Michigan Fall Ball Preview: Providence

Sunday, October 2nd, 1:30 PM
Michigan Stadium
Free Admission (details)

Michigan v. Providence

Fear the Friar!

The first competition of the Michigan Lacrosse Varsity Era will take place this Sunday. I’ll have a little bit more on what this game could tell us about Michigan’s 2012 season tomorrow. For now, let’s take a look at the Friars’ 2011 squad.

Tempo-Free

From their official 2011 statistics, let’s check out the tempo-free numbers on PC:

Their .420 success rate on faceoffs was 53rd out of 61 teams in Division-1. Their .204 offensive efficiency was 58th in the country. Their .292 defensive efficiency was closer to mediocre, at 41st nationally. 76.5% on clears was 56th nationally, and their only above-average tempo free number was defensive clear percentage: the Friars held opponents to a 79.6% success rate on clears, good for 14th in the nation.

As you can see, Providence was not super-good last year (explaining their 3-12 record). The Friars struggled in nearly every aspect of the tempo-free game. They did play at a medium pace – 66.2 possessions per game, good for 35th in the country – but I’m guessing that’s in large part because they gave up double-digit goals to eight opponents last year (and scored more than 10 themselves against Wagner, the worst team in the country).

Schedule

One reason Providence was so bad in the tempo-free numbers last year? The schedule. Playing in the Big East, they saw three of the nation’s top-15 teams (to LaxPower) in conference play alone. They also faced #15 Yale in non-conference play.

Providence’s only three wins, on the other hand, came against some of the worst teams in the country. Wagner and Presbyterian finished only ahead of first-year Mercer in LaxPower’s ratings, and Presbyterian was bad enough to shutter their program after the season. #50 Lafayette was the best team Providence beat, and even that was an 8-6 nailbiter at home.

Personnel

This isn’t going to be a who’s-who of the country’s top players. On the contrary, not a single Friar earned even second-team all-conference in the Big East last season. That’s going to make it a little tougher to determine which guys are for real (particularly on defense).

Faceoffs – Though the Friars were pretty bad overall on faceoffs last season, freshman Ryan Shaw emerged over the course of the season to eventually take the most faceoffs (141) on the team, and also have the best success (.518). Now a sophomore, he should be a stiff test for Michigan’s faceoff specialists. Senior Andrew Bromley should also get a chance on draws, though he wasn’t as successful last year.

Scoring Threats – Providence was a terrible offensive team last year, so there isn’t a huge list of guys to cover here. A pair of midfielders, senior Jake Nolan and sophomore Andrew Barton, are the only players who had double-digit goals and assists last season. Only five other Friars had double-digit points, and two of them (midfielders Steve Lydon and Evan Helda) have graduated. Attacks JT Weber and Sean Wright and midfielder/Decepticon Daniel TEXTOR are the remaining dangermen. As you can see, Providence’s offense was heavily midfielder-based last season.

Defensive Field Players – The Friars were killed on ground balls by the opposition, but a few defensive players stood out here. Now-sophomore Zachary Rogers leads the returning defenders in GBs with a paltry 24 (behind two different goalies – and he even moonlighted as a faceoff specialist at times). Only the departed Bertan Unal picked up more ground balls than him among longpoles with 30. Senior Mike Noyes led last year’s team in caused turnovers, and was also near the tops in ground balls. He’s a player to watch out for.

Goalies – Jake Goodelman and Christian Dzilewski split time between the pipes last year, and now that Goodelman has graduated, Dzilewski will likely take over the role full-time. He was the slightly-worse (and less-frequently deployed) of the keepers last season, with a .497 save percentage and 10.73 goals-against average.

Etc. – Providence was hit with an APR-based scholarship reduction this season, so it’s likely they weren’t able to reload as much as they’d like through recruiting. I didn’t see a release on their recruiting class come through, so I can’t confirm. They were a freshman-heavy team with just five seniors last year, so another season of experience should be a benefit to the squad.

The Lowdown

Providence was one of the nation’s worst teams last season. That may be partially on account of a tough schedule, and partially on account of the team’s extreme youth, but regardless of the explanations, it’s a fact. This is a perfect test for the Wolverines to see how they’ll stack up against lower-middle-tier Division-1 squads in their inaugural year.

If Michigan is unable to be competitive with Providence (I wouldn’t worry about the final result itself, as it’s a scrimmage and “winning” is not as important as the quality of play), it’s going to mean trouble for the 2012 team. I would guess that’s not the case – remember, even some of Michigan’s club teams “beat” lower-end D-1 squads in scrimmages – and instead we’ll see a competitive matchup with Michigan possibly looking to be the slightly better team.

I’ll have more tomorrow on what to look for out of the game, and what the scrimmage can tell us about the 2012 edition of Michigan’s D-1 lacrosse program. Without knowing the format (how much time on the clock? does it run the whole time? Will teams empty their benches?), it’s tough to guess what that result will be, but I’ll guess something in the range of 12-9, Michigan.