Michigan has headed down to Florida after a rough outing in the Centennial State. They’ll see if the sunshine will treat them a little nicer than the Rocky Mountaina.
Mount St. Mary’s
I hope they have an anthropomorphized mountain roaming the sidelines.
3:00 p.m. March 24, 2012
Michigan Stadium, Ann Arbor. Ticket Info.
Gametracker stats (caution: this has not worked any of the times I’ve tried to use it so far this year). Live video ($, and you have to buy a whole month – probably not worth it). @UMichLacrosse twitter. GLS Twitter.
2012
2-4 (Victories over Delaware and VMI). #39 Laxpower
Tempo-Free Profile
Six game is enough data that this season’s stats are relevant. Fortunately for readers, I’ve already done all the work to turn whatever the hell this is into a meaningful report of their stats.
| Mount St. Mary’s 2012 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| THE MOUNT | Opponents | ||
| Faceoff Wins | 69 | Faceoff Wins | 69 |
| Clearing | 67-92 | Clearing | 79-99 |
| Possessions | 181 | Possessions | 193 |
| Goals | 54 | Goals | 61 |
| Offensive Efficiency | .298 | Offensive Efficiency | .316 |
Mount St. Mary’s has been al over the map this year. Against good teams (namely Virginia), they’ve been completely out of their league. Against awful teams (sorry VMI), they were able to dominate. Against everything in between, they’ve been mostly bad, except in very different ways.
Their ride has been aaaaaawful, except in one game against Towson when they held the Tigers to barely over .500 on 21 attempts – and still lost by two goals. They’ve treaded water on faceoffs, never winning more than 60%, and only losing that many once or twice. From an efficiency standpoint, outside of the VMI game (when they scored 15 goals on 35 possessions for a blistering .429), they’ve been pretty bad.
After reviewing the stats, I’m going to cast my vote that Mount St. Mary’s simply isn’t very good. That isn’t the most relevant question when facing Michigan’s young team. What become far more important is determining just how bad they are.
Offense
There are five Mount St. Mary’s players with double-digit points. One of them, senior midfielder Christian Kellet, would probably even be a bit higher than his current ten points if not for missing a game (he also hasn’t started all of the five games he has played in, though that’s likely on account of faceoff strategy). Kellett has scored three goals and assisted on seven.
Now that I’ve sufficiently buried my lede, senior attackman Brett Schmidt is the primary offensive threat for the Mount. His 14 goals lead the team, and he’s not far off the team’s leaders in assists, with five.
Junior midfielder Daniel Stranix, whose name sounds like a pharmaceutical, and attackman Andrew Scalley aren’t far behind Schmidt with 14 and 13 points, respectively. Both score more than they assist, but their numbers aren’t nearly as skewed as anyone who is named Schmidt.
That’s right, there is another Schmidt, and while Brett had a lopsided goals-to-assists ratio, it’s nothing compared to twin brother Bryant, who has ten goals and just one assist on the year. The midfielder version of Schmidts is a pure shooter. Alas, Schmidt number three (or number one, I guess) has graduated, though Justin was a defenseman for the Mount last year.
Anthony Golden has started four games – and played in all six – at attack, and has only two points to show for it.
Defense
Like we’ll see just down the road in Detroit a couple hours earlier, Michigan is not playing a defense that thrives on the takeaway. The Mountaineers have only 31 through six games. With Michigan’s limited stick skills, that may be a good thing, but on the other hand, they don’t exactly have the guns to bomb away from outside, either.
Senior Brendan Rooney (a University of Detroit Jesuit product) leads non-faceoff specialists in ground balls on the season with 11, despite being limited early this season. His four caused turnovers is also in a multi-way tie for the team lead in that category. Sophomore Shane Pierce has started all six games, but only has a little (four caused turnovers, five ground balls) to show for it. Junior Kevin Downs and sophomore Tim Durkin are among the other defensemen who have started a game. Freshman Kyle O’Brien has also seen significant time, and has picked up nine GBs on the year.
The defensive lineup hasn’t exactly been consistent.
Junior Robert Owen is the leader of the shortstick defensive midfielders, with ten ground balls and only two shots on the entire season. Junior midfielder Mike Fields is a level above that, with eight caused turnovers and only two shots on the year. Junior LSM John Anderson is one of the players tied at four caused turnovers to lead the team.
In goal, Chris Klaiber has started all six games, playing all but about one quarter this entire season. He has saved .512 of shots faced, and is allowing barely over 10 goals per game. His backup, Kevin Hess, has seen nearly 15 minutes of action, and although his numbers look a little nicer (.600 s%, 8.15 GAA), that screams “small sample size.”
Special Teams
Jon Marsalese is The Guy on faceoffs. The University of Detroit Jesuit product (now that I’ve shouted out Rooney and Marsalese, I may as well mention Conor Carey, their former teammate with the Cubs, who has played in five games at midfield) has won .516 of his draws this year, and is far and away the team leader in GBs with 38. Despite plenty of clean wins, he is a strict FOGO, with no assists or shots on the year.
