Harvard Gameday…

[ForCuseSake]

I can't believe they turned it over right at the end too. Especially after what happened vs Duke.

The basic premise is that the team is incredibly inconsistent and have frequent mental lapses. If they played to their potential for 60mins it's a team that can win it all.

I wasn’t a fan of not running a regular man up to try to get a score after the penalty expired.

Worst case scenario you have personnel who may be better at moving the ball or shooting on a vacant net when Harvard would inevitably double the ball carrier.

Glad it worked out in the end but I generally loathe the over-coaching, take-the-foot-off-the-pedal approach.

 

[wgdsr]

These game day threads are pure gold. I don't usually read them until after the game and the H0T Takes and instant reactions to what's going on from play to play / goal to goal reads like a bi-polar case study. Keep it up lady's and gentlemen. One of my favorite parts of game day.

haha. and i thought the sabre was bad! this place is nutz. the takes! cuse homies get at least another game day thread in 2025.

 

[texascpa]

Guarantee that Harvard wins the faceoff and the game.

 

[Dcuse]

I wasn’t a fan of not running a regular man up to try to get a score after the penalty expired.

Worst case scenario you have personnel who may be better at moving the ball or shooting on a vacant net when Harvard would inevitably double the ball carrier.

Glad it worked out in the end but I generally loathe the over-coaching, take-the-foot-off-the-pedal approach.

Disagree. It was 100% the right thing to do. At some point your players that you trust the most have to be able to make good decisions and not lose the ball. Both English and Hiltz failed at this in the last 2 games. Blaming coaching when players screw up is getting SOOOOOO old.

 

[orange79]

We were down 7 to Hopkins in 1983.

Yep. 5-12 early 3rd, IIRC.

 

[ForCuseSake]

Disagree. It was 100% the right thing to do. At some point your players that you trust the most have to be able to make good decisions and not lose the ball. Both English and Hiltz failed at this in the last 2 games. Blaming coaching when players screw up is getting SOOOOOO old.

I’m didn’t blame the coaches for English losing the ball. I’m questioning why they took the ball away from their man up unit that was en fuego. Harvard couldn’t stop it in the fourth quarter; they were 4-6 on the day before that last flag.

English was a turnover machine yesterday full of bad decisions and sloppy passing.

The man up unit were the “players that you trust the most” who demonstrated repeatedly they were “able to make good decisions.”

 

[tbonezone]

I don’t know anything about anything. But Harvard just seems more physical than SU.

i took my wife to the game and she knows nothing about lax. her comment first half was "this is like grown men playing against boys " it was embarrassing. jumbotron kept showing the small patch of crimson fans celebrating . i'm not sure they could believe how easy it was. halftime i told her this looks really bad for us . but after those late unreleasables the crowd came slowly to life. soon they were on their feet every offensive possession cheering louder every goal. mullen winning each face-off so easily kept feeding the frenzy... and then the turnover/goal. what a buzzkill . thought the roof might deflate.
anyways if you like excitement this was an ending for the ages. as we walked down the hill there was a little girl doing cartwheels in the grass. i think that's how everybody felt inside.

 

[BillSU]

Well hopefully they come out of the gate more inspired next weekend because Princeton is better than Harvard and I'm not so sure they will be as forgiving if we decide to spot them a 6 goal lead in the 1st half.

Totally agree. The happy camper syndrome that was the team after winning the ACC was obviously evident in this game. 7-1, I thought Harvard was going to blow us up, but the guys found a way to get back in it and Hiltz won the game with his OT goal.

MVP though in my opinion was Face OFF specialist Mullen. Without him we wouldn't be going to play Princeton at Hofstra next week AND we 'd better play like we did in the 4th QTR of this game the whole game or we will not be going to any SEMIFINAL.

 

[JeremyCuse]

Disagree. It was 100% the right thing to do. At some point your players that you trust the most have to be able to make good decisions and not lose the ball. Both English and Hiltz failed at this in the last 2 games. Blaming coaching when players screw up is getting SOOOOOO old.

Agreed on this at least with English, can't blame staff there. Yes a goal would have been great but if Stevens makes a great save during the man up its Harvard ball with probably 40+ seconds left and they have a lot more time. English seemingly just dropped the ball when he was running around and right before or as he was about to be doubled. Gait could have taken a TO but I assume he was waiting for him to get into real trouble before using the TO. The only point I would make is that English did have a pretty good look at the open net as he ran down the side. I would have preferred him to shoot but there's cons with that plan as well.

