Lacrosse Rules and Basics

I would add that another reason for a non-releasable pentalty is "unsportsmen-like conduct."  While i played i saw this called anyting from cursing/complaining excessively at the ref to wearing a necklace during a game (yeah i got called for that one, not sure how it was unsportsmen-like). 

kinda what i expected about ref's discretion. I'm sure its an issue about passing to someone behind the goal to set up the offense and going out of bounds vs a missed shot.

The discussion here to educate is great.  A good way to look at penalties is there are two kinds of penalties, personal fouls and technical fouls. Unlike basketball, technical fouls are the minor ones, and personal fouls are more serious, ususally due to safety concerns.  The unreleasable foul is like a major in hockey, the full time is served even if the man-up team scores.   

Technical fouls are called thus because some technicality of the game has been violated.  A team was "offside" or had a crease violation.  (Unlike hockey the attacking team may never go in the defending teams goal crease.)

Technical fouls award the disadvanted team the ball if the ball is loose or the other team has it, (called "possession.') Or if team A commits a technical foul and team B has the ball, team B gets a 30 second man-up. 

The Jacksonville and Mercer games on 3/2 and 3/4 will be webcast via LaxxTV.  Details are here:  http://laxx.tv/signup/?games  but basically it is $4 a game or $25 for the season.  So far only games I see avaialble on any venue. 

A handful of the away ones will be televised on the host team's websites - usually for a fee (including today's game).

The April 14th game against OHio State is a holy lock to be on BTN.

Thanks, and great point.  Lacrosse refs have increasingly let defenseman take bigger and bigger swings on attackman and middies in recent years.  As stick technology has improved in the last 10-15 years with the advent of plastic heads and deeper sidewalls, the "hold" a pocket has has made dislodging the ball nearly impossible.  Consequently, refs have started to allow bigger swings.  It looks much more violent than lower level games, but it is also the only way defensemen really have a fair shot.  For a slash to be called the defensemen has to either hit the offensive play in the head, or if there are repeated (normally 3-4 consecutively) baseball swings to the arm without getting any stick.

The game will be much rougher because the athletes are bigger and faster at this level, but there is an increasing emphasis on cracking down on illegal hits as well in the past year.

Thanks for the comments!

NCAA Sudden-Victory Overtime Rule

"In the event of a tie at the end of the regulation game, play shall be continued, after a two-minute intermission, with sudden-victory overtime. In sudden-victory overtime, teams shall play periods of four minutes each until a goal is scored, thus deciding a winner. The game ends upon the scoring of the first goal. There will be a two-minute intermission between sudden-victory periods."

Scoring

Scores in NCAA Division 1 Lacrosse generally are higher than scores in NCAA Division 1 Hockey, but in recent years there seems to be have been an increased emphasis on slowdowns in NCAA lacrosse (consider it like players "ragging the puck" in hockey). leading some to suggest that a shot clock might be needed.  In the last two minutes of the game, the team with the lead has to keep the ball in the attack area, but otherwise you might see some teams trying to hold the ball for extended periods of time without making much effort to attack the goal.

Saves

You might be surprised at the number of point-blank saves made by lacrosse goalies, but it’s much harder for lacrosse goalies to make those saves without the benefit of the hockey goalie’s leg pads. 

Helpful Links

http://www.ncaapublications.com/productdownloads/LC12.pdf - NCAA Lacrosse Rules

http://www.laxpower.com/ - Good Website for College and High School Lacrosse Information

Two More Things 

Lacrosse at the NCAA Division 1 level currently is dominated by (and has been for a long time) the ACC teams (Virginia, Duke, UNC and Maryland all are in the top seven in the Lax Power pre-season rankings and future ACC member Syracuse is ranked eighth)  and the Ivy League (five of the top 20 teams in the preseason rankings, and six if you consider long-time power Johns Hopkins to be an honorary Ivy).

Don't get too down on this Michigan team if they suffer some lopsided losses this year.  It takes time and patience to build a top Division 1 lacrosse program and it could be hard to convince top recruits to help build the UM program from the ground level; but "This is Michigan, fergodsakes!" and . . . "If you build it, they will come."

A good save percentage for a goalie would be about .540-.550.  Scoring is usually in the 8-14 goals per game range.  It's true, the goalie is often a sitting duck.  The only extra equipment he has is a different stick.  No padding like in hockey.

All games have the same OT rules, as listed above.  Four minutes, first to score wins.  OT is typically a huge pain in the ass, actually, because each team gets 1 timeout per OT period, so what happens is the team who wins the faceoff calls timeout as soon as they get the ball into the offensive zone, and then if they turn it over, the other team calls timeout as soon as they get the ball into the offensive zone.  You ask me, the rule should be that teams only get one timeout in overtime, period.  The D-I record is seven overtimes, but the old record was like, only four or so.

