OT: Men's Lacrosse Championship Update
3 of the 4 teams are set for Championship Weekend: OSU will play Towson and Denver will play the winner of Maryland/Albany on May 27. The Championship game is on May 29 (Memorial Day).
OSU advances to Championship Weekend for the first time in program history, and Maryland currently leads Albany 9-2. So the B1G could end up making up half the teams present next weekend. Further evidence that if Michigan lands a top-notch coaching staff, they could be in the playoff picture in the near future.
Maybe I'm missing your point, but what does this have to do with Michigan's future playoff potential? They went 0-5 in the conference and lost handily OSU and Maryland.
That's like saying Purdue is on the verge of a playoff birth in football because Michigan and OSU are good in the conference. Every team in every sport is theoretically a good coaching hire away from a championship.
It means B1G schools are getting some top talent, which traditionally hasn't been the case (Maryland obviously is a little different since they were in the ACC with many of the traditional powers)
Seems like you're unaware how well Michigan has been recruiting.
15th in the country when 16 teams make the playoffs is.
I played high school lacrosse in Michigan 30 years ago. At the time Michigan only had 6 high school lacrosse teams in the entire state. I looked it up a few years ago, Michigan now has over 130 teams. And I think that more and more parents are worried about their kids getting a concussion playing high school football that lacrosse is only going to get bigger in Michigan.
I think there are a few things working against Michigan lacrosse right now. As you mentioned, there isn't alot of D1 talent in the state of Michigan. On the other hand, Ohio produces alot of D1 talent. Pennsylvania produces alot of D1 talent. Not to the level of Maryland for example but it at least gives OSU and PSU a solid recruiting base, which Michigan does not have. It also doesn't help that Rutgers, Maryland and Hopkins are all located in prime lacrosse recruiting areas. Michigan's national reputation can help offset the lack of instate talent, but recruits are going to choose local schools most of the time. And while Michigan's academics can help as well, there are also lacrosse schools that can match or exceed Michigan in this regard: Johns Hopkins, UVA, Duke, the Ivy League schools, Notre Dame, Georgetown, etc.
People will have to be patient at Michigan. There is zero lacrosse culture at the school right now. Over time, that will change. Keep in mind that OSU has been playing at the D1 level for almost 20 years and they just made their first Final Four. It takes time.
I don't agree with this hotbed opinion. That used to be true, but isn't anymore. Notre Dame has been very consistent the past few years, and they have 1 player from the state of Indiana. Marquette is a new team that made the playoffs this year with zero players from the state of Wisconsin. As people have said many times before, if Marquette can get into the playoffs, Michigan absolutely should be able to, with proper coaching.
Plus, it's not like Michigan is totally void of D1 talent. There are several MI players on playoff teams this year.
So OSU's 13-ranked recruiting class is a success but Michigan's 15-ranked class is a failure? Got it.
And all I was pointing out was that this "hotbed" argument has a couple big holes in it.
Exactly, that's why they need a coach to bring it to the next level. Ohio State has that and that's why they've exceeded their recruiting ranking and were in the top-5 all year. And that's partly why the Michigan job is so attractive- they have a foundation to build on. You're underestimating the talent level Michigan currently has while also overestimating the prowess and appeal of the traditional powers. The fact that you think Michigan isn't an attractive job is mind-blowing to me.
Again, Notre Dame has been playing at the D1 level for 37 years. Only in the past 7 years or so have they emerged as a power in the sport. I think Michigan can eventually get there, but it will take time.
Recruiting hotbeds are changing, too. There's some serious talent developing in the Chicago area now, for instance. I remember when every collegiate lacrosse roster had kids almost exclusively from the mid-atlantic, Long Island, and upstate NY. That's changing.
The hotbed opinion (fact) is still very much true. Dating back to 2010, which coincides with Notre Dame and Denver's rise to prominence, the Final Four has been dominated by schools from hotbed areas:
2010 (Virginia, Duke, Notre Dame, Cornell)
2011 (Maryland, Duke, Denver, Virginia)
2012 (Loyola MD, Notre Dame, Duke, Maryland)
2013 (Syracuse, Denver, Cornell, Duke)
2014 (Duke, Denver, Notre Dame, Maryland)
2015 (Notre Dame, Denver, Maryland, Johns Hopkins)
2016 (Maryland, Brown, North Carolina, Loyola MD)
2017 (Maryland, Denver, Towson, Ohio State)
So basically Denver and Notre Dame are the only schools from non hotbed areas to experience sustained, high level success. ND has played for the title twice in this span. Denver has played for it once and is the only "Western" school to win it all. OSU is the only non ND/Denver school to make the Final Four from the "West".
