February 4th, 2012 at 4:36 PM ^
I wish I knew a lick about lacrosse so I could contribute, but I'm looking forward to being a full-fledged D1 program!!
February 4th, 2012 at 4:40 PM ^
February 4th, 2012 at 4:45 PM ^
If I'm not mistaken Delaware is a consistent tourney qualifier and went to the final 4 a few years ago.
February 4th, 2012 at 8:11 PM ^
They did go to the final four once. They make the tournament maybe half the time, but they rarely have a losing record. I was hoping UDM would keep it closer than that, but even though UDM was picked to win their league, beating Delaware would've been a shocker.
February 4th, 2012 at 4:49 PM ^
good crowd there. abou 6-700 or so. lots of young lacross players in attendance. pretty cool poster schedules. very few games tho: like 15 or so.
Denn. controlled play early and got up 2-0, M answered and outplayed them in teh 2nd and was up 4-3 at half when i left. we have a good face off man (Yearly?)
February 4th, 2012 at 4:52 PM ^
How do people think this season will go for Michigan? This is their first season as D1 right? Will they struggle against the superior competition and have a losing season? Or will they be able to stay arond middle of the pack, breaking about even in the W-L column? I don't expect them to be anywhere near the top this year, but not ending their first season on the bottom would be nice.
February 4th, 2012 at 5:32 PM ^
February 4th, 2012 at 5:41 PM ^
Opponent records from last season:
Detroit 6-10
at Penn State 8-6
at Denver 15-2
Air Force 6-7
at Jacksonville 5-10
Mercer 1-12
vs Loyola (MD) 8-5
vs Bellarmine 4-11
vs Mount St. Mary's 9-6
at Harvard 10-6
vs Delaware 11-7
vs Ohio 8-8
at North Carolina 10-6
at Rutgers 6-9
I think that if people believe this team will roll over and die, they have another thing coming. Keep in mind, there are players on this team who have big game experience.
The seniors on this team, have a 57-2 record. Granted, they played at the club level, but don't count them out this season. I'm not saying that they will make the NCAA tournament but I think they will do better than most expect.
February 4th, 2012 at 6:33 PM ^
You can't really use the opponents records to make a point when you move up in a conference level. It would be similar to Alabama becoming an NFL team and then saying that because they were playing the Dolphins who were 3-13 the year before and the seniors at Alabama were 40-5 or something, that they should have a chance (Those records are an educated guess).
February 4th, 2012 at 8:18 PM ^
Big difference between "roll over and die" and simply being outmatched. I mean, you're presenting those numbers entirely without context. The fact that UNC was 10-6 and MSM was 9-6 says absolutely nothing about the relative strength of those two teams. If we win three games this year that would be a big deal.
February 4th, 2012 at 4:56 PM ^
It is usually a struggle for teams the first year that they move up, but over time we should be successful with lots of talent in Michigan, and not having to share recruits with State.
February 4th, 2012 at 5:14 PM ^
Michigan will be in recruiting battles for in-state players with detroit. That game might turn into a little rivalry as seeing they are the only two D1 programs in Michigan. Michigan will be on their level for awhile so it should be exciting.
February 5th, 2012 at 8:14 AM ^
Michigan won't be in recruiting battles with Detroit very often. If they find that they are, the program will be in trouble. They aren't going to be building the program with in-state players. If you look at the commitments they have gotten already, they are in battles with the Ivy's, Notre Dame, Lehigh, Bucknell, Ohio State and Penn State and have started breaking in to battling it out with the big boys (Hopkins, Duke, UNC, UVA). They seem to be pretty much done with their junior class recruiting. I don't see any evidence that Detroit has a single junior commitment yet.
February 4th, 2012 at 5:12 PM ^
Goal scorers: Trevor Yealy had 5, David McCormack had 3, Willy Meter had 2 and Andrew Hayden had 1.
Starting lineup
Attack: #16 Trevor Yealy (captain; 5th year Senior)
Attack: #45 Will Meter (Freshman)
Attack: #31 David McCormack (Freshman)
Midfielder: #15 Alex Vasileff (captain; Senior)
Midfielder: #18 Brian Greiner (5th year Senior)
Long-Stick Midfielder: #23 Andrew Hayden (Sophomore)
Defenseman:#13 Rob Healy (Senior)
Defenseman: #4 Mark Gembis (Freshman)
Defenseman: #17 Dakota Sherman (Sophomore)
Goalie: #11 Emil Weiss (Freshman)
The other senior captain, Thomas Paras, is a littke banged up and did not play, is questionable for the first game.
