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Message: [QUOTE="SUlax88-09, post: 4979512, member: 9879"] I question Gary Gait’s vision of ball movement lacrosse, because I’m just not sold on its results against the top teams. Ball movement is great in man-up and against lesser trams, but what about the rest of the game and against good teams? All SU great teams and all Final Four teams have multiple players that can beat their man 1 on 1 and then score or draw a slide and create a scoring opportunity for someone else. When has ball movement been enough to get to the Final Four? The irony is that Gary Gait’s playing style was all about beating his defender 1 on 1. I gave my impression of the SU team after the first game against Vermont last year, and (as always happens in this forum) I got killed for my thoughts, which actually again turned out to be correct (we went 1-5 in the ACC and had no postseason). I also said at that time that Spallina was too slow to win 1 on 1 match ups (top D1 defenders will not allow him to overpower them), and you guys killed me for that, too. Spallina’s passing is elite, absolutely, and he may end up being the all-time SU leading scorer (and he also seems like a great kid), but if he can’t consistently beat top tier defenders, then, sorry, he’s not leading us to a Final Four. Gait didn’t even have enough confidence to even give him the ball in overtime… Rhoa and Leo can both dodge and shoot, and their 1 on 1 skills saved us yesterday (in addition to Kohn), but our Attack, as a unit, stunk. Although why would Tillman keep short stick defenders on Rhoa and Leo?! Glad he did, or else we would have been blown out. However, don‘t expect other good teams to make the same mistake. Relying on ball movement to score without having a single attackman that win a 1 on match-up is not a good recipe (obviously we don’t need all of our attackmen to be dodgers, because we need a finisher). But Mule is not a dodger, Hiltz (the biggest disappointment on the team) is not a dodger, and Spallina doesn’t have the speed to dodge (can’t they get him to work with track coaches to improve his speed?), so who initiates the offense for us on attack? What about playing Trey Deere on attack? At least give him a chance? Or maybe just keep doing pick plays for Spallina to free him up? Is there any other attackman on the bench that dodge? We saw what a good dodger can do against us, because Erksa was clearly the best player on the field yesterday. I’m not really seeing a Final Four attack unit here, sorry. Beating up on lesser teams or in our man-up opportunities with beautiful ball movement is great (and I do appreciate the great passing vision of so many of our players), but how can we get back to the Final Four with only having 2 players (both middies) that can beat their defenders and score 1 on 1? It’s been 11 darn years since we made a Final Four… so let’s go! [/QUOTE]

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