Hiltz I think is more on the staff. Calling a TO in that location was mistake 1. Giving the ball to Hiltz after he just got done running around for 30 secs and not being a speed guy made little sense and was mistake 2. He was also starting off on a double while English was running free with the remainder of the penalty.

 

[SULAXAHOLIC]

Actually it was bigger: down 6 vs. down 5. Is there a bigger one prior to 2008 or is last night's the biggest?

What was the halftime deficit of the 83 final vs Hop I believe that was bigger then the UVA game

 

[orange79]

What was the halftime deficit of the 83 final vs Hop I believe that was bigger then the UVA game

5-12 early 3rd, IIRC.

 

[JeremyCuse]

I’m didn’t blame the coaches for English losing the ball. I’m questioning why they took the ball away from their man up unit that was en fuego. Harvard couldn’t stop it in the fourth quarter; they were 4-6 on the day before that last flag.

English was a turnover machine yesterday full of bad decisions and sloppy passing.

The man up unit were the “players that you trust the most” who demonstrated repeatedly they were “able to make good decisions.”

Gait was in a tough spot there to be honest. Teams are rarely on the man up in those spots so that added a wrinkle you don't usually see. The main issue was that with amount of time left there was no obvious answer on what to do. SU could run out the clock or if they turned it over late make it almost impossible for Harvard to score. On the other hand if they score there the game is probably over with Mullen.

Your point about not attacking the man up is a good one but again it comes down to time. If there was say just under 2 min left, I think you clearly attack like a normal man up. With just over a min left or whatever it was and only a 30 sec man up you had to attack early if your gonna play it straight, as such, if you don't score and Harvard gets the ball there gonna be able to get it back on their end with plenty of time left. If we had two TO's left I think the better gameplan would have been to run off about 20 secs of the man up and then see if you want to attack that last 10 seconds on the re-start because Princeton can't double. I don't mind English being the guy to run around but he had struggled all day with turnovers and history has shown in those scenarios teams are rarely successful in running the clock out and usually end up turning it over at some point.

Much like last week vs Duke with the amount of time left I think you get your fastest players out there and Tell English once the double comes just throw a highly looping slow pass toward the left corner (the ones you see at the end of shot clock violations) and let a scrum ensue preferably with whoever the goalie is covering. Even if it goes OOB your taking at minimum 5+ seconds off the clock from when he passes it and your gonna be able to set up defensively and force Harvard to clear from pretty much as far back as possible.

 

[36'sq.]

I’m didn’t blame the coaches for English losing the ball. I’m questioning why they took the ball away from their man up unit that was en fuego. Harvard couldn’t stop it in the fourth quarter; they were 4-6 on the day before that last flag.

English was a turnover machine yesterday full of bad decisions and sloppy passing.

The man up unit were the “players that you trust the most” who demonstrated repeatedly they were “able to make good decisions.”

That is why I'm so confused when Carcaterra hypes him up. He's incredibly talented, not many middies play first line O, faceofff wing, and even some D. But, he's a captain at Syracuse. You need a consistent A game from that guy. Tons of talent, but as you say, sloppy passing and bad decisions. In a win or go home game. When you've played four (five?) seasons of DI and thousands of club games, that just can't happen.

But maybe that is part of the issue with the team: if your captain is inconsistent, maybe the whole team follows suit.

Not trying to be a jerk, the guy has tons of talent and I enjoy watching him play. But yeah, he's inconsistent.

 

[tbonezone]

think phil ford 4 corners. give a speedy dude the pill and when the double or triple comes pass to the open corner . tick tock.

 

[cuselaxss26]

To be fair as just rewatch the game (second half only couldn’t bare watching first half). The one turnover by english will give him credit as his stick broke n he tried to pass it before anyone notice his stick was broken n go other way anyway. But he wasn’t able to get enough on pass as stick broke like 4inches from head. So would been hell of smooth move if pulled it off. But i’ll least give him pass on that.

Now running out clock not sure why we didn’t try get ball down low just before man up expired instead keep it up top whole time. Second the guy that english was running toward should have vacated down below or move up to so guy defending them couldn’t clamp down on english easier. Hottle should have followed opposite of english staying up top to prevent break and rice top of other side for same reason.

Then when did lose ball guys trying to lay hits instead just getting back n 1 slow ball carrier down. Then everyone fled towards ball leaving whole other side field wide open. Lastly i’m sorry MCcool has to make that save. It was just inside box line (believe) dude was going low whole way n showed it n mccool gets beat . Just so many things team did wrong in that final 1min. Just made worst mistake after worst mistake on top of a save that has to be made.

