Blog from Todd Carton
On most Tuesday mornings during the college lacrosse season, Maryland head coach John Tillman holds a teleconference with members of the media. As he prepares his squad for what is annually the biggest week on the Maryland lacrosse calendar – “Hopkins Week” – he generously spent nearly half an hour answering the usual (and unusual) questions.
Traditionally, Tillman begins with a look back at the previous week. This week, in his review of Maryland’s thrilling come from behind win at Ohio State, the coach displayed the unique and very recognizable eloquence with which we have become so familiar.
“People are getting a sense of who you are. You have to play your best lacrosse you have to play 60 minutes of lacrosse. We felt like with this group there weren’t going to be a lot of easy games for us going into the season. And we kinda feel like that’s where we are right now. We have the ability to beat anybody but we could lose to anybody. We have a lot of belief in our guys and we believe if everybody plays well, we can be successful but if we don’t play at our best we’re pretty vulnerable.
I think we’ve seen that. The last four minutes of the game and the couple of minutes of overtime against Ohio State we played pretty well but for the majority of that game I just felt like Ohio State outplayed us.
It just depends on how you want to look at it. We look at it ‘We just need to play better. We need to clean up some things but we also have to acknowledge the fact that that was a really good team.’ They’ve been really good all year. They’re a top 10 team. Tough environment. Very well coached team. I don’t look at it always like what we didn’t do. I think sometimes you have to give credit to the opponent which we are totally acknowledging.
We knew Ohio State was really good and for most of the game they were really in control. So, what can we do to improve. You’ve got to look at some of the things that they did well and how can we get better or maybe temper those things and improve some areas that we can have some more success. So, as a coach and as an educator you’ve got to be realistic and see where can we get better but also you want to build on some of the positives.
It would have been really easy for our kids to pack it in. We were a little bit frustrated at times and we were struggling and it’s easy just to say, ‘It’s just not our day’ but the kids really stick together and they kept fighting. Certainly the odds were against us but really all we cared about was trying to play better and make the next play and give ourselves a chance.
Again, that team is a really good team. It’s hard to get a lot of leverage on them because they’re solid everywhere. They have a good goalie. They have good faceoff guys. They play good defense. I thought they got more of the ground balls against us for the majority of the game. It’s really hard to get much momentum when the other team is kind of dictating terms. And Jesse King is as good as we’ve seen all year.”
While talking mostly about Ohio State, Tillman could, in some ways, also be describing Johns Hopkins though we’ll see this even more pointedly when he talks about Jesse King.
They have a good goalie. Eric Schneider makes about 10.5 saves per game and has a 46 percent save percentage. Maryland’s Kyle Bernlohr averages just over 5.5 saves per game but has saved 64 percent of the shots he’s faced. ADVANTAGE: Maryland
They have good faceoff guys. Drew Kennedy takes about 60 percent of the faceoffs for Johns Hopkins and wins at a rate of 54.6 percent. He was dominant against Michigan but struggled mightily against both Penn State and Ohio State. For Maryland, Charlie Raffa wins 62.5 percent of his draws but hasn’t played since aggravating an injury four games ago against Penn State. Jon Garino has taken the lion’s share of faceoffs in Raffa’s absence. Garino wins about 52 percent of the time. If Raffa is healthy and plays to his normal level, Maryland has the advantage. If it falls to Garino, we’ll call this critical aspect of the game a likely draw.
In addition to describing Jesse King as a player who is “as good as we’ve seen all year,” Tillman also said this about Ohio State’s senior midfielder, “Jesse King could play for anybody and he’s going to be a great pro. He’s such a hard matchup and they do a lot of good things to get him isolated and put players around him in good spots where they can get good looks and step downs and shots to their strengths.”
King, however, has nothing on the Blue Jays’ junior attacker Ryan Brown. In fact, Brown may pose an even greater challenge to Maryland’s defense. King averages 2.43 goals per game. Brown is third in the NCAA at 3.58 connecting on 35.2 percent of his shots and has found the net 43 times this season. By comparison, Maryland’s leading scorer, Matt Rambo, has 28 goals.
