Chris Datres

Virginia at JPJ is the first game of the season.

Good luck, godspeed...and I'd prefer not to hear about them anymore. Turn the page and look forward to what we have on the roster who do want to be here and hopefully take us to heights we haven't seen in over 25 years.

You're certainly right that this wasn't a tournament team this year. One of the stats I checked out prior to the game was EMOs and found that the disparity between how much we scored versus how much we let up was pretty big. I don't know what the median is for lacrosse as a whole but I've gotta think that scoring less than 30% of the time you're a man-up is a big crutch for your offense. I respect Coach for sticking to his guns and instilling the discipline on the team. Hope those who got dinged learned their lesson and can get it back for next season.

We certainly do know how to make it interesting. Too bad that the game has to be put on a subscription stream but Spiro is an excellent alternative. With the Penguins also playing at the same time tonite, there was way too much sports stress in my living room.

And with former Irish player Martin Inglesby as a coach, it was probably an easier sell, too. I've been told that we're leading off with Virginia at JPJ next season. If so, see if we can increase the Cavs losing streak vs. Baltimore teams to 2.

That offense was beyond brutal. At times, I was wondering if we were even going to shoot the ball. There was one sequence early in the 4th quarter I think where we had the ball on the right wing side and he messed around with the ball and before you knew it, he was swarmed by one player and he just lost the ball. It's almost like they have zero confidence in their own offensive game and no one wants to fire anything at the net unless they're wide open. Our defense has been playing pretty well and not allowing a lot of goals, it's just too bad that the offense hasn't progressed one bit from the beginning of the season. And yes, the suspensions are a big part of that.

He has until May 31 I think to withdraw his name. I can't imagine that any school is going to seriously look at him until then. If he doesn't withdraw his name, then he's off to the Mongolian League.

Does Gorham think he's gonna play at a decent P5 and be a significant contributor? Hahahaha, that's pretty funny. He was making strides but he'll get eaten alive in most of the P5 leagues. Again, good luck and don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. I'd much rather start a season with a totally new slate than a bunch of low basketball IQ, me-first, bickering scrubs. As far as the bickering goes, that is a smack in the face of leadership...leadership by the coaches and leadership by the seniors. Eddie was at the forefront of the bickering because every single call that went against him, he had that whiny look on his face. Morsell was too quiet to be a leader and Starr had enough problems bringing the ball up to be a leader. When you don't have any leaders on the floor like a JD was to get the troops together, then the cancer is only going to grow. That ultimately was our downfall this past season.

Welcome to 2018 and the onslaught of the 'me-first' generation. That's just the way college basketball is nowadays with the absurd amount of transfers that are out there. I get it, they think they're bettering themselves and you can't fault a kid for doing that. You'd jump ship from your job if you thought you had a better opportunity elsewhere. But if their ultimate goal is to get to the NBA, they'll find you under a rock if you're good enough to catch their attention. The grass isn't always greener and if Zane's move is to go to a different college, there's nothing that says that he'll be the big fish that he was starting to become at Towson. If his move is to go pro, well, have fun in the Netherlands or Lithuania because the only way he's getting to the NBA is with a ticket. If he doesn't want to be here, then don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out. As for what this says about Skerry, I agree that it doesn't look good to have so many recruits under his watch that have departed prior to going a full 4 years. But in no way do I think it's a recipe for him to get let go as one or more prominent posters here campaign for. Recruiting is such a goshdarn crapshoot, especially at our level. We'd all love to have the resources to recruit 5 stars on a yearly basis. Skerry's created a style of play and he has tried to find players to match that style. Unfortunately, what he's thought is the right personnel has turned out to be below what he hoped. So he goes to work on changing it up. And if the players he gets end up not wanting to be here, then they're free to go but maybe they should think twice before signing on the dotted line if they're all of a sudden going to get disgruntled.

I'll reiterate what I had said in a previous thread -- send someone from marketing to Grand Canyon University and get some ideas from them on how they turn their basketball games into a showcase. They've been in D1 for 5-6 years now and they almost sell the place out every night and students are in their seats whooping it up an hour before gametime. GCU is located in a bigger city footprint than we are (Phoenix vs. Baltimore) and their arena seats more than SECU. Find out some of the tricks they use out there and see if it's feasible to implement them at SECU. GCU's biggest basketball crowd was for....wait for it...the Kangaroos of UMKC.

I'm gonna hate reading what you have to say if we were to lose to one of those 4 teams.

This is a common practice for a lot of players who are a year away from really being a potential draftee. They go to the combine, get the feedback from the scouts and teams as to what they need to improve on during their next college season and then they come back. Doing this without an agent is obviously the key. So I wouldn't read too much into this right now. If he hired an agent, well then that would be a much bigger deal.

I listened to the last 35 minutes of this game and was shocked that we were in this game given the total faceoff domination by Denver. I think that says a lot about how much progress our defense and goaltending has made since the beginning of the season. Didn't seem to be as many turnovers as we've been dealing with, just needed to get more possessions. One stop in OT could have been the difference like it was at Ohio State. So if I had told you 3 weeks ago that we'd have the lead in the 4th quarter in all 3 of these games, 2 would have gone to OT, and we'd win one of them, what kind of odds might I have gotten? I've gotta think this bodes well for the conference season. However, since we only capitalized on the Ohio State opportunity, we're probably going to have to win the conference tournament again to get into the playoffs.