Now im not saying you try score on the extra man but think least press n try see what look can get. As had feeling harvard goalie was gonna try to come out on brown/deere if pass even look their way. But next time like to see is every player but 2 go on opposite side of field in corners. Keep two of our guys(one with ball) give them plenty of room to room n whoever is closet when trouble comes go to them calling for it.

When running out clock spacing matters and so does not bringing ur guy closer to guy with ball making it easier to trap or double. Either hiltz stood there as english ran towards him stead getting way to take his man or whoever it was. It just was all badly executed. Last thing right before that debacle in huddle just noticed watching replay. Thompson def seemed upset after seem what was gonna happen. Can see him roll his head n break out huddle before rest players did. To which gait notice n said something to him. Not sure if cause finn wasn’t gonna be on field or they weren’t gonna trey least look for good scoring chance as running out clock has not gone well for us.

 

[cuselaxss26]

Either way as poorly n i mean it was poorly we played for almost 3 qtrs to keep fighting n come back. Specially when harvard tied it with 6 seconds. Even my spirits were down. But to win n comeback down so much with english n hiltz playing their worst game no doubt. Rest team stepped up when needed. If not gonna get goals from second line other then bear guess our lsm are next best option. But hottle n mccarthy have to do something. As said before they don’t exactly have to be a scorer but least get assists or be reason a goal was scored.

Mcarthy deke the crap out mcquire prob one of best dmids in college for goal. Yet can’t beat any of these other ones. He also seems so scared to pull trigger. I feel bad for him as he seems be decent enough with ball n decent dmid n on wing. But was offensive guy. Where is the production ? His confidence just seems shot. Which think need to really work on his O game during practice or just make him dmid. I been rooting for him n thought him scoring vs duke maby open him up little bit. But he had nice clean line for shot at harvard buy stopped then got stick checked from behind n lost ball.

 

[ForCuseSake]

Gait was in a tough spot there to be honest. Teams are rarely on the man up in those spots so that added a wrinkle you don't usually see. The main issue was that with amount of time left there was no obvious answer on what to do. SU could run out the clock or if they turned it over late make it almost impossible for Harvard to score. On the other hand if they score there the game is probably over with Mullen.

Your point about not attacking the man up is a good one but again it comes down to time. If there was say just under 2 min left, I think you clearly attack like a normal man up. With just over a min left or whatever it was and only a 30 sec man up you had to attack early if your gonna play it straight, as such, if you don't score and Harvard gets the ball there gonna be able to get it back on their end with plenty of time left. If we had two TO's left I think the better gameplan would have been to run off about 20 secs of the man up and then see if you want to attack that last 10 seconds on the re-start because Princeton can't double. I don't mind English being the guy to run around but he had struggled all day with turnovers and history has shown in those scenarios teams are rarely successful in running the clock out and usually end up turning it over at some point.

Much like last week vs Duke with the amount of time left I think you get your fastest players out there and Tell English once the double comes just throw a highly looping slow pass toward the left corner (the ones you see at the end of shot clock violations) and let a scrum ensue preferably with whoever the goalie is covering. Even if it goes OOB your taking at minimum 5+ seconds off the clock from when he passes it and your gonna be able to set up defensively and force Harvard to clear from pretty much as far back as possible.

Great points and I agree it is a tough spot for Coach Gait as people would’ve crucified him if they turned it over before the penalty ended and they lost.

I’m more of a “dance with the gal that brought you” philosophy and the man up was cookin.

I’m thrilled it worked out. And generally agree with the “give it to our fastest, strongest ball carrier and turn him loose” approach.

I have PTSD with some of English’s head scratchers. He’s a phenomenal player and I think they ask too much of him at this level. Only natural for him to fatigue mentally or physically.

I’d love to see him end this year on a heater. I have no doubt Harvard was the closest Hiltz will come to a let down for the rest of his career. He’s been monumentally clutch this year.

 

[cusefan88]

Great points and I agree it is a tough spot for Coach Gait as people would’ve crucified him if they turned it over before the penalty ended and they lost.

I’m more of a “dance with the gal that brought you” philosophy and the man up was cookin.

I’m thrilled it worked out. And generally agree with the “give it to our fastest, strongest ball carrier and turn him loose” approach.

I have PTSD with some of English’s head scratchers. He’s a phenomenal player and I think they ask too much of him at this level. Only natural for him to fatigue mentally or physically.

I’d love to see him end this year on a heater. I have no doubt Harvard was the closest Hiltz will come to a let down for the rest of his career. He’s been monumentally clutch this year.

