Lacrosse Loses to #5 Brown, 22-8
Men's lacrosse fell in a 22-8 blowout on the road vs Brown.
They get a chance to bounce back with winnable games vs Dartmouth and Marist before they kick off conference play vs Maryland on April 2nd.
The Big Ten portion of the schedule looks tricky and unpredictable. Hopkins and Maryland are having off-years but are still talented. Penn State and Ohio State are erratic and Rutgers is much-improved. Conference play should be interesting...
GO BLUE!
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Whooff....so much for the upset (fart sound)
This is just bad man. I don't think they should be getting lit up like this, even against a good team like Brown. It's 21-4 now.
They have to do something about the defense. I think JP should go back to the old school style of D because what theyre doing now is not working.
Man, what an awful afternoon of sports...
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Just mocking the mob that wants Beilein ousted.
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I don't think the argument can be made right now that Michigan is middle of the pack. It should be, but isn't. Middle of the pack implies that on a given day Michigan could challenge top teams. Maybe not win, but also not be treated like a tomato can. This far in, Michigan should not be a tomato can.
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PSU actually hired a proven D1 head coach as opposed to promoting their club coach who had no D1 coaching experience.
This has been an utter disaster and it looks like another 5-win season at best is coming. The 3rd in a row. Not progress.
Richmond beat 2015 NCAA Champion Duke.
Marquette and Boston U have been ranked this year.
High Point beat Virginia.
What does any of that mean? They're newer programs like Michigan. Some of them are even younger.
There is absolutely no excuse whatsoever for this. It's year five and we're STILL unable to compete with ranked teams. The Women's team nearly upset top-5 Florida. They hired a D1 assistant coach as their head coach.
MLAX and Men's Soccer are gonna be the next two teams going through a coaching change here. Both because of the poor decision-making of the AD.
Losing to ranked teams is one thing. Getting destroyed every time out against ranked teams is another. And guess what? Every team in the B1G is ranked or on the verge of it.
Doesn't Michigan have some great recruiting classes in the next few years for men's lax? Wouldn't want to fire JP and lose those players. Plus with the new facility coming in 2018, I'd give him a few more years at least.
The team is entirely made up of guys he has recruited right now. The coaching just isn't good enough.
Illinois kept John Groce because his 2017 recruiting class looks promising.
What happens if those kids want to go elsewhere? We're 15-48 in not even five full seasons. 44 goals allowed in two games against Brown. It's time to start talking about going in another direction.
JP did outstanding with the club program. But this is obviously a whole different ball of wax and it looks like it's going to get worse as I only see one sure-win on the rest of the schedule.
Would be great if he could become Steve Burns 2.0 and take a club team deep into the NCAA Tournament in year 4 but soccer is a much different game than lacrosse.
I don't think JP should be fired. He's a good coach and he can coach at any level. But, he has to do something about the defense which is reaching GERG-like levels of ineptitude. You can't give up 20+, even to a good squad like Brown.
At this point I have no idea what to make of this team. I'm interested to see how they, and JP, react because the season is not totally lost. They have a chance to get 2 home Ws and be 5-3 when they start conference play. But if they lose to Dartmouth I'll offer some hot takes of my own calling for a change to be made.
(Penn State has had a D-1 game program for decades so its not like they had the option to hire their in-house club coach)
If we want to get beyond the point of trying to reach .500 and eventually competing for championships, it's going to be with a different coach. Just my opinion.
I disagree with your premise that JP can coach at any level. If he could, then he could coach a defense that, as you put it, "is reaching GERG-like levels of ineptitude." He doesn't have the experience and background to develop the defense that Michigan needs, and it is unlikely he can hire someone who can help him do it (anyone who could do so will be getting a HC job somewhere.)
A great defensive coach with some good athletes, some of whom have a pretty good stick, can build a defense. While a great offense depends heavily on the skills of its players (see the passing and shooting skills of the top teams,) a great defense is less skill-dependent, and more dependent on athleticism and coaching. (yes, of course skilled players aren't all you need for offense, and skill certainly helps with defense.)
