JeremyCuse
Renowned lacrosse analyst
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I think most Lacrosse fans agree that Syracuse should have been the #1 seed for the tourney. Personally I think the 2 seed worked out better considering it keeps Albany, Duke, Denver, ND, Cornell on the other side of the bracket. I also like the fact the players were upset about it, Syracuse always plays its best with a chip on their shoulders.
If I am ND I really want Cornell to take of business against Albany, Lyle Thompson in his potential final game against the team they felt they should have beat last year in the tourney, no thanks. That said Cornell is a tough match up for Albany. Cornell is going to dominate at the X and they very familiar with Thompson and the rest of the Albany offense. Will be a very interesting game. UNC has an interesting matchup with Colgate but I think Kelly will have a huge advantage at the X and the UNC midfield could be in for a big game especially Tutton. Goldstock should have a big game as well. Really surprised the committe didnt send the fighting Petro's to Duke. Thats a matchup the tourney loves, very surprised. As for Duke's actual matchup, I don't see them having much trouble.
Hopkins vs UVA is a very interesting matchup, JHU is on a roll but they have done it against the B10 which offensively is not good across the board. I wonder if JHU will come in over confident against a well rested UVA squad with considerable offensive weapons and a great goalie in Barret. Biggest issue for UVA is there attack and what they can get out of their depleted attack unit.
As for our Orange it was pretty much as expected. 730 sunday start against either Marist or Bryant. I don't know a ton about Marist but they appear to have a good defense with a couple of high scoring offensive players. Should be an interesting game for sure.
Assuming for a moment that Bryant wins ( I have no doubt they will) I think the matchup is pretty straight forward. As I noted last year Bryant has good players but everything is predicated on Waldt and Massa, if one of them struggles or both its usually lights out. Bryant lost several offensive starters from last years team and have really struggled to generate goals pretty much the entire season. Bryant is only averaging I believe a little over 8 goals a game and that number is a bit skewed by playing in an absolutely abysmal conference. Also just like the past two years Bryant turns the ball over at an alarming rate and have turned it over 20+ times on several occassions. Syracuse really failed to exploit this last year, I hope Lelan Rogers takes notice and is prepared to try and take advantage.
The real key obviously in this game is the Syracuse offense vs the Bryant defense. After a pretty abysmal first half of the season the Bryant D has rounded back into its normal shape. They held Albany, Brown, and UNC to 10 goals or less and lost all three games by one goal. They will surely play zone and a lot of it against SU because A. Syracuse has struggled against it in the past including last year and B. Bryant doesn' t have the players to matchup with Syracuse 1 on 1 like a UNC or ND.
I plan on putting a preview up later in the week but my biggest concerns in this game would be as follows:
- Waldt just standing on his head again and the game looking a lot like Colgate on Saturday or UNC in the ACC tourney. Bryant wants this to be 9-8 game desperately, Syracuse getting into double figures would be a real bad sign for them as bryant doesn't have the offense to get into any type of a shootout. Syracuse should look to pepper Waldt early and often, put as much pressure on him as possible.
- What does the Massa vs Williams matchup look like: After dominating the first game against SU, Chris Daddio did win 9 draws against Massa last year. Obviously far from great but a lot better then the 1 win we had in 2013. Massa has dominated at times this year but has looked human as well. Save for one game Ben Williams has been unbelievable so there are high expectations that Syracuse will at minimum be at 50%. Can Williams turn the tables and win 60% like Massa did last year? Does Massa put in a Rowe type performance?
What do we get out of the first and second midfield lines besides Galasso? Bryant will surely throw everything they can against Rice, Donahue, and Staats, which will put onus on the midfield to make plays especially Schoonie and Lecky. Assuming Barber is back I would really like to see Desko run Barber on the first line with Galasso, get two shooters out there and former attackmen. I also think Dejoe needs to get some run, fingers if nothing else his shot should open some things up inside. Will we get anything from the second line? Evans had a couple nice moves Saturday but shot accuracy killed him.
If you look back at the last two Bryant matchups each side can claim they have the edge going into the game. Obviously Bryant will say this is there third matchup against SU in a row and coming of f a W they will have zero fear of the Dome or the national stage. While I certainly agree with that I think that plays both ways. Based off last years upset loss Bryant will have our full attention no one is going to be looking ahead. I also think the surprise factor for Bryant is out the window as well. Even though the first matchup was close in 2013 you still got the idea that Syracuse thought that was more of a product of the faceoff discrepancy then Bryant actually having a shot to win. Last years loss pretty much ended that line of thinking. Now that staff and players are going to be hearing all week about last years game and that there on upset alert again etc etc etc. That is exactly what you want to happen if your the fan of the favored team.
To me the key is Syracuse coming out early and putting the presure on Bryant. If you look at the 2013 game when syracuse finally got more then a one goal lead later in the game Bryant started to panic and tried to force things which led to mulitple turnovers and Syracuse ended up winning comfortably. Even last year when SU tied the game up late you could see Bryant was on the ropes. This Bryant team is not a team that can come back from a decent sized defecit. If Syracuse can get up 4-1 or 5-1 they can get Bryant out of there slow down game plan. This is a game Syracuse should be hungry for and they should come out to play from the initial faceoff. The nightmare scenario woudl be a repeat of last year where SU blows a handfull of chances in the 1st quarter and instead of being up 4-1 the game is tied at 2 or something like that and SU starts to press resulting in a rock fight for 4 quarters, exactly what we dont want.
