2022 NCAA Men's Lacrosse Tournament Thread of DESTINY

[abmarks]

I don't recall if anyone has mentioned this before, but I highly recommend the recently published book, We Showed Baltimore: The Lacrosse Revolution of the 1970s and Richie Moran's Big Red. The author is Christian Swezey, who as best I can tell has no connection to Cornell. The book was published by Cornell University Press...

Interview with Swezey discussing his book:  https://youtu.be/AUzFqoPCoAI

Enjoyed the interview. Swezey drops 30% off coupon mention at the end.

https://twitter.com/CornellPress/status/1531656763908530177?t=Ag2UocKWgZu57JU9uQEQxw&s=19

[Al DeFlorio]

I don't recall if anyone has mentioned this before, but I highly recommend the recently published book, We Showed Baltimore: The Lacrosse Revolution of the 1970s and Richie Moran's Big Red. The author is Christian Swezey, who as best I can tell has no connection to Cornell. The book was published by Cornell University Press...

Interview with Swezey discussing his book:  https://youtu.be/AUzFqoPCoAI

Enjoyed the interview. Swezey drops 30% off coupon mention at the end.

https://twitter.com/CornellPress/status/1531656763908530177?t=Ag2UocKWgZu57JU9uQEQxw&s=19

Just used the coupon at Cornell University Press.

[Al DeFlorio]

USA Lacrosse article looking forward: ,https://www.usalaxmagazine.com/college/men/unknown-no-more-cornell-channels-big-red-history-to-build-next-era

[scoop85]

USA Lacrosse article looking forward: ,https://www.usalaxmagazine.com/college/men/unknown-no-more-cornell-channels-big-red-history-to-build-next-era

Much to look forward to for next season, but it will a challenge with a target on our back. Many strong teams will be in the mix, and we'll be one of them.

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

Even if we won that last, all-important game I'd still say Maryland is the better team overall and deserving of #1 in the polls.

Absolutely.  Check out MD's box scores for the season - ahead of PSU by 18-3 after 3, ahead of JHU by 22-4 after 3.  We didn't do that kind of damage to the likes of Hobart and Lehigh, not to mention our one-goal squeaker over that very same PSU team.

In the movie version, a much, much younger Kirk Douglas plays Conner Buczek in the Cornell locker room:  "Really nice moral victories are are born from great opportunity. And that's what you have here, tonight, boys. That's what you've earned here tonight. One game. If we played 'em ten times, they'd blow us out nine times. But not this game. Not today. Today, we hang around with them. Today, we keep it within 5 goals!"  And then the team went out there and did it, which was definitely something of a Miracle.

Actually, before the final I was thinking about the other quote that he said before the game against Finland: If they lose that game nobody would remember them.

Are thinking of this quote that is far more memorable than either of the above?:
"If you lose this game, you'll take it to your f*&%#g graves. Your f*&%#g graves."

Yeah, that's the one.

[billhoward]

Even if we won that last, all-important game I'd still say Maryland is the better team overall and deserving of #1 in the polls.

"Tournament finals produce winners, not always best teams."

[billhoward]

USA Lacrosse article looking forward: ,https://www.usalaxmagazine.com/college/men/unknown-no-more-cornell-channels-big-red-history-to-build-next-era

... and had the good luck to be bracketed so the only contact with Maryland would be in the title game.

[billhoward]

USA Lacrosse article looking forward: ,https://www.usalaxmagazine.com/college/men/unknown-no-more-cornell-channels-big-red-history-to-build-next-era

Much to look forward to for next season, but it will a challenge with a target on our back. Many strong teams will be in the mix, and we'll be one of them.

Plus we have to play all those unrated teams that gave us fits in 2022.

[billhoward]

"looking to Piatelli to break Mike French's record."


Only want to see him win a title like French did. I dc if he has 10 assists with zero goals. I'm sure he feels the same way.

French played fewer games but the advantage of being able to score multiple points in overtime sessions. Such as against Maryland, 16-13 in OT, 1976, French had 7G 4A. PS Cornell was down 7-2 at the half.

[billhoward]

Bill Tierney won six titles at Princeton, won one coach of the year award. Plus another at Denver. I mean, he picked up the slack for the Ivy League when things cooled down for Cornell after 1988.

