a few 10 man ride games. There has to a better plan against that. We also gave up a lot in transition, most notably in the final four game against MD, but also other games like Duke in the regular season. It felt like we tried to hard to sub guys out at times. Sometimes the first goal just has to be to sprint back on defense even if you are an offensive player. If the other team is cruising downfield you can't even be thinking about subbing out.
The other huge one is PENALTIES! Don't get me wrong if you want to set the tone early in a game I am all for that, but we would commit some absolute bonehead ones down the stretch in games that killed us. Often the culprit was Billy Dwan. He had freaking 13 penalties last year. Some of them were totally unnecessary late hits. One against MD when we first played them basically ended the game for sure, and it was so unnecessary. Add that with a turnover amount worse than a lot of our offensive players, and it was a disappointing season from him. He needs to show way more discipline as a senior team captain.
