No rest for the SPRING BREAKers, Michigan right back in action for a mid-week game against Jacksonville, the first roadie of the year for the Maize and Blue.
Jacksonville
Fear Flipper!
March 3, 2015. 7 p.m. EST
Jacksonville, Fla.
Live stats. ESPN3.
@UMichLacrosse.
Michigan Preview.
Jacksonville preview. .pdf notes.
Tempo-Free Profile
The TempoFreeLax.com numbers displayed here are last year’s. We’re getting close to the point where I’ll flip to this year’s marks, but since JU has played just two games thus far, not ready quite yet. I’ll note the key differences from last year at the end of this section.
| Jacksonville 2014 | |
|---|---|
| Pace | 65.00 (28) |
| Poss% | 46.39 (57) |
| Off. Eff. | 31.24 (30) |
| Def. Eff. | 35.44 (52) |
| Pyth% | 30.16 (54) |
Jacksonville played at a nice clip last year, just above the national average. Part of that was scoring goals at a nice clip while also having goals dumped on their face. Part of it was a ride/clear game that made tempo increase just a bit. Whatever it was, the Dolphins did not control much of the possession, and they were just outside of the bottom 10 nationally in that regard.
The offense was pretty good, albeit against some pretty poor teams (the numbers here are adjusted for the No. 54 strength of schedule nationally). They scored a lot of goals on bad teams – and their bad defenses – and hit double-digits in a six-goal loss to Duke. They also scored just a pair on Ohio State.
Defensively, the Dolphins were bad (and against bad competition) last season. Opponents scored on more than a third of their possessions, and the only teams JU held to single-digits – remember, at an average pace, where a 10-goal game is pretty nice for the national average – were VMI, Marquette, and in a pair of losses, High Point and Bellarmine.
Through two games this season, the Dolphins have turned things around in a big way on faceoffs, where they’re very good, but the offense has joined the defense in plummeting near the bottom of the national ranks. With two games of data (especially a blowout loss and a close win over poor competition), there’s not a ton to be gleaned from it.
Offense
Last year’s leading scorer by a wide margin was attack Tom Moore (27 goals, 12 assists), and he’s the second-leading point-getter through two games, with a pair of goals and three assists. Brother Rob, a a year older (senior) and fellow starting attackman, had 17 goals and 10 assists, and is at a goal and three assists thus far this season.
Last year’s second-leading scorer, Duncan Clancy, has departed, and with him went 12 goals and 17 assists to lead the team. In his stead, there’s an apparent sharing of the… uh… sharing duties, with both Moores assisting plenty so far this year.
One player without many assists? Sophomore attack Chase McIntyre, the team’s leading scorer with six goals so far this year. With nine goals to his name last year, he has 15 total points in his Jacksonville career, every one from finding the net himself, rather than dishing out a ball. He’s the pure finisher, and will get his share of opportunities to do that against Michigan.
Junior midfielder Dakota Rohlin has three goals and an assist himself, another primarily-finishing player with a little more diversity to his game (16 and 7 last year). Fellow midfielder Conor Igoe played in just one game last year, and is back as a fifth-year senior. He has two goals and two assists to his name thus far in 2015, and will be another player to watch.
Given Michigan’s talent on close defense (pretty good, not exceptional) and in net (very good in the form of Gerald Logan), the Wolverines should be able to limit good chances for the Dolphins, There will still be some opportunities, but I wouldn’t expect a scoring part to break out.
Defense
Defensively, the Dolphins look like they’ll struggle for the second year in a row. They gave up 20 goals in 35 possessions to Army (a mind-numbing .571 efficiency mark), and even St. Johns put up 11 in just 23 possessions. That’s bad, in personal e-pinion. The Johnnies’ second-best offensive output this season was .361 in a weird upset of Stony Brook.
Jacksonville’s decent keeper from last year, Pete DeLuca, has moved on, but the Dolphins are pretty settled on junior Bass Barfield between the pipes. He struggled mightily against Army, and has already faced 51 shots on goal through two games (saving .412 of them). It’s hard to know how much of it was his fault in an absolute offensive onslaught by the Black Knights, but it ain’t good no matter what.
