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Message: [QUOTE="Powellfan, post: 4979944, member: 4819"] Some random thoughts ... I couldn't watch the game live, and couldn't help myself from looking at the score before watching so I might have a different sort of perspective of this game. -My initial thought was this game would be a lot like last year's Duke game. In the sense that that game was a quality win the Orange could have "stole". They were outplayed for the majority of that Duke game in the Dome, but Mark had a million saves and Duke hit a million pipes and somehow the Orange had a chance to win in overtime. After watching this game however, it felt much differnt. to me, Syracuse looked like the better team for three quarters. I know I am biased, but this made me feel like Syracuse was "at the level". I came away thinking Syracuse [I]should [/I]have won that game instead of thinking Syracuse [I]could[/I] have won that game. -The biggest surprise of this young season has been Finn Thomson's struggles. I just did not see this sort of shooting slump coming. I said preseason the guy I want shooting more was Thomson. How he went from shooting 40% to under 10% is mystifying. I am not sure how he gets his confidence back but he needs to find it. -I see a lot of people calling for Birtwistle to moved to the first line, but why not Rhoa? Especially after last game it seems like he should be considered. He has such a good shot, and is such an underrated dodger. The only hesitancy is if you destroy whatever is left of Thomson's confidence. Do the coaches let him figure this out on his own? For all the criticism he is getting he has just two fewer points than Rhoa, and has two more than English. Perhaps we just need to let him figure it out. Season is still young. -I thought the defense overall looked pretty good. Maryland clearly had a plan, play out the shot clock and work to find the open man. They really like coming around from x and finding a cutter on the other side. The defense, to me looked a lot more comfortable with their slides and recoveries and while the ssdms outside of Rice looked shaky, I think they did an adequate job. Overall I was impressed and I loved the move to a zone defense late in the game to throw Maryland off. -It's a little thing but I liked Oderina's body language for the game, looks relaxed but engaged as you could see him giving the defense animated directions from the sidelines. A lot has been made in the press about how he "lets you be your own boss", but after watching this game you can tell he does plenty of coaching. Its quite a contrast from who was in charge of the defense last year. -Biggest question after this game for me is who takes the number one attackman going forward? It wasn't all Figuerias fault, but Brandon Erksa had himself quite a game and burned the redshirt freshman more than a couple of times. Figuerias had the nice play where he dropped him to the turf late, but overall Erksa won that matchup. Do they eventually move Dwan over to take on Alphas? Not giving up on Figuerias at all but things are going to get a lot tougher as the season progresses. -Have to give Kohn a ton of credit, that was a physical matchup against one of the games best and he stood his own. In hindsight, I may have gone to Mullen late to get someone fresh on the field, considering how taxing some of those face-offs were, but overall you have to be thrilled with that performance. [/QUOTE]

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