In some ways, Maryland and Hopkins are similarly balanced and in other measures not so. For JHU, there is a tremendous drop from Brown’s 43 goals to Joel Tinney’s 17 which is good for second best for the Blue Jays. For Maryland, both Jay Carlson (23) and Joe LoCascio (20) join Rambo with at least 20 goals. However, Hopkins has six players with 10 or more goals while Maryland has only five. On the challenge of facing and trying to control Brown, Tillman said,
“Ryan’s a terrific player. He’s a very good shooter and scorer. He looks terrific on film. He’s had some games where he’s shot well. He certainly garners a lot of the attention he’s gotten and the accolades. For us, it’s always our seven against their six and a lot of times with Ryan, they share the ball so well and he’s really good at getting to good spots off the ball and part of that is you’re worried about some of the guys who are dodging.
You have to really worry about some of their dynamic playmakers and then he’s so good at getting to spots and getting his hands free that if you help too much, he’s open and if you worry too much about him then you’re not going to help support some of the dynamic dodgers. Their top six guys are really really good and when those six guys are out there they’re as dynamic as any six guys we’ve seen all year.
It definitely poses a lot of challenges. We’re going to have to play fundamentally sound seven on six defense.”
Another place Hopkins will challenge Maryland is in starting and ending the game. The Blue Jays have built their biggest margins in the first (38-30) and fourth (39-30) quarters. While the Terps have closed strongly in their most recent contests, they have started sluggishly falling behind both Rutgers and Ohio State by four goals. I asked Tillman about the importance of starting quickly against JHU.
“Knowing that the last few games haven’t started well that is an area of concern. I think you nailed it. We are looking at that and trying to figure out how we can get kickstarted a little bit faster. As coaches we’ve talked about it. We’ve looked at a couple different things. We’ve talked to the players about it and that’s something we’re going to address all week.”
The game figures to be a close one. Half of the Blue Jays’ 12 games have been decided by one or two goals. They have lost four of those contests. Only four Terrapins’ games have finished with that slim margin but three of them have come consecutively in the last few weeks. And they have all come down to more or less the final possession. Here are Tillman’s thoughts regarding closing the game and whether the team has benefited from this recent experience in tight games,
“You try to practice those things. It gets harder when you have midweek games. You practice those things in the fall and in the early season so the kids have some experience but the practices are never like the games.
In practice, you know the strengths of your teammates. If you’re trying to get the ball back you know the tendencies of the offensive players. It’s on your regular field. When you’re playing against other teams and you have to come back or you’re trying to hold on to the lead or it’s tied and you need to score, those are really tough situations. You know over the course of the year you’re going to be in them and every time you can go through those, it does benefit you.
You hope you win them. You know you’re not going to win them all but if you can learn while you’re getting some experience I think it helps. It gives you some confidence but even if it doesn’t go your way, you go back and you teach and you say ‘here’s what we could have done better.’
Inevitably through the course of the year you’re going to have tight games and those games can go either way and we’re well aware of that. We could have lost those three games or we could have won them. You’re hoping that your kids are poised enough and they stick together and they can make those plays. But in one goal games there are so many plays throughout a game that can change the course of it for sure.”
But it’s Hopkins Week. And while Hopkins Week is always a special one on Maryland’s lacrosse calendar, the 2015 edition is unique in the history of the rivalry. Not only is it the first one with a trophy at stake but, perhaps more notably, it’s the first time the schools have met as members of the same conference. And if those three factors aren’t enough for you, with a win Maryland will lay outright claim to the first ever Big Ten Conference Championship in men’s lacrosse. A win by Johns Hopkins allows them to share the title with Maryland and opens the door for Ohio State to also claim a share depending on the outcome of their game at Rutgers Saturday afternoon. Tillman shared these thoughts,
“We’ve just talked about Hopkins Week. Because of the nature of the game, all the kids need to know is that it’s Hopkins Week. It’s such a storied rivalry. The kinds know that it’s a conference game but that fact that it’s Hopkins Week that says it all.
“We have a really good team that we’re facing that challenges you in so many ways. It’s a historic rivalry and it’s a chance that we always talk about with our guys. It’s April, it’s getting close to May. You really need to start putting your best lacrosse together. You really need to try to play 60 minutes of good lacrosse. Obviously with the last regular season game being Johns Hopkins, it’s a game that the guys are really looking forward to. It’s one that we’re going to have to play well and we’re going to have to prepare well this week. If we’re going to have a chance to win.”
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