Will have some additional thoughts later in the week.
If I am ND I really want Cornell to take of business against Albany, Lyle Thompson in his potential final game against the team they felt they should have beat last year in the tourney, no thanks. That said Cornell is a tough match up for Albany. Cornell is going to dominate at the X and they very familiar with Thompson and the rest of the Albany offense. Will be a very interesting game. UNC has an interesting matchup with Colgate but I think Kelly will have a huge advantage at the X and the UNC midfield could be in for a big game especially Tutton. Goldstock should have a big game as well. Really surprised the committe didnt send the fighting Petro's to Duke. Thats a matchup the tourney loves, very surprised. As for Duke's actual matchup, I don't see them having much trouble.
Hopkins vs UVA is a very interesting matchup, JHU is on a roll but they have done it against the B10 which offensively is not good across the board. I wonder if JHU will come in over confident against a well rested UVA squad with considerable offensive weapons and a great goalie in Barret. Biggest issue for UVA is there attack and what they can get out of their depleted attack unit.
As for our Orange it was pretty much as expected. 730 sunday start against either Marist or Bryant. I don't know a ton about Marist but they appear to have a good defense with a couple of high scoring offensive players. Should be an interesting game for sure.
Assuming for a moment that Bryant wins ( I have no doubt they will) I think the matchup is pretty straight forward. As I noted last year Bryant has good players but everything is predicated on Waldt and Massa, if one of them struggles or both its usually lights out. Bryant lost several offensive starters from last years team and have really struggled to generate goals pretty much the entire season. Bryant is only averaging I believe a little over 8 goals a game and that number is a bit skewed by playing in an absolutely abysmal conference. Also just like the past two years Bryant turns the ball over at an alarming rate and have turned it over 20+ times on several occassions. Syracuse really failed to exploit this last year, I hope Lelan Rogers takes notice and is prepared to try and take advantage.
The real key obviously in this game is the Syracuse offense vs the Bryant defense. After a pretty abysmal first half of the season the Bryant D has rounded back into its normal shape. They held Albany, Brown, and UNC to 10 goals or less and lost all three games by one goal. They will surely play zone and a lot of it against SU because A. Syracuse has struggled against it in the past including last year and B. Bryant doesn' t have the players to matchup with Syracuse 1 on 1 like a UNC or ND.
I plan on putting a preview up later in the week but my biggest concerns in this game would be as follows:
- Waldt just standing on his head again and the game looking a lot like Colgate on Saturday or UNC in the ACC tourney. Bryant wants this to be 9-8 game desperately, Syracuse getting into double figures would be a real bad sign for them as bryant doesn't have the offense to get into any type of a shootout. Syracuse should look to pepper Waldt early and often, put as much pressure on him as possible.
- What does the Massa vs Williams matchup look like: After dominating the first game against SU, Chris Daddio did win 9 draws against Massa last year. Obviously far from great but a lot better then the 1 win we had in 2013. Massa has dominated at times this year but has looked human as well. Save for one game Ben Williams has been unbelievable so there are high expectations that Syracuse will at minimum be at 50%. Can Williams turn the tables and win 60% like Massa did last year? Does Massa put in a Rowe type performance?
What do we get out of the first and second midfield lines besides Galasso? Bryant will surely throw everything they can against Rice, Donahue, and Staats, which will put onus on the midfield to make plays especially Schoonie and Lecky. Assuming Barber is back I would really like to see Desko run Barber on the first line with Galasso, get two shooters out there and former attackmen. I also think Dejoe needs to get some run, fingers if nothing else his shot should open some things up inside. Will we get anything from the second line? Evans had a couple nice moves Saturday but shot accuracy killed him.
If you look back at the last two Bryant matchups each side can claim they have the edge going into the game. Obviously Bryant will say this is there third matchup against SU in a row and coming of f a W they will have zero fear of the Dome or the national stage. While I certainly agree with that I think that plays both ways. Based off last years upset loss Bryant will have our full attention no one is going to be looking ahead. I also think the surprise factor for Bryant is out the window as well. Even though the first matchup was close in 2013 you still got the idea that Syracuse thought that was more of a product of the faceoff discrepancy then Bryant actually having a shot to win. Last years loss pretty much ended that line of thinking. Now that staff and players are going to be hearing all week about last years game and that there on upset alert again etc etc etc. That is exactly what you want to happen if your the fan of the favored team.
To me the key is Syracuse coming out early and putting the presure on Bryant. If you look at the 2013 game when syracuse finally got more then a one goal lead later in the game Bryant started to panic and tried to force things which led to mulitple turnovers and Syracuse ended up winning comfortably. Even last year when SU tied the game up late you could see Bryant was on the ropes. This Bryant team is not a team that can come back from a decent sized defecit. If Syracuse can get up 4-1 or 5-1 they can get Bryant out of there slow down game plan. This is a game Syracuse should be hungry for and they should come out to play from the initial faceoff. The nightmare scenario woudl be a repeat of last year where SU blows a handfull of chances in the 1st quarter and instead of being up 4-1 the game is tied at 2 or something like that and SU starts to press resulting in a rock fight for 4 quarters, exactly what we dont want.
Will have some additional thoughts later in the week.