As mentioned above, Mount St. Mary’s is one excellent game against Towson away from being one of the worst riding teams in America (that game is an epic outlier, since Towson is a decent clearing team. The boxscore mentions cloudy weather, but says nothing of wind). They are just a mediocre clearing team as well. If Michigan isn’t scared away from using their 10-man ride by the full-field goal by Bellarmine, and the loss of Emil Weiss (again), there is definitely a weakness to be exploited.
The Mount has only had 13 man-up opportunities this season in six games, so they do not force opponents to foul them particularly often. They have converted on four of those chances, a decent percentage.
Big Picture
Mount St. Mary’s is a pretty bad team – perhaps one of the worst Michigan will see this year outside of Mercer – and the Wolverines’ opportunities to get victories are dwindling. If they can come out as sharp as they have in most games (Michigan has scored first in nearly every contest), and sustain that momentum, rather than fading in the middle two quarters, they have a good shot at the win.
Preview from the Michigan end. Mount St. Mary’s-oriented preview.
Predictions
The biggest question is one of player health – can Emil Weiss play? If not, we’ve seen that the other options on the roster are serious downgrades. This Mount St. Mary’s team isn’t exactly a world-beater, and their weaknesses (transition game, lack of caused turnovers) are things that match up well for Michigan.
- Once again, Michigan will race out to a three-goal lead in the early minutes of the game. However, they’ll stay true to form and allow Mount St. Mary’s to tie things up before scoring again.
- The Michigan defense buckles down and plays better than we’ve seen in recent weeks. That’s particularly true in the transition game, where the Wolverines’ ride (which, I guess, is plenty of the offensive personnel, as well) will cause at least one failure to advance call and another handful of turnovers.
- There will be frustrating unforced turnovers on Michigan’s end – that’s just going to happen this year. However, they aren’t as damning as they have been against better competition.
- The Wolverines win the ground ball battle. This is part of what leads to a better than .500 day on faceoffs.
This one is so tough to predict without knowing the status between the pipes. If Weiss plays, he’s an upgrade from a ball-stopping and clearing perspective, and Michigan should be able to pull off the win. Otherwise, I think they’ll have a tough time staying within a couple goals. I’ll split the different and say Mount St. Mary’s earns the 9-8 victory in the Big House.
You’re an idiot if you think Mount is not a good team. They smacked a hot Delaware team right out of the bat when they were ranked number 16 in the country. They dominated for most of the Towson game and gave up the lead in the last two minutes of the game. They went into the fourth quarter of the Georgetown game up three goals. This is a good team that needs to learn how to finish games, and in no way a bad team. They will repeat as conference champs for a third time this year.
I think it’s been pretty clearly borne out that Delaware was overrated at the time. It’s also tough to say they were “hot” going int the Mount game, considering they were coming off two straight losses. They outplayed Towson (which, based on the stats, looks like it was a fluke), and STILL managed to lose, despite a couple stats – namely their riding rate – that would not be associated with a loss in almost any other game. Going into the fourth quarter of a game up three goals means little if you, ya know, lose.
“A good team that can’t finish games” is also known as… a team that’s not very good.
I’ll refrain from name calling, but the Mount team I saw yesterday was good. They moved the ball very well offensively. They played hard. They executed well. They didn’t have lights out players like Loyola at any position, but they are a very good team.
To me a team like that demonstrates what Michigan is up against in D1 right now. Here’s a team that was 2-4 coming in. They were blown out by Virginia and lost close ones to good, but not great, teams like Gtown and Drexel and Towson. The beat a good, but not great, Delaware team and killed a bad VMI. What does that resume suggest? Good, but not great.
Laxpower, which admittedly is not infallible, has them right in the middle of D1. My impression was that is about right. This team could just as easily have come in 5-1 as 2-4, but D1 is that competitive in the middle. A goal or two makes the difference in almost every game. Michigan is not at the level they can compete for 60 minutes against middle of the pack teams. Michigan is firmly in the bottom 10. They may be able to play a close one against a good team if they excel for 60 minutes (which they haven’t done yet), but they are just as likely to implode at some point in the game against a good team. When they do implode, it’s ugly. Against a bottom 10-15 team, they can compete (Jax, Bellarmine maybe, sorry UDM, but maybe you too) but are unlikely to win at this point unless they play amazingly well and/or play a legitimately weaker opponent (Mercer).
I kind of expect Harvard, Delaware and Ohio State to go kind of like all of these other games have gone against middle of the pack teams. UM will have a good quarter or two, but they will also have some really ugly sections that will doom them to a lopsided loss. North Carolina will be ugly, just as DU was and Loyola was for the first half. Rutgers is probably their last chance to steal one.
The hard part for us is to live in reality and have some patience, knowing that things will change dramatically over the next few years. If that’s hard on us, imagine how it is on them.