I hope Buczek loves Cornell. Because offers from non-Ivy schools could approach $300,000.

[upprdeck]

maybe a new AD helps with this.. fund raise to keep coaches they want to stay. 300K in Ithaca goes a long way too

[Swampy]

Bill Tierney won six titles at Princeton, won one coach of the year award. Plus another at Denver. I mean, he picked up the slack for the Ivy League when things cooled down for Cornell after 1988.

I hope Buczek loves Cornell. Because offers from non-Ivy schools could approach $300,000.

He's already the "Richard M. Moran Head Coach of Men's Lacrosse." Does anyone (besides CB & AN) know what the base salary is for the job and what, if anything, the RMM endowment adds to it?

Similar questions for Jordan Stevens, who's the "Mario St. George Boiardi '04 Associate Head Coach OF Men's Lacrosse."

The names of both endowments suggest they came from multiple donors. We may be the ones who have to open our checkbooks to keep these coaches. :-/

[billhoward]

We Showed Baltimore by Christian Swezey is a pretty good book, decently written, and as David Bilmes says, those of us who saw Moran's first three titles - um, the only three Cornell won -- and thought we had some insights into Cornell lacrosse still learned a lot about the players and Moran. Such as that Eamon McEneaney '77 was not the classic affluent Long Islander and in fact had to work as many as three jobs at Cornell to pay for school. Or that Cornell's competition to land Mike French '76 was not another school such as Maryland but the prospect of a good paying job in a GM factory. I also liked Swezey's discussion about how in 1971, first year of the NCAA tournament, the end of season games among the Big Five conflicted with the tournament games and the schools seriously considered telling the NCAA no thanks.

The book drifts many times to other schools and other games, perhaps because Christian Swezey is a Baltimore/Beltway guy (Loyola '94) and more likely because it makes the book interesting to enough non-Cornell fans to get it. Also, as any writer knows, it's harder to edit down than to write more.

He sourced a number of quotes and background material from us on the Cornell Daily Sun -- for which, it's nice to remembered and be helpful.

At the book's end, Swezey does a nice what-it-all-means summary of Moran's role as the point man for the transition from Baltimore lacrosse-dominant to New York as more dominant than Baltimore-area, then NY-NJ, and NY-NJ-Canada-New England and now all-North America as more important than the old guard. Our coach is a Cornell '15 from Ohio.

The skill: He brought in a new style of play, faster, more movement, nobody holds (supposed to hold) the ball more than 3 seconds.

The insight: Moran as a Long Island HS then Cornell coach saw what the Baltimore establishment didn't: Long Island (plus upstate) had vastly more HS lacrosse players competing (at a high level), and when Baltimore Inc. didn't recruit them by the 1970s, Cornell, Syracuse, Princeton (and North Carolina did).

Swezey notes more than a few times that in the pre-NCAA tournament era, the USILA poll winners were always the Big Five of lacrosse --Hopkins, Maryland, Virginia, Navy and Army -- except for a couple off years when Princeton won. Cornell went unbeaten under Harkness in 1968 and under Moran in 1970 the USILA era and (1970) finished fourth (fifth?) in the polls behind three once-beaten Johnny Reb schools. Many of which had little interest in playing Cornell.

Since the playoffs and Moran: 30 NCAA titles for the non Big-Five schools (below in CAPS), 20 for the traditional old guard, of which none have gone to Navy or Army:

Code Select Expand


[b]School       Titles[/b]
SYRACUSE     10
Hopkins       9 (none since 2007)
Virginia      7
PRINCETON     6
N CAROLINA    5
Maryland      4  -- 1973, 1975 ... 42-year-drought ... then 2017, 2022
[b][color=#FF0000]CORNELL       3[/color][/b]
DUKE          3
DENVER        1
LOYOLA        1
YALE          1
---------------
Navy          0 x 2
Army          0 x 0 (lost 17-16 to Cornell 1971 semifinals)

Only two title winners have more championship losses than wins:

Code Select Expand


Cornell       3-5
Maryland      4-12

[nshapiro]

Of course, the ACC mob counts all those Syracuse wins as ACC wins now.

[Al DeFlorio]

Harkness's 1966 Cornell team also unbeaten.  1952 RPI team, coached by guess who, shared USILA title with Virginia.