Hiltz had a bad day but in the fourth quarter did all his damage. Assisted Leo's go-ahead goal and bagged the GWG in overtime.

 

[JeremyCuse]

Great points and I agree it is a tough spot for Coach Gait as people would’ve crucified him if they turned it over before the penalty ended and they lost.

I’m more of a “dance with the gal that brought you” philosophy and the man up was cookin.

I’m thrilled it worked out. And generally agree with the “give it to our fastest, strongest ball carrier and turn him loose” approach.

I have PTSD with some of English’s head scratchers. He’s a phenomenal player and I think they ask too much of him at this level. Only natural for him to fatigue mentally or physically.

I’d love to see him end this year on a heater. I have no doubt Harvard was the closest Hiltz will come to a let down for the rest of his career. He’s been monumentally clutch this year.

I am of the opinion in that scenario take the open goal shot as most times your gonna score. Teams get to concerned about the one time a team did that and the opponent scored 2 goals in like 11 seconds because they won 2 faceoffs in a row to tie or something crazy so their hesitant to score versus keeping possession. I think that's overblown, yes that has happened but it's beyond rare. I would rather take the goal and go up 2 or 3 etc.

I'd like to see Gait do what he did vs ND, take the TO above GLE and in a position where a guy like Hiltz can score of the restart or even Joey. That forces teams to either give up an empty net and hope SU misses (Hiltz buried it and effectively ended the ND game) or they have to wait until after the re-start to pull the goalie out which wastes precious seconds.

 

[GoSU96]

Either way as poorly n i mean it was poorly we played for almost 3 qtrs to keep fighting n come back. Specially when harvard tied it with 6 seconds. Even my spirits were down. But to win n comeback down so much with english n hiltz playing their worst game no doubt. Rest team stepped up when needed. If not gonna get goals from second line other then bear guess our lsm are next best option. But hottle n mccarthy have to do something. As said before they don’t exactly have to be a scorer but least get assists or be reason a goal was scored.

Mcarthy deke the crap out mcquire prob one of best dmids in college for goal. Yet can’t beat any of these other ones. He also seems so scared to pull trigger. I feel bad for him as he seems be decent enough with ball n decent dmid n on wing. But was offensive guy. Where is the production ? His confidence just seems shot. Which think need to really work on his O game during practice or just make him dmid. I been rooting for him n thought him scoring vs duke maby open him up little bit. But he had nice clean line for shot at harvard buy stopped then got stick checked from behind n lost ball.

McCarthy was bad

 

[DomeHolmes]

I’m not trying to argue with you, seriously, but if the face-offs are equal and if both teams have the same amount of penalties, then you really think we win that game? I definitely don’t. I don’t think it would even have been close. We couldn’t stop them, at all, and we had a very hard time scoring in our non-man up (6v6) offense. McCool had some ridiculous saves, too. Regardless, exciting game and great win

No, we probably don’t, but if their goalie doesn’t stand on his head and we don’t hit pipes, they lose by 5+. They clearly played better in the first 40 minutes though.

We had 12 unforced turnovers, and they had I believe 7 more saves than us, so they made up 19 of the possessions we gained (by dominating face offs), between their goalie and our sloppiness. (Those 19 lost possessions for us had very little to do with Harvard’s other nine guys on the field out playing us). They also only had two more forced turnovers than us, so it was as much us beating ourselves as it was them beating us.

They clearly won three things. The first 40 minutes, ground balls (not including face offs) and goalkeeping. We clearly won face offs, shots, shots on goal, dominated the last 20 minutes, and made better adjustments. So in my eyes, we played fairly evenly, but we just made one more play than them.

We have also fought uphill battles with penalties all year, and were overdue to have a game where we were less penalized.

I read the three pages of the Harvard lacrosse forum. (They obviously don’t care about lacrosse as much as we do). There was not one post in three pages where someone felt that “they dominated the game but lost”. Quite the opposite, it seems like they expected it and gave us credit for being more clutch than them.

 

[JeremyCuse]

No, we probably don’t, but if their goalie doesn’t stand on his head and we don’t hit pipes, they lose by 5+. They clearly played better in the first 40 minutes though.

We had 12 unforced turnovers, and they had I believe 7 more saves than us, so they made up 19 of the possessions we gained (by dominating face offs), between their goalie and our sloppiness. (Those 19 lost possessions for us had very little to do with Harvard’s other nine guys on the field out playing us). They also only had two more forced turnovers than us, so it was as much us beating ourselves as it was them beating us.

