Cornell lacrosse 2018

[BearLover]

What a great win--can't even imagine how good this team would be if it received the same number of possessions as its opponents.

Could someone who watches/remembers more lacrosse than me comment on whether Pannell ever got faceguarded? If so, what happened? If not, why not?

[Al DeFlorio]

What a great win--can't even imagine how good this team would be if it received the same number of possessions as its opponents.

Could someone who watches/remember more lacrosse than me comment on whether Pannell ever got faceguarded? If so, what happened? If not, why not?

Harvard shut him off in 2011.   He stood off in a corner most of the time and Cornell played 5 on 5.  David Lau had five goals and three assists in a 13-12 win.  Pannell had two goals, probably taking the ball at the end line, and no assists.

[BearLover]

What a great win--can't even imagine how good this team would be if it received the same number of possessions as its opponents.

Could someone who watches/remember more lacrosse than me comment on whether Pannell ever got faceguarded? If so, what happened? If not, why not?

Harvard shut him off in 2011.   He stood off in a corner most of the time and Cornell played 5 on 5.  David Lau had five goals and three assists in a 13-12 win.  Pannell had two goals, probably taking the ball at the end line, and no assists.

OK, and why didn't other teams replicate Harvard's strategy? Is there something different about Pannell that made faceguarding him harder? Pannell being stronger?

[djk26]

OK, and why didn't other teams replicate Harvard's strategy? Is there something different about Pannell that made faceguarding him harder? Pannell being stronger?

I've been wondering the same thing.  I remember someone commenting during the 2013 semifinal that Duke was "faceguarding Mock."  I hated that game.  And watching the faceguard against Teat two nights ago...ugh.  Is the downside to faceguarding or shutting off that you take one of your defensive player out of the action?

[ugarte]

Idle thought: please sign Millman to a deal before we have to get in an offseason bidding war.

[djk26]

Idle thought: please sign Millman to a deal before we have to get in an offseason bidding war.

Andy Noel works in mysterious ways.  It will probably be something like a handshake after Cornell's last game and AN saying, "Great job, Pete, we'd like you to put in an application for the permanent job."  And then Milliman is so insulted that he takes a job at Duke as an assistant coach and helps lead them to three national titles.

Ok, now I've gotten that out.

[billhoward]

Idle thought: please sign Millman to a deal before we have to get in an offseason bidding war.

I want to see this story:
Cornell Interim Coach Wins USILA Coach of the Year Award
... better than ...

Departed Cornell Interim Coach Wins USILA Coach of the Year Award

[mike1960]

Idle thought: please sign Millman to a deal before we have to get in an offseason bidding war.

I want to see this story:
Cornell Interim Coach Wins USILA Coach of the Year Award
... better than ...

Departed Cornell Interim Coach Wins USILA Coach of the Year Award

All you have to do to take the best player off the field is to face guard him. The team will set him to the side for you.

[CU77]

Did you actually watch the Syracuse game? Is that what you saw happening?

[djk26]

Did you actually watch the Syracuse game? Is that what you saw happening?

I'm jumping in here because I want to understand this better. What I saw was Teat unable to participate (except for restarts) because Mellen followed him with every step.  What can Teat do to escape this?  I saw a video on v-cuts yesterday that looked promising, but also difficult to pull off as you need your teammates to get you the ball at exactly the right moment, and if you (and your teammates) haven't practiced that all season, it's hard to start doing it now.

[Swampy]

Did you actually watch the Syracuse game? Is that what you saw happening?

I'm jumping in here because I want to understand this better. What I saw was Teat unable to participate (except for restarts) because Mellen followed him with every step.  What can Teat do to escape this?  I saw a video on v-cuts yesterday that looked promising, but also difficult to pull off as you need your teammates to get you the ball at exactly the right moment, and if you (and your teammates) haven't practiced that all season, it's hard to start doing it now.

I suspect Cornell started practicing them after the Princeton game. We may still see them.

[Tom Lento]

Did you actually watch the Syracuse game? Is that what you saw happening?

I'm jumping in here because I want to understand this better. What I saw was Teat unable to participate (except for restarts) because Mellen followed him with every step.  What can Teat do to escape this?  I saw a video on v-cuts yesterday that looked promising, but also difficult to pull off as you need your teammates to get you the ball at exactly the right moment, and if you (and your teammates) haven't practiced that all season, it's hard to start doing it now.

I would also like to understand this better. Is this one of those things where there are a handful of players good enough to shut Teat down like this? Why didn't Yale use this strategy in the ILT final? Or did they? I assume Yale didn't, since Teat got 6 points on Cornell's 17 goals, but maybe they did and that's just what happens when you aren't good enough to pull it off.

[Trotsky]

Is this one of those things where there are a handful of players good enough to shut Teat down like this?

Seems that way, otherwise you'd always just take your worst player and eliminate their best player, and they'd do the same, and so on...

Sounds like it makes the sport needlessly boring, like allowing a basketball defender to wrap his arms around the legs of LeBron and neutralize him for the entire game.  Why not just arrange the rules so gamesmanship of that type is simply deemed interference?  "Tradition!"?

[djk26]

Is this one of those things where there are a handful of players good enough to shut Teat down like this?

Sounds like it makes the sport needlessly boring, like allowing a basketball defender to wrap his arms around the legs of LeBron and neutralize him for the entire game.

What was Mellen actually doing, though?  From what I saw, he was just following Teat around, forcing Teat to basically do nothing.

[Tom Lento]

Is this one of those things where there are a handful of players good enough to shut Teat down like this?

Sounds like it makes the sport needlessly boring, like allowing a basketball defender to wrap his arms around the legs of LeBron and neutralize him for the entire game.

What was Mellen actually doing, though?  From what I saw, he was just following Teat around, forcing Teat to basically do nothing.

Yeah, from what I've seen and heard there's nothing wrong with the rules here. If a sufficiently badass defender can faceguard a top offensive player and effectively neutralize him that sounds like good defense to me, or maybe a hole in the offensive player's game. If *any* defender could do that to *any* offensive player then sure, maybe the game balance is shifted too far in favor of the defense, but I don't see any evidence of that here. It's not like Teat has been totally removed as a factor from the scoresheet since the Princeton game, either - he's got 10 points in 3 games since, 4 of which came during this weird isolation faceguard setup vs Brown and Syracuse.

It's very hard for me, with my relatively limited baseline knowledge of lacrosse, to figure out how much of the fuss over this represents a significant flaw in Cornell's (or Teat's) game and how much is just people griping on a message board about what could be an eminently reasonable coaching move against a couple of really strong individual defenders.