Men’s Lacrosse: Mid-season grades

Notre Dame men’s lacrosse has reached the midpoint of the season, 5-2, ranked ~#4 in the polls but retaining #1 position in the all-important RPI.  The Irish remain well positioned for home-game seeding in the NCAA tournament.

Here at ND-Atl, we had an internal argument as to the mid-season status of the team.  We’ve reduced our discussion to grades and comments after receiving some input from our 18stripes colleagues and others.

Last year at this time the Irish were ranked #1, but our mid-season grades identified vulnerabilities that manifested themselves in the second half of the season.  Notre Dame was eliminated in the NCAA quarterfinals by eventual champion North Carolina.  Important for the Irish in the second half is to remember the lesson of 2016 and continue to improve through April.

The Data:

The 2016 and 2017 are statistically very similar, with a few critical issues:

The post-Kavanagh and Landis Fighting Irish are a much more balanced outfit, but they have a glaring deficiency in the man-down set, and to a lesser degree, the man-up.  By comparison, the 2016 Irish had a huge vulnerability with even-strength offense and a lack of scoring depth.  Having said all this, the data above represents the statistically most efficient team in lacrosse so far this year, although this may have to do more with parity than with any exceptional attribute of this team.

The Grades:

• 6-on-6 offense:  ND-Atl  A, ND-Atl 2.0 B       The Irish present a balanced and efficient attack in the half-field set, creeping into the top-10 for efficiency.  Garnsey has been at times unstoppable and Perkovic demands insane attention and is finally developing a passing game.  Wynne is his usual self on the crease.  Gleason, Costabile, Byrne and Willets are having breakout seasons.  The second midfield line has answered critics and real scoring output has come from Collins, Gray and Phillips.  ND-Atl 2.0 suggests we pump the breaks a bit, noting that our positive outlook on this year’s squad may be the simple result of comparison to the anemic 6-on-6 of the 2016 version.  Either way, the even-strength offense has reversed from a weakness to a core strength.
• Transition offense: ND-Atl  A-, ND-Atl 2.0 B+      Notre Dame has for many years been a very good transition scoring team.  This year is no different.  Added to the mix for 2017 is more participation from defensive players such as Sexton, Schantz, and Epple, all who have exceeded their 2016 scoring output.  Having said all this, there have been fewer opportunities as the Irish have not utilized an aggressive ride very much this year, and there have been very few opportunities sourced in face-offs.
• EMO: ND-Atl  B-, ND-Atl 2.0 C   The offense has certainly been inconsistent man-up.  At times, such as against Ohio State, it was wonderfully efficient.  However, far too frequently it is impatient and settles for a deflating quick outside shot instead of working the ball into the interior.  If there is a positive, it’s that these team draws a lot of penalties, so there have been more opportunities to make this a wash even if the success rate is down.
• Overall offense: ND-Atl B+, ND-Atl 2.0 B  The offense has been very good.  They score a bit more than last year, are more balanced, and assists are mildly up.  Role players more readily step up when better defenses drape Garnsey and Perkovic.  Add to this the impact of Garnsey’s creativity, which is off the charts.  Allowing his free-form style to flourish without much restraint is a nice change to Corrigan’s more traditional coaching.  Nitpicky grade differences between the voters here.

• 6-0n-6 defense:  Consensus A   We know there are many who may disagree, but even strength defense has been quite good this year.  The numbers are roughly the same as the Landis teams, and if you extract the abysmal man down defense, the figures are significantly better.   This defense will always be challenged by teams that can churn long possessions, but that is not unique and they hold up better than anyone else in the NCAA.  Defensive midfield is top-class, Crance and Healy have been great cover guys, and Epple gives the defense a bit more of an edge than it has had in the past.  Of course, Sexton has been as dominant an LSM as any have been the past few years.
• Transition defense:  Consensus B-   We seem to be in agreement that there is a Jekyll and Hyde personality to transition defense.  For a long stretch Notre Dame has controlled the middle of the field and stifled transition attempts.  Then in the last two weeks they were the keystone cops.  One has to believe the coaching staff will get things back in order here.
• Man-down:  Consensus D    Let’s begin by noting that Notre Dame is dead last in the NCAA in killing penalties.  LAST.   Man-down situations have had a very similar script:  the Irish are quickly put on the carousel, a skip pass to a wide open man on the crease, and a slam dunk.  We don’t get it.  We suspect this is where the loss of Landis and Glazener manifests itself.  If they deserve credit, it is that fortunately this team is seldom penalized, so there’s that.
• Goaltending:  ND-Atl B, ND-Atl 2.0 A    Shane Doss is a consistently good goalie that started slow and has played very well recently.  He’s been good for so many years we may be taking him for granted.  ND-Atl 2.0 is firm in his defense, noting that Shane Doss as his worst is still a top-10 goalie, the best Goalie in the ACC by GAA and save %, and he isn’t playing poorly by any measure. It’s just that guys like Concannon and Pugh are having insanely good years.  It may not be the Ensign C. Markland Kelly, Jr. Award winning year for him as we hoped preseason, but he’s very good.
• Overall defense: Consensus B  In the Notre Dame tradition, this is a very good defense.  Perhaps the best defensive midfield that we can remember, and very good close D.  However, the poor man-down play is a serious problem, only mitigated by the disciplined play in not taking  a lot of penalties to begin with.