The close defense isn’t exactly inexperienced, either, with senior Austin Curtis earning both starts alongside junior Ray Bannister, with senior Ben Carter and freshman Tucket Guyot splitting starts at the other spot. They just got it taken to them by a good offense in Army and a mediocre offense in St. John’s. It’s not a particularly aggressive defense either, with Curtis leading the squad in caused turnovers with two.
Joining Curtis atop the CT leaderboard is SSDM Jet Harding, also the team’s leader in GBs. He’s taken a couple faceoffs (losing both), but his primary duty has been to work the opponents’ midfielders in the settled D. It hasn’t actually been that much of a struggle, with Army doing most of its damage working through the attack.
Of course, Michigan has a balanced offense with strong attackmen and some good dodging midfielders, so a bad Jacksonville defense is really up against the ropes in this one.
Special Teams
Other than Harding (who really just came in to stop the bleeding against Army), the primary faceoff specialist duties have been split. Long-stick Pat Ryan is right around .500 (most of those attempts against the Black Knights), but sophomore Sam Rosengarden has been the primary specialist. He was around .500 against the Black Knights himself, but worked over St. John’s – actually a decent faceoff team otherwise – to the tune of 19/23. With Michigan’s talented-but-mercurial Brad Lott and a host of other specialists available, something better than .500 is a reasonable goal. Patrick McEwen’s faceoff ratings on IL had Rosengarden a couple spots behind Lott in the national rankings before the weekend’s domination of St. John’s.
Jacksonville’s clear has taken a big step back this year (again, just a couple games of evidence, so don’t put too much stock into it quite yet), while the Dolphins haven’t emphasized the ride yet in the first couple outings. Michigan’s clear is right around average nationally, and while the ride has been good, I don’t expect that to be quite as strong in the first game away from Oosterbaan Fieldhouse. There’s still something to exploit there.
Jacksonville has had a decent chance to shoot on the man-up – 10 opportunities through just two games – but has only converted a pair of them. This is not a killer EMO. They were 0/3 against Army and 2/7 against St. John’s. On the other end of the spectrum, the Red Storm converted 2/5 and Army converted 1/4. Not a huge disparity in penalties overall.
Big Picture
Jacksonville isn’t a very good team, and Michigan should be able to handle them easily, based on what we’ve seen from each team so far this year. There are some factors playing against the Maize and Blue – first game away from home, and in fact first game outside of Oosterbaan Fieldhouse – that could result in a slow start.
This is a must-win game in order to build up a solid non-conference resume, more so because it would be a killer loss than it’s a quality win. Other than Sunday’s Brown game, the non-conference schedule should be a sweep.
Predictions
Should-win, must-win.
- I look for a break-even on faceoffs until we have more robust data on both Michigan and Jacksonville. Michigan has had great games and serious struggles at that spot, and while I’d expect success more often than not, you just don’t know.
- Michigan should have a really efficient offensive day. Jacksonville’s defense is bad, and U-M – while they probably aren’t on Army’s level – might be more comparable to the Black Knights than St. John’s. JU hasn’t stopped anyone yet, and Michigan shouldn’t be an exception.
- I’m less sure what to expect defensively from the Maize and Blue. JU hasn’t been good in either game thus far, but they clearly have a bit of talent – and many of the same players who were on OK offense last year. First road-game jitters for Michigan and the Dolphins jelling a bit could combine for a less-than stellar defensive performance.
- All that said, on the basis of available evidence, there’s no reason to expect this one to be particularly close, unless everything goes really poorly. Just about everything would have to go wrong at once for it to result in a loss, however.
Good team v. bad team, even in the house of the bad team, usually goes good team’s way. If Michigan can dominate possession (possible, but not a guarantee), this should get out of hand extremely early. Either way, competitive past halftime would be a disappointment. Michigan wins it, 17-7.
Share your predictions, discussion, etc. in the comments.