There really is no set time for a shift, if the middies were able to switch in and out on every offensive and defensive shift that would be ideal, but this is hard to accomplish due to the speed of the game.  Typically, you try sub your offensive middies out while you hold the ball while the team is on attack (offense).

On defense it is more difficult to sub players in due to the chance of giving up a "fast-break" or an odd man opportunity (5v4, 4v3, etc...), this is just like in basketball or hockey.  There are two ways to sub a teams defensive middies in without problems, one way is as the opposing teams defensive middie comes off the field (as they transfer to offense), your teams offensive middie follows him to the sub box.  Typically, the LSM (long-stick middie) is the first defensive middie you want to get out on the field, advantage of the long-stick.  Obviosuly then the team would follow this pattern untill all defensive middies are on the field.  The problem with this is that the team with the ball controls the subs then.  The other way is waiting for a sub horn (talked about above), when a team can sub as many players as they want.

You used to be able to release upon gaining the attack box.  No longer is the case.  Penalties are served until goal is scored if releasable and not simultaneous. 

And technically the whole arm is not fair game.  The arm is the grey zone where the officials decide if you are trying to "get stick" or just trying to punish.  Not enough pages for discussion of that.  Stick is fair game.  Hand on the stick is part of the stick.

The thing i would add about Big Hits is that i would say they occur more in HS and College Club level than college NCAA.

I was a defenseman and i would always wait for what we called "Buddy Passes" typically from the goalie on a clear or from a opposing defenseman up to the middie.  Basically, a "Buddy Pass" is a pass that has a large arch on it.  Meaning the defenseman was able to time the pass arrival and his hit so the player catches/touches the ball and gets drilled at the same time. 

Was this a dirty way of playing? Maybe, but i looked at it in the light that if the pass was not lobbed and the player didn't have to stare over their shoulder it wouldn't happen.  Compare it to hockey hits, the players need to keep their heads up tto avoid getting hit by the likes of Kronwall.

I do think that the most concise way to describe lacrosse to a newcomer is that it's a combination of basketball and hockey, played on a soccer field.

A D1 team will have 45 or more players.  DIII will vary between low 20s and 45 or more for the better teams.

As teams go from offense to defense they will try to match up subs so that as the attacking team gets their offensive players on, the offensive players from the defending team will go at the same time.  At any sidelines Out of Bounds you will get a substitution horn and coaches will fix any issues on the field or replace a line or players.

The game is played in 15 minute stop time quarters.  2 minute break between quarters except for halftime which is 10 minutes.  Teams get 2 timeouts, (max 2 minutes,) per half which can only be called during a dead ball or during live ball by that teams coach or field player when the team has possession of the ball behind a line called the restraining line.

Except for snow conditions covering lines, (and sometimes the game is still played,) the only time the game is called due to weather is lightning.  So pretty much like football.  You pretty much won't start a game with snow covering the field but if it starts snowing during the game, you are going to finish it. 

Of course the one rule in lacrosse is that there is an exception to every rule.

Defensemen (and attackmen too) actually play the whole game, or else are substituted out occasionally and infrequently, for maybe one shift at a time.  It's really only the midfielders that substitute freely.  This is because of the rule that only six of the nine field players (that is, minus the goalie) can be on the side of the field with the ball.  If the defense does its job, gets the ball from the offense, and then succeeds in clearing it, the defensemen can just chill out on their side of the field and often you'll see them simply taking a knee at the midfield line, waiting for the play to come their way again.  The opponents' attackmen will be right there doing the same thing.  So there's actually little need to sub them out.

Sometimes what'll happen is a player gets caught on the "wrong" side of the field after the clear, say an attackman suddenly finding himself playing defense.  Eventually his man will go tearing off for the other side of the field and the attackman will haul ass after him, so that the correct players can get on.  This is why you'll sometimes see the rather comical sight of two players sprinting as hard as they can away from the play.

To add to what laxref said about the clock, it stops for all the reasons you'd expect: goal, penalty, out-of-bounds, timeout, etc.  Like basketball or hockey, it only runs when play is actually going on.

It's actually neither one of those: it just has to do with the numbers of players on each side of the midfield line. A team must always have four on its defensive half (goalie + 3 defenders, usually) and three on its offensive half (3 attackmen usually). Middies can go anywhere. If you're ever caught with fewer than these numbers, it's offsides.

As such, sometimes you'll see a defenseman carry the ball up to and over the midfield line while clearing--in this case, a middie must stay behind (on the defensive side) in his place. Oftentimes, you'll see this guy raise his stick, to call the refs' attention to the fact that there's no offsides.