I don’t think any team that’s above .500 is in the bottom 10-15 teams. But that’s just me.
This writer obviously needs to find a new career as he does not have a clue what he is doing as he is a complete embarrassment to the great game of lacrosse. This amateur bozo really needs to find something he is qualified to do as its clear he has no lacrosse expertise and knowledge at all after a 15- to 6 drubbing of the Blue and Maze.
The fact that several GLS regulars think of MSM as a bad team, yet view Siena/UDM/the MAAC as good, shows the unfortunate bias that creeps in on here.
I think both groups (MSM and that MAAC contingent) are on approximately equal footing, below the halfway mark in the country, but outside of the bottom 10-15 teams.
Maybe the Mount is on the upswing, but to date, they haven’t done a whole lot this season.
If Mount not a good team than Michigan is horrible. Go UM National Champions of the club teams! Also lets hear it for the All American Club kids on there way to 1 -15
I don’t think anyone has ever tried to deny that UM is horrible this year.
Troll on.
Yesterday may not have been pretty, but I am still impressed with how competitive this team has been during a number of games this year. They have no D1 players, but for long stretches of many games have challenged teams much better than they are. When the players begin to arrive I expect this team will get better quickly.
I think 2014 is the earliest we can expect them to beat middle of the pack teams like this. They will have two years of recruits on campus then. With only a class of freshman next year, I think it will still be too early, although they might get lucky for a game or two.
I would agree with that. They may beat a couple of those teams next year, just because their talent level will be a lot better with the recruits coming in (and especially because they’ll hopefully be better facing off and in goal), but it shouldn’t be expected yet. Not for a team that will be dominated by freshmen.
I also agree that they have played at times better than expected, and they seem to play very hard. It would be easy to give up if you’re losing at this rate, especially for a team used to winning.
Anon – I think that is just you. When four of those wins come against teams clearly in the bottom 7 or 8 and the other against a team that is middle of the pack at best (in OT at home), bottom 15 is a fair assessment. Detroit’s SOS is 57 out of 61.
Jason/Andy, I agree with a lot of what you guys said, however, I think UofM will win more than one or two games next year. The Wolverines will be greatly improved between the experience of this year as well as the incoming freshmen class. No doubt they will schedule (and beat) Mercer, High Point, and Marquette. Furthermore, I expect them to win against at least one of the teams that they lost to this year. So I’d say at least a 4-win 2013 season, if my predicted schedule is accurate.
I don’t think they’re going to play all the teams you mentioned. If anything, they actually have an even tougher schedule next year (Hopkins, Notre Dame if they can get something scheduled, in addition to the full slate in the ECAC).
I can’t recall off the top of my head who all they’re expected to play, but I’ll double check when I get home.
I expect next year’s schedule, and every one going forward, to be a lot tougher. I doubt very much Mercer will be on it again, and I don’t see them adding teams like Wagner or VMI. No doubt they are adding ND, and everyone’s been saying they’ll be playing Hopkins because JP and Petro have a good relationship. I imagine Michigan will want to play big-name schools as much as possible.
They would like to play Notre Dame, but aren’t sure if they’l be able to get it scheduled. Most of the teams they’re playing this year (Penn State, Delaware, and Harvard, if I recall, along with hopefully Detroit) plus Hopkins and the full ECAC schedule are supposed to be included.
I’ll take a look at the schedule when I get home and see who’s on it.
Good points gentlemen, but I would still expect High Point and Marquette to be scheduled. You have to figure UofM would give first year teams (especially neighboring Marquette) the same chance that they were given by other schools.
I’m not sure it’s a given they’ll be playing Marquette. They are both in the midwest, but Marquette is 5 – 6 hours away. If that’s a reason to play someone, they should be playing Robert Morris and Canisius every year. Wisconsin isn’t exactly a recruiting hotbed either. I imagine Michigan would rather play east coast teams and big football schools.
For that matter I wonder how long they keep playing Detroit. I’d like to see it, but in a few years how does that game help UM? Wouldn’t it be better for them and for lacrosse in Michigan to bring in big name teams to play non-conference games?
AndyD, again some good points, but keep in mind that there aren’t too many big football schools with lacrosse (especially that don’t already play each other). Furthermore, Marquette is a big basketball school, and basketball is the next big college sport after football. True enough, playing a Wisconsin team doesn’t do anything for recruiting.
I think UofM and UDM will continue to play for at least the next 5 years, and hopefully a lot longer. It’s good for the state and the sport. Keep in mind that lacrosse (and all sports really) likes geographic rivalries. North Carolina has Duke and UNC, no doubt they add High Point. New Jersey’s Rutgers and Princeton square off every year. Colorado has an annual game between Denver and Air Force. In Massachusetts…Harvard, Holy Cross, and UMass play annually. Upstate NY has Syracuse, Cornell, Army, Albany, and Hobart all regularly playing each other. Of course Maryland has Hopkins, Loyola, Maryland, UMBC, Navy, and Towson.