I think Michigan can eventually get there, but it's going to be more difficult than you think. Within the B1G, PSU and OSU have better recruiting bases and just as much resources to devote to lacrosse if they choose to. Maryland and Hopkins are two of the four best programs of all time, in by far the best recruiting area of the country. I mean, look at the above data, 2013 was the only year that a Final Four didn't involve a school from the DMV. The past 3 Final Fours have each featured two schools from the DMV. Rutgers lacks historical sucess but is also located in one of the most fertile areas for high school lacrosse. Michigan has to face all five of them every single year.
ND appears to be the model for Michigan, but ND has been playing D1 lacrosse for a long time. Even before their rise, ND made a Final Four back in 2001. Their lacrosse culture is established. Michigan's is not and one coaching hire isn't going to change that. At the end of the day, kids want to win. If you're choosing between UVA and Michigan, or Duke and Michigan, or Notre Dame and Michigan, you're going to a school with high level academics regardless of what school you decide to attend. The difference is that those three are all established powers in the sport. Michigan is far from a power and that's not going to suddenly change overnight.
Michigan's biggest rival making the Final 4 for the first time is a pretty big development right as Michigan is about to hire its next coach. If I'm Warde I'm looking at that and thinking that I want my program at that level too. Most people in the lacrosse world think this is the biggest hire/coaching search in decades because of the program's potential.
Michigan went 8-6 this year and the roster is not totally helpless. With a good coach they can make some noise in the conference, right off the bat.
Michigan produces decent talent but U of M also attracts tons of kids from Long Island, DMV-area and New Jersey. There's no reason Michigan can't reach Ohio State's level, and soon.
My friend's son is a Soph, back up Goalie at Maryland and was recruited by ohio state and penn state, among others and is out of Garden City, NY ...not exactly talentless base for LAX.
I guarantee, based on my friend's feedback about their trip to Columbus, if MICHIGAN were offering the new facilities and a new coach with MICHIGAN ACADEMICS ...his kid could've definitely wound up in Ann Arbor.
But the program just wasn't there three years ago and isn't quite there, yet.
Michigan is already recruiting at a high clip and has superior academics over both OSU and Maryland, IMO. Because very few lacrosse players can pay the bills professionally, academics is still a major factor in lacrosse recruiting. If Michigan lands an established coach, I would expect their recruting to jump into the top-ten range which could get us into the playoff discussion.
Furthermore, OSU has a significant number of impact players from North of the border. With Michigan's closer proximity, I think we should be able to take advantage of that. Arguably Michigan's best player (Noseworthy) is Canadian, but he's the only one on the 2017 roster.
I gotcha.
I see where you're going with the OP now. The conference gaining more notoriety is a great thing. Might sway a few guys from going to the ACC now that there is actually quality competition in the B1G. It just all boils down to making a good coaching hire, because everything to succeed is in place.
As a new-ish lacrosse fan, I appreciate the updates you do. Helps the casual fan understand the inner workings of the sport because it's a lot different than others.
As I said above, if your conference is dominant and you are recruiting at the same level as your peers, then you have a coaching problem. Fixing that should lead to big things.
http://www.insidelacrosse.com/article/2016-top-20-division-i-recruiting…
It feels like you're thinking in terms of football where the conference champion has a good shot at the playoffs but not a guarantee. But the Big Ten sent 4 teams to the playoffs this year. Michigan was 15th in recruiting and 16 teams head to the playoffs. We just need an established coach.
And the head coach was a guy who wasn't even cut out to coach the club team, IMO. Obviously we need a huge upgrade in coaching. But Michigan has the academics, recruiting, and support from the school to make a big leap and I expect that to happen sooner rather than later.
Money and new facilities. I don't think we'll get the equivalent of lacrosse Harbaugh but we should be able to get a decent coach.
get a "right coach." Easier said than done, of course, but the diamonds-in-the-rough are out there as assistants or at smaller schools. Just have to find him.
