Michigan Preview: Denver

The Wolverines got their win last weekend, and that’s good because Denver would be a really, really tough test. Showing progress is the goal, not outscoring the opponent.

Denver

90s-tastic background

Noon MDT (2 p.m. EDT)
April 27, 2013
Peter Barton Stadium, Denver, Colo.
Ticket info.
Live Stats. Live Video. Live Audio.
@UMichLacrosse. @DU_MLAX.
Pregame Notes. .pdf Notes.
Denver pregame notes. .pdf notes.

Tempo-Free Profile

The TempoFreeLax.com numbers displayed here are adjusted for strength of schedule. Denver has played one of the toughest schedules in the country, No. 13 of 63. They’ve put up these numbers against really good teams, one of which Michigan is not.

Denver has been one of the best possession teams in the country the past couple years, but that hasn’t continued in 2013. They’re just ahead of average, thanks to mediocre faceoffs and not the slightest interest in riding.

What Denver has carried over from the last few years is an absolutely lethal offense. They’re the best in the country, and if you’re thinking about Michigan’s defense and cowering in the corner by the time you get to this sentence, you’re not alone. That should be a problem.

Although Denver has been at or slightly above average defensively in the past couple years (if you’re not going to ride, you’d better not screw up in 6v6 defense… or you can just pour in goals on the other end so it doesn’t matter), that hasn’t continued this season. They’re on the borderline of the bottom quartile nationally. That’s an exploitable area for Michigan.

Add it all up, and you have the country’s No. 13 team. The numbers take into account scoring margin (and actually not actual wins and losses in the least), but it’s worth noting that the Pioneers have walked a razor’s edge at times this year. They have single-goal losses to Notre Dame and Fairfield this season, and one-goal wins over Ohio State, Air Force, Bellarmine, and Loyola. Although they’re going to be the conference’s one-seed, they haven’t done it by a whole lot.

Offense

This is where the carnage lives.

Senior attack Eric Law has put up 29 goals and 25 assists. Sophomore midfielder Wes Berg has 37 goals and 11 assists. Senior midfielder Cameron Flint has 25 goals and seven assists. Sophomore attack Eric Adamson has 21 goals and nine assists.

Beyond that there’s a pretty big dropoff in total points, but freshman attack Gordie Koerber and junior midfielder Jeremy Noble have 17 points and 15 points, respectively, despite barely making it into half of Denver’s games. Koerber should be in and Noble out for this one, for what it’s worth.

Senior attack Colin Scott has six goals and nine assists to round out double-digit scorers. He’s also the only player among the leading scorers with more assists than goals (though right behind him is Taylor Young with one and six).

Clearly, this is an offense not heavily predicated on the assist – the Pioneers have absurd scoring numbers despite helping each other out just over half the time. It also has a high level of individual talent, as demonstrated by the prolific scoring ability despite that. Has Michigan had a problem dealing with exceptional attackmen this year? No? Great!

Just kidding. Law is going to be big trouble.

Defense

Denver mostly packs things in on defense, and although their play between the pipes hasn’t been elite, slowing things down and destroying world on offense is more than enough to win a whole lot of games.

It’s been a two-man platoon between sophomore Ryan LaPlante and junior Jamie Faus – embarrassment of riches, that – with the two putting up strikingly similar numbers. LaPlante sees quite a but more time and saves barely more of shots faced (.562 against .557). Neither has played enough to qualify for the NCAA’s rankings, but both would be just outside the top 10. They’re right in Gerald Logan’s range playing behind much better talent.

The talent in front of those keepers has been led by senior Kyle Hercher, sophomore Cannon Carson, and junior Harley Brown (in and out of the lineup this season, currently in). Hercher and Brown are the only two Pioneers with double-digit caused turnovers (in fact the only two with more than five CTs this year). That’s especially impressive for Brown, given his limited appearances. Freshman Pat Karole and redshirt junior Drew Babb are both in heavy rotation.

As noted above, this defense doesn’t rely on causing turnovers or riding opponents into oblivion so much as preventing them from finding good shots, and trusting the good goalkeepers to make enough saves. That’s happened on an inconsistent basis this year.

Special Teams

Like many other Pioneers, faceoff specialist Chase Carraro (who also stays in on offense much of the time) has missed plenty of time due to injury. That has led to struggles on faceoffs, since Carraro is really good there. He wins .550 of draws taken, while his backups (mostly Chace Calkin) are well below .500. You don’t want to see Carraro, but it seems you will. Unfortunately for Michigan, Carraro appears to be in the lineup, mitigating some of DU’s disappointing faceoff ability on the season.

As mentioned above, Denver doesn’t ride. Just doesn’t do it. You’d think a team that plays its home games at altitude would emphasize forcing opponents to prove their stamina and athleticism, but that’s just not the case. Any of Michigan’s problems there are going to be self-inflicted damage. In the other direction, the Denver clear is about as perfect as it comes, too. With Michigan’s porous transition defense, U-M would be best-served to simply drop back and prevent DU from running in this one.

For a team with a really good offense, Denver’s man-up is actually kind of poor. As in, they convert less on the man-up than they do in 6v6. That’s weird. Even if Michigan plays a sloppy game from a penalty standpoint, it’s not going to kill them. Meanwhile, the Denver D is pretty good, which you’d expect from a team that packs it in as a normal strategy.

Big Picture

Michigan’s season ends at 2 p.m. Mountain Time no matter the result of this one, so that makes it slightly less depressing that this should be a pretty rough time. The Wolverines’ goal should be to find a few things to carry into the off-season with optimism. That’s about all there is to it.

Denver has shown some serious cracks, even against mediocre opposition, so Michigan should be able to put up a few goals. They’ll also be able to slow down the Denver offen… HAHAHA j/k.

Predictions

Simple one here. Clearly I’m not expecting a competitive game.

• Chase Carraro wins 60% of his faceoffs, and turns a few of those wins into instant offense. Michigan starts with Brad Lott, but if he struggles, will be quick to go with Kevin Wylie (a Colorado native) before dipping into the longpoles to muck things up, hope for 50/50 balls, and play defense.
• A Denver player will put up double-digit points. That’s most likely to be Eric Law, given that Michigan’s biggest issues defensively have been revolving around that one great attackman.
• Gerald Logan is going to see a ton of shots. As in like 40. If he saves more than half of them (despite Denver’s talent, I think he will), it’ll be a huge day for his total numbers on the year, likely pushing him back to the top of the nation’s charts.
• The Wolverines will show serious signs of life on offense. That will be a confidence-builder given that Denver’s a name team and likely NCAA Tournament participant (even though it’s because they’re secretly really bad on D).

Keeping this one close is the best Michigan can hope for, but it’s also a pretty darn lofty goal. Fortunately, Denver’s typical strategy outside of transition (the phase of the game that destroyed Michigan in this one last year, and has been an issue in 2013 as well) is to slow things down on both sides of the ball. Playing a clean game and making the Pioneers earn what they inevitably get is OK. Denver 16, Michigan 7.

Share your predictions, discussion, etc. in the comments.