Cornell lacrosse 2020

[billhoward]

Looking forward to 2020. We've got Jeff Teat for one last year. We return rising senior LSM Brandon Salvatorive (unanimous 1st team); junior A John Piatelli, M Jon Donville; rising sophomore Chayse Ierlan. We're supposed to to have a very good FOGO coming in. We lose All-Ivy A Clark Petterson (meaning even more defensive pressure on Teat), M Jake McCulloch, SSDM Ryan Bran, D Fleet Wallace (All-Ivy name team, too).

We've got Penn and Yale coming back loaded. Penn freshman middie Sam Hundley has something like 35G and 60 points. If we had somebody like him in the midfield, that might bring defenses out a bit more and give Teat room to maneuver. Teat's three years have been 72 points (broke Pannell's freshman record), 99 points, this year 70 points.

Be interesting to see who our non-league opponents are in 2020. We were hurt by not enough top-20 wins.  Playing D1 newbie St. Bonaventure won't help; do we owe them a game at their place before we bow out? Lehigh, Albany, maybe-with-a-tailwind Hobart are possible top-20s. Syracuse is top-20. Were this year's Penn State and Towson (at Crown Classic) and Notre Dame one-and-dones?

So what are Cornell's unmet needs? More midfield? More defense? Faceoffs for sure.

[billhoward]

Rules changes the NCAA needs for lacrosse:

* End faceoffs. Start of game could be a faceoff or a coin toss. Faceoffs feel as if they have less to do with the game than field goals have to do with football. If the other team gets the ball and has to go 80 yards to score, it will keep the games closer and maybe teams will put special teams efforts into the rides rather than faceoffs.
* Return overtime to 4 minutes, total goals for the the first OT at least. Do it because of the faceoff disparity (Ierlan won close to 80% of faceoffs so if Yale is in OT in the playoffs, Yale has a huge advantage) or because of randomness, first to score in OT is too random an outcome. When Cornell won its second NCAA title, in OT, it gave up a goal to Maryland then then rolled off four straight to win. The NCAA could grow a pair and tell ESPN to block out an extra 10 minutes for the possibility of OT. The only thing delayed is usually a playoff softball game.
* Think about video review at least in tournament games. In the Ivy tournament there appeared to be some embellishment, one of which led to a no-release foul against Cornell. And get tougher on embellishment / dives; when the announcers in the booth criticize the ruling it hurts respect for the game.
* Don't mess with the shot clock for now. Worked well.
* To the formula for who makes the playoffs and gets seeded, add an equalizer for the first 3? 4? games where one team has an advantage of playing game 3 when another team is playing game 1. It's one thing to be playing game 3 against a Duke or Notre Dame that's playing game 5, and another to be playing game 1 against a team playing game 3 or 4.
* (Or is this in the equation already?) Give credit for the ranking the team had when you played them. It may be you beat a #1 team that dropped to #8 because it wasn't really that good but it also might be you played them before 2 of their 4 best players got hurt.
* (Or is this taken into account already?) A team that plays more games has more chances for top 5, 10 and 20 wins. Of the top 20, teams have played as few as 12 games (TOSU) and as many as 17 (Georgetown and "Army West Point").

The last three items really would make the who-gets-in decision more formulaic. Which is good if it helps you. It makes it harder for the old guard to allow personal biases to work their way in ("Navy's always a good team. They ought to be in.)

[Swampy]

Rules changes the NCAA needs for lacrosse:

* End faceoffs. Start of game could be a faceoff or a coin toss. Faceoffs feel as if they have less to do with the game than field goals have to do with football. If the other team gets the ball and has to go 80 yards to score, it will keep the games closer and maybe teams will put special teams efforts into the rides rather than faceoffs.
* Return overtime to 4 minutes, total goals for the the first OT at least. Do it because of the faceoff disparity (Ierlan won close to 80% of faceoffs so if Yale is in OT in the playoffs, Yale has a huge advantage) or because of randomness, first to score in OT is too random an outcome. When Cornell won its second NCAA title, in OT, it gave up a goal to Maryland then then rolled off four straight to win. The NCAA could grow a pair and tell ESPN to block out an extra 10 minutes for the possibility of OT. The only thing delayed is usually a playoff softball game.
* Think about video review at least in tournament games. In the Ivy tournament there appeared to be some embellishment, one of which led to a no-release foul against Cornell. And get tougher on embellishment / dives; when the announcers in the booth criticize the ruling it hurts respect for the game.
* Don't mess with the shot clock for now. Worked well.

