Michigan won because it got really good goalie play and took care of the ball. Don’t believe me? Just watch…
Tempo Free
From the official box score, a look at the tempo-free stats:
| Rutgers 2015 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Rutgers | Michigan | ||
| Faceoff Wins | 16 | Faceoff Wins | 6 |
| Clearing | 11-13 | Clearing | 17-20 |
| Possessions | 32 | Possessions | 28 |
| Goals | 7 | Goals | 10 |
| Offensive Efficiency | .219 | Offensive Efficiency | .357 |
Michigan got bombed on faceoffs, but managed to keep possessions within striking distance. Then, just being better in the half-field and making the most of those opportunities was enough to get a relatively comfortable win.
Notes
We shall start on those faceoffs, though they didn’t end up being the story in this game. Michigan went with three different specialists (including LSM Chase Brown, who usually goes in to try to create a 50/50 GB, but ends up doing a decent job winning some), but couldn’t solve Joseph Nardella. That’s hardly an embarrassment: he’s one of the top 15 specialists in the country. It’s still a disappointment, after U-M had a couple years of improving results, they just aren’t coming together this year. I think the rules changes play a role (they don’t work toward U-M’s strengths), but being above-average should still be doable.
Fortunately, Michigan managed to have many more clearing attempts than Rutgers (and converted at an ever-so-slightly better rate) to even out the attempts to a degree. The biggest part of that goes hand-in-hand with the offensive efficiency: Michigan possessions ended in faceoffs. Rutgers possessions ended in turnovers or saves.
Speaking of that offensive efficiency, hello and welcome back Ian King. It’s hard to give one player the credit for a strong offensive day – even when he scores four of the ten goals – but King’s presence makes the U-M offense so much more dangerous. It’s a shame to think how different the result of the Drexel game (at the very least) could have been with the biggest offensive weapon available.
Elsewhere on the offense, Kyle Jackson scored three goals of his own, to eclipse Thomas Paras as the program’s all-time leading scorer. Seven other Wolverines notched a single point, though U-M only tallied assists on four of the ten goals.
The efficiency number on offense is what draws eyeballs, but the defense was very solid in its own right. Logan saved 13 of the Scarlet Knights’ 21 shots, and U-M caused four turnovers (while letting RU commit 10 more on its own). The nature of defense is sometimes such that it’s hard to point out great individual performances other than the goalie, but rest assured that the Maize and Blue did very well there.
This was a serious game of runs, though many of them weren’t long enough to draw an overall trend. For big stretches, Michigan looked unstoppable (first three goals of the game, six out of seven in the third quarter), and even when Rutgers took a lead, it seemed to be delaying the inevitable, rather than a serious threat to win at times. For a program that’s gone through what Michigan has in Years 1-4, that’s a big step in the right direction.
Elsewhere
Michigan recap. Boxscore. Game photos. Rutgers recap.
Up Next
Michigan hosts Ohio State at 2 p.m. Sunday in a game that looks a whole heck of a lot tougher now than it might have been at the beginning of the year. Both teams are trying for a Big Ten Tournament shot, with the Buckeyes having a leg up for now. U-M has played the best and worst teams in the conference, and taking one from a team in the middle of the pack will go a long way.
I was at the UM – Maryland game. Gerald Logan single-handedly kept Michigan in the game for the first half. But Maryland’s dominance at face-offs (Raffa is the best in the country) led to a run of goals to put the game out of reach. Similar to the Rutgers game, UM put LSM Chase Brown on face-offs late in the third quarter but by then the damage had been done. The Maryland fans near me kept commenting on how good Logan is (and Maryland has one of the best goalies in the country). It was clear that without King the offense wasn’t the same.
I thought McDonnell did a pretty good job against the Rutgers faceoff guy (who is actually ahead of Raffa in faceoff win percentage) when he took some draws in the 2nd half. He had a huge clean win and assist to King. But he was out of his jersey late in the game with ice on his arm. Hopefully he’s ok.
What a difference King makes. The team has a couple of really elite players in Logan and King, and while they can probably survive a loss of Logan because of the other goalies they have, there’s nobody else on offense who can do what King does.
Ohio State is going to be a tall order if they are playing like they did Sunday against Hopkins. Let’s hope for the ND or Detroit version. Either way, expect faceoffs to be pretty lopsided again. Michigan is facing three of the best in the country in consecutive games in Raffa, Nardella and May.
McDonnell definitely brings something on faceoffs. Michigan has sort of faced a murderer’s row of specialists – and there have been times when they have struggled against players who aren’t as good, as well – so the overall raw stats may look ugly, but I think they’re not so bad in the McEwen ratings on Inside Lacrosse.
At the beginning of the year, Ohio State was terrible. I had coaches from a team they played early in the season saying that they’d be lucky to win more than 2 or 3 games all year. Clearly, they’re no longer that team, but you always wonder how much they can oscillate between getting destroyed by Notre Dame and beating Hopkins (albeit a not-very-good Hopkins team) without the truth being somewhere closer to the former.
At the Maryland game, I sat in front of McDonnell’s parents, who live only about an hour from College Park. Unfortunately their son didn’t travel to Maryland for the game, but they still came to support the team. Nice folks.