Ohio State lacrosse is the model. That program wasn't doing anything at all up until the mid-2000s. Ohio - like Michigan - is not a lacrosse hotbed (though the presence of the sport is increasing at the HS level). Their current coach (Nick Myers) started at OSU, did a few years at Butler, then came back to OSU for 2008-09. They had only won 1 NCAA lacrosse game EVER prior to 2008-09: now they've made the quarterfinals three times and just made their first ever Final Four.
As a counter --- Penn State went in the direction of a "great coach" (Jeff Tambroni from Cornell) when they hired a new coach in 2010. PSU has improved under Tambroni, but only modestly, and they still haven't ever won an NCAA tournament game.
All you need to look at is Marquette's success to see that coaching plays a much greater role than talent. Amplo has made the tournament two years in a row with less talent than michigan has. Before Tierney, Denver wasn't shit. Your "hotbed" argument couldn't be more wrong. DU has maybe 5 people from Colorado on the team yet has 4 players from one Ohio high school alone (upper Arlington).
Lacrosse talent will always be concentrated in the east coast. On that same note, half my friends at michigan were from the east coast. Michigan already has HUGE name recognition all along the east coast. That coupled with our new facilities and Michigan money cannon makes the possibilities endless.
I counted it up last night because I was curious and 18 states are represented on Denver's roster which is pretty impressive. When Denver first got good under Tierney I think they made it to the Final 4 without a single kid from New York State which is also amazing. There is lots of talent out there.
There are many reasons, lacrosse and otherwise, why Michigan could compete with those schools you mentioned. Michigan currently has kids on the roster who transferred from Hopkins and UVA.
As a school, Michigan can offer academics that are comparable to UNC and UVA and is better than Maryland and Syracuse. It's also cheaper than Ivies, Duke and Hopkins (most kids don't get a scholarship to play), another point in Michigan's favor.
This current roster is not completely bereft of talent. What's the missing piece? A great coach to put it all together.
Let me ask you this: Why would you choose Denver over those other schools? Or over Michigan? Answer: coaching.
Also - look at Michigan's stable of coaches. Harbaugh, Beilein and Hutchins are some of, if not the best coaches of their respective sports. And Michigan just retired one of the all-time great hockey coaches. There are lots of coaches who would want to be the best, just like their Michigan peers.
Yeah you're right maybe we should just disband the program and say 'fuck it, what's the point?'
Of course Michigan isn't a power but they have the potential to be.
And I think you're putting too much emphasis on talent and program prestige. College lacrosse recruiting is very overrated and unreliable. Look at the top of those recruiting rankings: UVA and UNC underperformed this year, Hopkins seems to be getting worse and Harvard was garbage. The best player in the country this year was supposed to go to freakin' Franklin & Marshall before Tierney found him.
There's so much HS talent out there now and Michigan is perfectly poised to take advantage with a new coach. The traditional powers are slipping and new powers may very well emerge - with the right coach Michigan can be one.
I have a client who played at Fairfield and who is now out in the Malibu/Calabasas/Thousand Oaks Valley outside LA. He's basically a recruiting pipeline to schools back East and has been able to get kids from the West coast onto some of these "marquee programs." My son's program here in CO has 300 players from 1st-8th grade and is just one NE Denver program. Within just a few years, the lacrosse landscape will have changed dramatically and kids who in the past might've played baseball, hockey or football will be highly-touted LAX players coming out of HS.
"The traditional powers are slipping"
I disagree. ND and Denver are the only non traditional powers to make noise of late. Let's wait and see if OSU can sustain their success before proclaiming them the next power of the sport. And if they are able to sustain it, that doesn't bode well for Michigan.
Going back to 2010, with the exception of Denver in 2015, all the national titles have been won by Duke, UVA, Loyola and UNC, a period when the power has supposedly shifted to the Midwest. Duke has won it 3 times. During this span, Syracuse and Maryland have played for the title 5 times. The only time neither played for it was 2014 when Duke beat ND. I guess you can say Hopkins has slipped a little, but they have made the tournament every single year (as has Syracuse) including a Final Four in 2015. Syracuse was the #1 overall seed in 2013 and played for the national title that year. Both are one coaching hire away from returning to the top. Hopkins in particular when you consider its elite academics, prime recruiting base, and lacrosse's status as the premier sport at the school. They are also one half of the greatest rivalry in the sport. They will be back (see Michigan football if you don't agree).
That said, I do agree that Michigan has potential (money, academics, brand). But there some drawbacks to the job as well (zero lacrosse culture at school, increasingly difficult conference, no local recruiting base).