+1

[Jim Hyla]

Rules changes the NCAA needs for lacrosse:

* End faceoffs. Start of game could be a faceoff or a coin toss. Faceoffs feel as if they have less to do with the game than field goals have to do with football. If the other team gets the ball and has to go 80 yards to score, it will keep the games closer and maybe teams will put special teams efforts into the rides rather than faceoffs.
* Return overtime to 4 minutes, total goals for the the first OT at least. Do it because of the faceoff disparity (Ierlan won close to 80% of faceoffs so if Yale is in OT in the playoffs, Yale has a huge advantage) or because of randomness, first to score in OT is too random an outcome. When Cornell won its second NCAA title, in OT, it gave up a goal to Maryland then then rolled off four straight to win. The NCAA could grow a pair and tell ESPN to block out an extra 10 minutes for the possibility of OT. The only thing delayed is usually a playoff softball game.
* Think about video review at least in tournament games. In the Ivy tournament there appeared to be some embellishment, one of which led to a no-release foul against Cornell. And get tougher on embellishment / dives; when the announcers in the booth criticize the ruling it hurts respect for the game.
* Don't mess with the shot clock for now. Worked well.

+1

+1

Get this done and I might even enjoy watching lacrosse again. They've made some major strides with the shot clock, now let's see if they can work on the rest of the game problems.

Bill did a great job of highlighting my 2 major complaints, faceoff and OT. Both of these really undermine the fun of the game. Sure hockey has sudden death, but there are usually multiple chances by each team before the winning goal. In lacrosse you win the FO and then plan for the winning goal. It's not random enough.

Enough has been said about the FO catastrophe. Is it really fun to watch a game where one team seems to always have the ball and the other is just focused on trying to stop them. Bball gave up the jump ball, lacrosse should do the same thing for FOs.

[billhoward]

Basketball also cut a hole in the bottom of the peach basket to speed up the game.

(Aside: A reporter who worked with me in Springfield, Mass., when there was a Tip-Off Classic, was doing both history of basketball and what-this-game-will-be-like stories. She was not a sportswriter. The draft that thank God did not make print conflated the past and present, and had the current Tip-Off game played with peach baskets. She also interviewed honorary chair Bob Cousy, pronounced it Couseny in a phone interview, and asked him to clarify his relationship to basketball.)

[Swampy]

Basketball also cut a hole in the bottom of the peach basket to speed up the game.

(Aside: A reporter who worked with me in Springfield, Mass., when there was a Tip-Off Classic, was doing both history of basketball and what-this-game-will-be-like stories. She was not a sportswriter. The draft that thank God did not make print conflated the past and present, and had the current Tip-Off game played with peach baskets. She also interviewed honorary chair Bob Cousy, pronounced it Couseny in a phone interview, and asked him to clarify his relationship to basketball.)

Nothing like an impartial, third-party observer.

[Swampy]

Inside Lacrosse has an article on players invited to tryout for the U.S. U-19 team. Here's a list of Ivy and other schools along with the number of players that have been invited:

• Yale (10)
• Princeton (3)
• Brown (2)
• Cornell (2)
  
• Harvard (2)
• Penn (1)
• Dartmouth (0)
• Duke (10)
• Maryland (10)
• North Carolina (
• Virginia (
• Notre Dame (7)
• Johns Hopkins (5)
• Penn State (5)
• Syracuse (1)

[scoop85]

Inside Lacrosse has an article on players invited to tryout for the U.S. U-19 team. Here's a list of Ivy and other schools along with the number of players that have been invited:

• Yale (10)
• Princeton (3)
• Brown (2)
• Cornell (2)
  
• Harvard (2)
• Penn (1)
• Dartmouth (0)
• Duke (10)
• Maryland (10)
• North Carolina (
• Virginia (
• Notre Dame (7)
• Johns Hopkins (5)
• Penn State (5)
• Syracuse (1)

Yale with 10 tells us they're recruiting is at an insane level right now.  Stunning to se SU with just one invitee

[CU2007]

Inside Lacrosse has an article on players invited to tryout for the U.S. U-19 team. Here's a list of Ivy and other schools along with the number of players that have been invited:

• Yale (10)
• Princeton (3)
• Brown (2)
• Cornell (2)
  
• Harvard (2)
• Penn (1)
• Dartmouth (0)
• Duke (10)
• Maryland (10)
• North Carolina (
• Virginia (
• Notre Dame (7)
• Johns Hopkins (5)
• Penn State (5)
• Syracuse (1)

Yale with 10 tells us they're recruiting is at an insane level right now.  Stunning to se SU with just one invitee

Agree. Very telling.

Worth noting that this is just American players and seems like we've had a lot of success recruiting Canadians recently - so maybe it's not a total indictment of our recruiting. I don't know if we target/get more Canadians than other similar schools, but I'm sure someone on here does.

[scoop85]

Good point. We have some terrific Canadian kids coming the next few years

[Swampy]

Good point. We have some terrific Canadian kids coming the next few years

Must be because Yale followed Haavid and decided to give middle-class kids full tuition scholarships. Cornell tries to match, which isn't the same as getting the original offer. Besides, Cornell can't always match.