Michigan did not wear their winged helmet, instead, they wore their Maize practice helmet because it was an exhibition game.
February 4th, 2012 at 6:14 PM ^
I don't know anything about Lax but it makes me happy knowing that their is a position called "Long Stick Midfielder" Thanks for shareing.
February 4th, 2012 at 6:57 PM ^
Everyone calls midfielders "middies". So he's a long-stick middie.
February 4th, 2012 at 7:11 PM ^
Rob Healy is a beast. The kid played half of last season with a fractured bone in his foot and had surgery over the summer. Should be a good Senior year for him on defense.
February 4th, 2012 at 7:22 PM ^
How does Denison compare to other opposition? I know nothing of the support, but as with all things Michigan, I'm willing to learn to support the team.
February 4th, 2012 at 8:49 PM ^
February 5th, 2012 at 1:37 PM ^
After looking at these sites
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECAC_Lacrosse_League
and http://www.ecaclacrosse.com/index
it appears we aren't an official member of the conference until next season. In addition, we only play a selection of teams from our conference and Ohio is on our schedule but not considered a conference event (according to mgoblue.com)
If someone could answer if we are elligible to win our conference this year I would appreciate it given that my intial resource was wikipedia.
After looking at our schedule on mgoblue.com, it appears that we only have 4 "conference games (if Ohio is not considered one) : Denver, Airforce, Bellarmine, and Rutgers. Besides Denver, all these teams have losing records. Is it possible that we have a shot at winning our conference(assuming we are eligible) this year?
If we win the conference does it secure us a spot in the tourney as it would in basketball or do you have to do more?
How does our conference compare to others in the NCAA?
Can anyone provide a suggestion on a book that explains how to play the sport more in depth?
Sorry for all the questions, but I'd like to know more, and I thought they seemed to benefit everyone especially the part about being an affiliate member.
February 6th, 2012 at 12:16 PM ^
Michigan will be an affiliate member of the ECAC in 2012 and not eligible for the conference tourney until 2013 (edit: as explained here) I believe the goal was to schedule as many ECAC opponents as we could this first season regardless of how whether they were official conferences matchups.
The ECAC does have an AQ bid to the national tourney, one of six conferences to have one. The remaining teams are at large. In terms of conference strength, the ECAC currently is somewhere in the middle. This year, I would order the conferences like so (strongest to weakest):
ACC (no AQ - only 4 members)
Big East
Ivy
CAA
ECAC
Patriot League
America East
MAAC
Northeast
Someone else can feel free to delve into how various conference realignments will affect the lacrosse landscape - the biggest shock there is the possibility of powerhouse Syracuse leaving the Big East for the ACC.
And finally, the best introduction to the sport, both historically and technically, is probably the Bob Scott/Dave Pietramala book called Lacrosse: Technique and Tradition.
Hope that helps.
February 6th, 2012 at 2:16 PM ^
The thing about the lacrosse landscape is that it's an ever-shifting, constantly evolving structure, even more so than football these days. Five years ago a lot of those conferences either didn't exist or had radically different memberships. Conference realignment isn't so much a shock to the landscape (as in football) but a fact of life in lacrosse.
The next dominoes to fall are probably:
- Syracuse's move to the ACC
- the potential creation of a Southern Conference - now that Furman has announced lacrosse plans, the future holds six non-ACC southern teams
- the discussions within the MAAC of allowing (or mandating, I forget which) maximum scholarship allowances, meaning that the MAAC may look a lot more like the real MAAC, which includes lacrosse-ECAC teams Loyola and Fairfield.
So many variables that it's best not to get used to the current ECAC conference mates. My bet would be that in three to five years, Michigan will be part of a revived western conference that includes Denver, Ohio, Air Force, Marquette, and potentially teams like Notre Dame, Penn State, and Detroit depending on how the chips fall.
February 19th, 2012 at 3:43 PM ^
Any chance the big ten will have a conference when it's all said and done? is there enough lax interest in big ten states?
February 5th, 2012 at 2:43 PM ^
Can anyone explain to me why the team would play in the Big House and not, say, the soccer field? It seems unfortunate to play in an empty cavern rather than packing a smaller venue every game.
February 5th, 2012 at 8:12 PM ^
Grass fields suck.
February 6th, 2012 at 10:43 AM ^
Especially in March and April.