Can only think of 1 or 2 other schools that I'd LEAST like to see be the first 16 than that team. That said, they took Virginia behind the woodshed and beat them so bad it would make the redheaded stepchild jealous.

They were within 1 or 3 of K State for 6 or 7 minutes and they couldn't buy a bucket. They gave in to the epidemic throughout college basketball today of getting into the lane and then pitching it out instead of pulling up for a nice 12-foot jumper. Instead, they're chucking 3s. Great effort but it was certainly there for them tonite.

The turnovers this far into the season are becoming maddening. And yet, they storm back to take the lead and then they sort of wheeze out on offense. Hitting that pipe wasn't helpful either. The defense and goaltending continues to get better but it still feels like the offense is spinning its tires.

Whenever Charleston threw the ball away, I kept asking where this kind of play was against us this year. They had that game won if they would have stopped playing like morons.

Don’t be so sure of that. Buffalo likes to run and they have a bunch of seniors. I think they give those Kentucky youngsters fits like they did with Arizona.

I don't think the committee watched enough actual games this year because if they had, they could see that St. Mary's and USC were much better options than Syracuse is. But instead, they relied on all of their fancy numbers and analytics. I also wouldn't doubt that the FBI investigation had something to do with keeping both USC and Oklahoma State out, despite the committee chairman (Creighton AD, now I see how Creighton got an 8) saying that it never entered any discussions.

That was a pretty odd game. We come out flying and put 3 in with relative ease in the first 10 minutes and then...nothing. Nary a goal, nary a shot, hell, nary a possession. Every time I looked up while at work, OSU had the ball. But goaltending was outstanding for us. That and a couple of defensive stops down the stretch to force shot clock violations were the difference in the game. If we had stayed out of the box, maybe we don't even go to OT. Mazza's take to the net for the gamewinner was a thing of beauty and you've gotta think the Suckeye goalie wanted that one back. If you had said going into this 3-game stretch that we'd win a game, I'd have said it would have been a big stretch given our inconsistent play early on. This win gives us a giant boost as we get closer to conference play. BTW...Albany #1? Did everyone else die?

It wouldn't be March if a dominant Vermont team didn't choke away the conference championship game at home. UMBC is dancing and that really freakin sucks.

I've always looked at recruiting at the mid-major level to be a maddening, inexact science. At our level, going the JUCO route and getting someone with experience at the point guard position is probably a better idea as long as you also have an underclassman at the same position that you can bring along and develop. We all hoped that this is what would happen with Prophete this year and it obviously didn't. That's a whiff. If Prophete couldn't even see the floor for 7-10 mins in CAA action, then he's not going to get any better over the summer and thus, we're back in the same vicious cycle next year. Perhaps Pat knew something early on and that's why he elected to redshirt Drayton. Maybe he can *eventually* be the answer given that he still has 4 years on his clock. But now that we're back to square one, Pat has to go the JUCO route to find someone with experience that could start right away. He knows that finding that PG is potentially the missing piece. Unfortunately, he found that out too late and is no doubt kicking himself for the whiff on the recruiting trail. TSU88 brings up Maura from UMBC -- 6 points, 5 assists, 2 TO this year vs. us, 9 points, 5 assists, 1 TO last year vs. us. I'm like everyone else on this thread in this respect -- I look at UMBC getting to the championship game of their league and wondering how a team in a similar location to us can be in this position more often than we can. Yes, CAA is stronger than the AEC and we've whacked UMBC 5 straight years but at some point, the maturity of the players as a single and the team as a whole has to improve so we can get there too.

Got some dirt on them there, Columbo? Are you a better investigator than the NCAA? Let’s hear what you got.

But he's the best X's and O's coach in the league! How can his team yak a 17-point 2nd half lead? You mentioned the defense, or lack thereof, on the final play of regulation. That's smart playing there by Chealey and a big difference between that and what we would try to do in that situation -- he went to the basket and had an easy layup. But how about the way NE decided to play the last 3 seconds? They gave Chealey a free look with zero harassment and he nearly canned it to stay out of OT. Just an all-out choke by NE. Loved the emotion by Chealey and Grant and certainly can't help but feel jealous watching everyone there celebrate.

The marketing geniuses should be required to jet to Phoenix and meet with the folks at Grand Canyon University. They're in the WAC and they sell the damn place out for a number of home games. Students show up an hour before the game and have been known to sway a recruit's decision. Dan Majerle (former NBA star of the 90s) is their head coach. They have been D1 for 5 years now and this is their first shot at getting into the Dance and they've got a pretty decent shot at it. So how the heck does a no-name school in a big metropolitan area that's been D1 for such a short amount of time and has a 7200-seat arena that opened in 2011 average 6800+ fans? Leonard and company should take a little field trip and get some pointers.