laxalum

November 16th, 2011 at 11:44 AM ^

They have a few really good ones coming in the 2012 class.  Brad Lott was ranked the #1 faceoff specialist in the country by ESPN.  Kyle Jackson was just ranked #2 Canadian by Inside Lacrosse in the 2012 class.  In the 2013 class they already have three top 50 kids...Ian King, Austin Shanks (Canadian, but plays at Brewster Academy - a place that every Michigan basketball fan is now familiar with) and goalie Robbie Zonino.  Very exciting how their recruiting has been going so far.  Should upgrade significantly by the 2014 and 2015 classes.

laxalum

November 16th, 2011 at 12:19 PM ^

They will have to recruit nationally.  Denver is proving you can be successful without depending only on the east coast, but there isn't enough talent in Michigan to build a top program.  They are doing a good job spreading their classes out so far.  You'll see a lot of east coast kids, but you're also seeing recruits from other areas filling it out.

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

November 16th, 2011 at 12:43 PM ^

The state of Michigan really is a fledgling lacrosse state.  There's some decent talent to fill out local programs, but U-M can probably only take a couple players a year, at the most, from Michigan if it wants to be a national program.  Gotta get into the East Coast - Long Island, Baltimore, Philly, and be known as a Destination Program for players from California and Colorado and other points west of the Appalachians.  And don't forget Canada, either.

Basically, Michigan has a little talent in it, which is better than essentially no talent at all.  It is possible to rank Michigan on a list of talent-producing states (as opposed to, say, Florida or Tennessee, which aren't worth recruiting at all) but it is at the bottom still.

WolvinLA2

November 16th, 2011 at 1:18 PM ^

Agreed, M will have to rely on out of state recruiting much more in lacrosse than they do in football. The initial key to in state recruiting is keeping the studs in state. There are usually 1-3 kids each year who can go play at the big time schools - Ivy League, ND, Georgetown, etc. - and if we can get them to come to AA, that's a good start.

But that's about all we can really rely on for now. However, lacrosse in Michigan is really growing (like a lot of places) and five or ten years down the road we may be taking half a dozen or more in-staters any given class.

laxalum

November 16th, 2011 at 1:29 PM ^

They have two Michigan kids in the 2012 class.  Chris Walker and Riley Kennedy from Brother Rice.  Rice is definitely the top program in Michigan, by far.  Are those the top two players in the state?  Who are the top guys in the 2013 class, and is UM recruiting them?

I think it's possible that they have classes sometimes with zero Michigan kids just because they might be able to do that much better with out-of-state talent.

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

November 16th, 2011 at 1:35 PM ^

Truthfully, unless your program exists in MD or NY, you do the lion's share of your recruiting out of state.  That's what it boils down to.

P.S. Georgetown isn't really an example of a big-time program.  DTO is probably gonna come on here and shoot you.  Georgetown : lacrosse :: Iowa : football.  Occasionally quite good, usually decent, never championship material.  Losing instate prospects to Cornell would be one thing, losing them to Georgetown would be quite another, and not a good sign.

wnymichfan

November 16th, 2011 at 11:53 AM ^

their current recruiting class is huge.  Here is a link that i hope works.  Not to sure on how to link.  Lots of players from top schools such as la costa canyon ca, the hill academy in canada, brother rice in MI, and chaminade in NY. the team is definately doing a great job nationally.

http://www.laxpower.com/recruits/recruits.php?action=viewRcd&db=recruits2012&q=order+by+%60College%60&page=24