OTOH, when I read the Canadian press, I frequently learn that Cornell players got hockey scholarships. Most recently, I read this in Dan Lodboa's obit. Well, if Canadian hockey players get hockey scholarships, surely Canadian lacrosse players won't be discriminated against. So Teat, Peterson,etc. must be getting lacrosse scholarships.

[Swampy]

Inside Lacrosse also has a list of incoming recruits. I don't know how to do a table on this forum, so instead I've added a n-tuple to each school. Interpret the n-tuple as (total number of recruits, number of 5-star recruits, number of 4-star). Nobody seems to have 3-star or lower. Since some schools have no 5-stars but lots of 4-stars, these are in alphabetical order, with the Ivies first. The rightmost numbers are the total number of stars and average stars per recruit. E.g., Brown is (12,0,5) -- 20, 1.67. The average number of stars probably overweighs 4-star recruits because 5-star recruits are at the upper bound. Some 5-stars are likely to be superstars. The average also considers players without stars to be worth zero, which is probably incorrect.

• Brown: (12,0,5) -- 20, 1.67
• Cornell: (12,2,3) -- 22, 1.83
  
• Dartmouth: (9,0,1) -- 4, 0.44
• Harvard: (8,0,5) -- 20, 2.50
• Penn: (14,0,5) -- 20, 1.43
• Princeton: (10,2,5) -- 30, 3.00
• Yale: (10,0,7) -- 28, 2.80
• Duke: (10,6,4) -- 46, 4.60
• JHU: (18,1,7) -- 33, 1.83
• Maryland: (15,2,11) -- 54, 3.60
• North Carolina: (12,0,7) -- 28, 2.33
• Notre Dame: (12,1,9) -- 41, 3.42
• Penn State: (14,1,6) -- 29, 2.07
• Syracuse: (15,0,5) -- 20, 1.33
• Virginia: (8,3,4) -- 31, 3.88

Note that this list is not restricted to U.S. Americans.

[Swampy]

From the rosters of the Under Armour North/South Boys All-America Game:

Code Select Expand


[b][u]School[/u]     [u]Attack[/u]     [u]Face-Off[/u]     [u]Midfield[/u]     [u]Defense[/u]     [u]Goalie[/u]     [u]Total Number of Players[/u][/b]
[color=#FF0000]Cornell       1          1            1                                          3[/color]
Princeton     1                       1            1                             3
Yale          1                       1            1                             3
Penn          1                                    1                             2
Brown                                              1                             1

Duke          1                       2            3                             5
Notre Dame    1                       2            1          1                  5
Virginia      1          1            1            2                             5
Maryland      1                       1                       1                  3
Michigan                              2            1                             3
Ohio State                            2*                      1                  3*
Denver        1          1                                                       2
Georgetown                            1            1                             2
Johns Hopkins                                                 1                  1
North Carolina           1                                                       1
Penn State    1                                                                  1

*One player will play football at Ohio State. (Apparently instead of lacrosse, but may be in addition to lacrosse.)

I know we badly need to improve at FOGO, but I wish we also had a defender in the game, as do the rest of the Ivies.

[billhoward]

I know we badly need to improve at FOGO, but I wish we also had a defender in the game, as do the rest of the Ivies.

We could use help at midfield, too. Imagine if we had someone like Penn freshman middie Sam Handley, unanimous Ivy rookie of the year, to keep the opponents' defenses from collapsing on Jeff Teat and the rest of the offense.

Don't see Harvard represented among HS North/South all-stars. Their push to the top tier seems stalled. 65-65 this decade under Chris Wojcik. One trip to the NCAAs, 2014, also the only year Harvard was first (tie) in the Ivy League. Since then 6-4-6-6-6, 65-65 overall. Wojcik is Harvard '96, captain of both soccer and lacrosse and winner of Harvard's Bingham Award to the top male athlete. How long will that protect his job? [edit add:] Multiple reports earlier in the month said he's gone.

[Al DeFlorio]

I know we badly need to improve at FOGO, but I wish we also had a defender in the game, as do the rest of the Ivies.

We could use help at midfield, too. Imagine if we had someone like Penn freshman middie Sam Handley, unanimous Ivy rookie of the year, to keep the opponents' defenses from collapsing on Jeff Teat and the rest of the offense.

Don't see Harvard represented among HS North/South all-stars. Their push to the top tier seems stalled. 65-65 this decade under Chris Wojcik. One trip to the NCAAs, 2014, also the only year Harvard was first (tie) in the Ivy League. Since then 6-4-6-6-6, 65-65 overall. Wojcik is Harvard '96, captain of both soccer and lacrosse and winner of Harvard's Bingham Award to the top male athlete. How long will that protect his job?

Think he's gone already.

https://www.insidelacrosse.com/article/news-chris-wojcik-not-returning-at-harvard/54425