It's funny because some of the east coast lax snobs ascribe all of DU's sucess to landing Tierney while others know DU has had LAX for decades ...as a school that was predominantly rich east coast kids who couldn't get into better schools back home, and who wanted to ski.
I would think the lack of lacrosse culture at MICHIGAN would change immediately if the team was offering a better product, which it has since converting from club to varsity. I think a "Tierney effect" could happen at Michigan too.
Hopkins is on the downslope and if Petro puts in another season like the last two he might get canned.
Syracuse and Maryland remain strong. Most people think Duke is an old school power but they're a relative newcomer - they didn't make a Final 4 until 1997. Princeton used to be in that category too when they came out of nowhere to win it all in '92 in Tierney's early years. They've since ebbed backwards after Tierney's departure. Cornell has done the same since Tambroni left. UVA regressed the last few years under Starsia and are rebuilding. UNC finally got back on top last year but it seems so fluky and I'm not sold on the program or their coach. ND, which I now consider among the 'traditional' powers', still hasn't won a national championship.
Those teams no longer dominate the top of the sport's rankings and except for Maryland, all got bounced from the tournament this year. Meanwhile - the second tier powers have been having success - Towson, Loyola, Albany, Denver, OSU, PSU, Rutgers, etc. Seven (7!) different teams were ranked #1 this year. The problem is that, due to the growth of the sport at the HS level, there is so much talent out there now it all can't fit on the rosters of the blue blood programs. So those players are going elsewhere. The best players don't all just go to Hopkins and Syracuse anymore.
The balance of power hasn't shifted west yet, but its starting too. If Michigan lands a big time coach and another big school, say Utah or another Pac-12 member, adds a program, that shift will continue.
Add to that ...the Final Four is --
Maryland - B10 (but really ACC powerhouse and LAX mecca for a long time)
Towson - A bit old school, but hardly one of the elites and they did slay the mighty Cuse
Denver - A supposed "western afterthought" that won it two yrs ago and has been in the conversation now for a few years
Ohio State - B10 football powerhouse that just added LAX somewhat recently.
For all the talk about these "elite" programs and prestige, it sure seems like those outside this archaic inner circle are doing just fine. In the case of DU, it's either Tierney or admitting teams "out West" can play and win. For OSU, it's a clear cut example of a big school with big money building a program the right way. And while Maryland is a perennial contender, it is now a B10 school and conpetition MICHIGAN gets now all the time.
I just don't understand the nay sayers who claim that either no "real" coach would come to MICHIGAN ...only the best public university in the nation with resources coming out of its ears or that it's all about tradition and "culture" with respect to LAX program success.
I think the Final Four this year is evidence to the contrary.
16 teams make the tournament, but there are 8 auto bids, leaving 8 at large bids. If Michigan doesn't win the B1G, (and it will be difficult for Michigan to consistently beat out Maryland and/or Hopkins) they are competing for an large bid. More importantly, the ACC doesn't have an auto bid, putting a non champion Michigan in the same pool as Syracuse, UVA, UNC, Duke, and Notre Dame, not to mention the non-champion B1G schools. Basically that 15th place recruiting ranking isn't as impressive as it may seem.
as a recruiting class #15 is pretty great, especially given our D1 level of success on the field, on top of John Paul securing other top 20 classes in recent years. The problem is having an expectation that a newly annointed D1 program could reach for greatness based upon being lead by a great "CLUB" coach. You don't suddenly compete w/ Ferrari and Porsche by apprenticing with Yugo. And this talk of "hotbeds" is rather meaningless given the quickly evolving nature of this sport. Great players are sprouting from everywhere-- see Ohio State's unorthodox approach (front line has a kid from Alabama, the other a freshman from British Columbia who was only top 50). Not to mention, you need look no farther than the Hill School in Ontario for more insight, along w/ proximity to Michigan. Besides, lacrosse players travel (w/ very few or any receiving full rides anywhere). Most of these families have means given the amount of tournament travel done through years of summer development and travel team play. With schools like Haverford, McDonough,... the list is so long,.. there are few barriers to Michigan becoming elite with the right coach in place who brings the right culture and program building knowledge. But it has to be a guy who understands TRADITION and how to build it. Our next coach needs to be a guy who has already come through great PROGRAMS and who knows how to motivate and what it really takes to be great. He has to be someone who has done it in order to be credible, for recruiting, but especially on the field.