They might be able beat Dartmouth, but I'm not sure I see who they can beat in conference play this year. Hopkins and Maryland won't be pretty (both might have started slow, but please look at the destruction they rained down on Towson and Princeton today.) Penn State and Rutgers are quite improved, and OSU is about where they've been for the past couple of years.
In the early 2000s, JP brought in a defensive coach who installed Bill Tierney's Princeton-style defense. We had the best defense in the country the next two seasons, I don't know why they've gone away from that because it worked. But, hes done it before and he can do it again.
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(Forgot PSU hockey was mentioned in that comment and that's what you referring too. My bad - thought you were talking about the lacrosse program's recent hire of Jeff Tambroni a few years ago - tried to neg myself)
Good question. There's been a lot of debate on this board about how far along Michigan should be (but I won't get into that)
But, there have been other new teams who have enjoyed reasonable success, some of which have already made the NCAA tournament (albeit via AQ bids in weak conferences). I love following the new teams and some of them are doing pretty well (Marq, Richmond, BU, High Pt). Michigan is doing pretty well and should be a serious competitor sooner rather than later.
I don't know about hockey, but I would think its probably easier in lacrosse becuase there are fewer programs ( I think? I'm not sure). And the sport is growing at such a fast pace at the HS level that there is big pool of talent to choose from, so they won't struggle to find players. And outside of the top 5/10 teams, there is a lot of parity at the college level.
It is and it isn't. There is a LOT of talent out there right now, in non-traditional places that are becoming traditional. Michigan is obviously a huge name. But building a program depends on coaching. Bryant was nothing before Mike Pressler landed there after the Duke fiasco. Denver was a mid-tier program just beginning to challenge the big dogs before Bill Tierney decided to take off for Colorado. Time for JP to move upstairs to development and alumni relations.
Location isn't an issue. ND has been elite for a long time and their location is worse.
Michigan draws a lot of east coast students, has elite academics, and facilities that will be among the best in the game in short order. These characateristics form the profile of an elite program, but the results don't match the profile. The weak link is coaching.
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March 13th, 2016 at 10:03 AM ^
You're welcome. There's some good stuff on IL once in a while, so its worth looking at now and then if you follow lacrosse. As Quint points out, many programs are now able to hold on to their talented assistants. But I would guess that this would be less the case if Michigan came calling with Michigan $$.
In principle, losing to Brown is nothing to be ashamed of right now. Brown has been rebuilding for longer than Michigan has been building. However, it is quite clear that Michigan can't play defense. Yes, Brown has high scoring offense. But there has been little improvement in the defense since getting blown out by NC to start the season.
I agree with WD regarding JP. He built a great club team, and did an amazing job transitioning the program to D1. But he's going against some amazing coaches and developers of talent. I don't see how he is going to develop a defense that can keep Michigan in games like this. He just doesn't have the background. (look at who is coaching great defensive teams - former All American defensemen/former assistants to great defensive coaches.)
This is an age of parity. But the schools that are taking advantage of this parity have really talented coaches. See Quint Kessenich's article on Inside Lacrosse on parity: http://www.insidelacrosse.com/article/quint-parity-is-creating-chaos/34286. Quint makes some really interesting observations that when applied to Michigan's case point a finger directly at coaching. I wouldn't worry about players leaving if JP is transitioned into another role (think Alumni Relations/development - he's an awesome fundraiser.) Worry that players will cool on Michigan as a destination.
There are some really talented young coaches out there. Bring one to Michigan.
Although he's a New Englander who might be waiting for a better job to open up, Ryan Polley has begun to build a decent program as head coach at Boston University. In its third year of Division One LAX, Boston U is now 6-1 and ranked in the top 20.
Another coach who might be considered is Harvard's Associate Head Coach, Ben DeLuca who's had head coaching experience at his alma mater, Cornell and who was the defensive assistant coach on Duke's national championship team in 2014.
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