They clearly won three things. The first 40 minutes, ground balls (not including face offs) and goalkeeping. We clearly won face offs, shots, shots on goal, dominated the last 20 minutes, and made better adjustments. So in my eyes, we played fairly evenly, but we just made one more play than them.

We have also fought uphill battles with penalties all year, and were overdue to have a game where we were less penalized.

I read the three pages of the Harvard lacrosse forum. (They obviously don’t care about lacrosse as much as we do). There was not one post in three pages where someone felt that “they dominated the game but lost”. Quite the opposite, it seems like they expected it and gave us credit for being more clutch than them.

Can you link to the Harvard site? Thanks

 

[ForCuseSake]

That is why I'm so confused when Carcaterra hypes him up. He's incredibly talented, not many middies play first line O, faceofff wing, and even some D. But, he's a captain at Syracuse. You need a consistent A game from that guy. Tons of talent, but as you say, sloppy passing and bad decisions. In a win or go home game. When you've played four (five?) seasons of DI and thousands of club games, that just can't happen.

But maybe that is part of the issue with the team: if your captain is inconsistent, maybe the whole team follows suit.

Not trying to be a jerk, the guy has tons of talent and I enjoy watching him play. But yeah, he's inconsistent.

I think you have to have superhuman athleticism to do everything they ask English to do any better than he does.

Matt Abbott, one of the original Human Clears, was fast AF. Even he didn’t run first line middie, first team SSDM, FO wing and designated clock killer.

English is a top flight dodger, SSDM and clock killer. Asking him to also be the go-to wing shorty on face offs in this age of parity is cray cray to me.

The fact that he performs all of those roles at an elite level, with some inconsistency, is a testament to how talented he is.

I wish the staff had a reasonable alternative for one or two of those roles to give him a breather.

 

[cuselaxss26]

McCarthy was bad

He isn’t that bad tho. What mean is for how much he plays he doesn’t turn it over a ton. Will he make mistake of course but our seniors have made more then him. Why say bad cause he just doesn’t produce anything. I get that i really do. But he isn’t so bad can’t be fixed or so bad he shouldn’t even touch field. He has shown some nice moves n even feeds at times. Just think kid to scared to be himself or try ANYTHING. He has been mugged few times n got thru it. He can handle the ball not saying he’s a sticktictian. But he isn’t totally terrible. Think coaches just need to work with mostly on his confidence. He has pick up some tough gbs. He also only sophomore seeing extensive time. But he doesn’t produce anything on O.

Think you least gotta work with him as i see potential in him but who’s to say coaches work on the things he lacks as much as they could or should. Clearly they think he better then other as haven’t switched him yet. I’m not basing him just off production tho i think he does need to produce. But he hasn’t cost us to where ur like why. He really doesn’t change the game or help but he also doesn’t hurt either. Think he had better chance then hottle (mostly his size).

I just see kid who at times shown flashes of skill but just to dam scared to try to be that guy. As seems most of 2nd line besides bear all their trying to do is draw slide n feed attack. That hottle / mccarthy arnt dodging to score but to only look for attack. Which could be what they’re told i don’t know. They both just seem to not want to be a go getter or wanna please upper class men or told to do so. They’re both just very shy with ball when comes to shooting.

 

[orange79]

He isn’t that bad tho. What mean is for how much he plays he doesn’t turn it over a ton. Will he make mistake of course but our seniors have made more then him. Why say bad cause he just doesn’t produce anything. I get that i really do. But he isn’t so bad can’t be fixed or so bad he shouldn’t even touch field. He has shown some nice moves n even feeds at times. Just think kid to scared to be himself or try ANYTHING. He has been mugged few times n got thru it. He can handle the ball not saying he’s a sticktictian. But he isn’t totally terrible. Think coaches just need to work with mostly on his confidence. He has pick up some tough gbs. He also only sophomore seeing extensive time. But he doesn’t produce anything on O.

Think you least gotta work with him as i see potential in him but who’s to say coaches work on the things he lacks as much as they could or should. Clearly they think he better then other as haven’t switched him yet. I’m not basing him just off production tho i think he does need to produce. But he hasn’t cost us to where ur like why. He really doesn’t change the game or help but he also doesn’t hurt either. Think he had better chance then hottle (mostly his size).

I just see kid who at times shown flashes of skill but just to dam scared to try to be that guy. As seems most of 2nd line besides bear all their trying to do is draw slide n feed attack. That hottle / mccarthy arnt dodging to score but to only look for attack. Which could be what they’re told i don’t know. They both just seem to not want to be a go getter or wanna please upper class men or told to do so. They’re both just very shy with ball when comes to shooting.

I expect him to make 'the leap' next year.