• Clears and Ride: Consensus B+    More  than serviceable in both areas.  The Irish haven’t pushed forward as hard as we remember in years past, nor are they as aggressive on the ride.  Regarding the ride, Coach Corrigan, despite the historic reputation of the Notre Dame ride, doesn’t bring it out if the Irish are not down, and they haven’t been down much.  Wynne remains a good rider, Garnsey’s effort has improved, and Perkovic is nicely aggressive, even if his size sometimes causes the referees to be a little too quick with the yellow flag. The clears have been helped by the fact that Epple, Sexton and Doss are very relaxed under pressure and have good handles.  Neither area has been perfect.  We note several games where sloppiness, rather than pressure, has caused failures that impact the overall percentages.
• Face-off:  ND-Atl C, ND-Atl 2.0 B    Some difference in opinion here.  The figures are what they are:  Finley and Travisano have been struggling, and their woes are not helped by the fact that they are facing the likes of Baptiste, Williams and Withers.  Some games have been horribly one-sided.  ND-Atl 2.0 pushes back arguing the raw stats do not tell the whole story.  Faceoff wing pay has been excellent, with a lot of the poles participating.  The win disparity has not yielded a disparate amount of goals for the opposition.  If anything, the wings force the play into the defensive 6-on-6 where the Irish feel they have an advantage and probable do.

• Coaching: ND-Atl A, ND-Atl 2.0 A+     Three things stand out in this year’s coaching efforts:  first, the scheduling strategy to take all fluff out has been genius.  Second, there has been excellent adaptation to the loss of Kavanagh, Landis and Glazener.  They have found a whole new identity without any noticeable statistical drop off.  Finally, Coaches Corrigan and Karweck have allowed the offense to flourish creatively through Ryder Garnsey and others without too much reaction to the negative growing pains.  The coaching effort has been very good.  It is also must be noted that few staffs make better halftime adjustments than the Irish.

• OVERALL:  Consensus A-   The team has only one glaring, and fixable, weakness in a year where every other team has several.  Perhaps this grade is impacted by parity, but it’s difficult to argue that the Irish are not a top-5 team.  Even with weaknesses, they earn at least an A- on that curve.

Outlook:

The Irish remain well-positioned, as cleaning up man-up, man-down and transition defense should be an achievable goal.  More importantly, no one else in NCAA lacrosse stands out.  This season is clearly without a dominant team, 4-5 teams forming a top bunch.  This bunch certainly includes Notre Dame.

Next up for the Irish will be a trip this Saturday to play the  #10 Duke Blue Devils, 12:00 ESPNU.  There won’t be time for a preview, so we’ll include our brief notes for the post-Myles Jones and Deemer Class Duke team.  Guterding and Bruckner can still score very well, Fowler is still a good goalie, Rowe is still a great face-off man, and the rest of the team is very talented and fast, if very raw.  They can score in bunches, but can also struggle to achieve.  The showed a lot this past weekend by coming back from way, way down on the road against UNC to ultimately win going away.  And as has been typical for Duke teams, they are showing steady improvement from early season missteps. Having said this, there should be plenty of openings for Garnsey and Wynne, and the Irish defense is more suited to contain Duke than was UNC.

Notre Dame -2.5, o/u 22.5 for those interested in that sort of thing.  Seems oddsmakers being a bit disrespectful to Duke at home.