NCAA Lacrosse Final Notre Dame-Duke
The NCAA Championship game will be held tomorrow at 3:30 Eastern in Baltimore. The game will be televised on ESPN. It's Notre Dame vs. Duke. Neither team has ever won an NCAA title.
Yesterday, ND thoroughly outplayed a listless Cornell team. The Big Red looked like they didn't realize they would be knocked out with a loss. The second semifinal was amazing. It was one of the most entertaing, thrilling games of any kind I've seen in a while. After a furious, hard-hitting back and forth 4th quarter, Duke scored with 12 seconds left to go up 14-13. UVA had a chance after the faceoff but were whistled for stepping offsides.
People are still not giving ND much respect. But Monday's game should be pretty good.
The fact that two of Michigan's biggest rivals from the football and basketball (well maybe not Duke so much anymore) are playing for a national title undescores the need for Michigan to throw its hat in the ring. We need some good guys to root for!
Go Duke!
Go Duke!
Go Duke!
Something tells me Duke isn't going to take no for an answer
and i hope they do. it would be nice to get the monkey of the rape scandal off their back
Fuck this. I have to root for either the Domers or the team that beat mine because they get the same cocksucking from the referees that the basketball team does? I hope Duke wins but I won't be watching. God help us if Duke ever plays a meaningful football game.
Good show by UVA in a second-place effort. And I am relieved that you understand that in the game of "evil," ND trumps Duke.
Oh come on, the reffing was not that bad.
Sorry, but when the Dookie is poking and jabbing our goalie in the head because the ball is lodged in the mask and no penalty is called on the play except on the UVA defender who hits him so he'll stop, the reffing is that bad. At what point in the season did they change the rules so you're allowed to use your stick to hit people in the head?
I do'nt think the ref knew what to call that. The ball was probably live for a second until the refs figured it out so the Duke player poked at it. The guy that cleared him out earned his penalty. Probably could have been a penalty on the Duke guy as well. I don't think that was the game changer though.
There's much debate over whether Lovejoy (the UVA defender) deserved a penalty for that. My take: if this is the referees' bizarro-world where the Dukie is allowed to do that because he's playing a live ball (it's illegal to check the goalie while he's in his crease, BTW, so he was really breaking about three different rules, but let's play along with the refs here) then the defender should be able to hit him, since he did so from the front and with a shoulder.
But it might have been a late hit. Not a lot of agreement on that, and I haven't gone back and watched and I'm probably not going to. So at best, maybe Lovejoy deserved a penalty.
But I don't know about this "probably" business. Besides the fact that you're not allowed to do anything to the goalie in his crease, YOU DO NOT HIT PEOPLE IN THE HEAD WITH A STICK. This is fundamental to every sport that utilizes one. If this was hockey and the puck got lodged in a goalie's mask and a forward started whacking at it, blood would be shed and it would take twenty minutes to separate all the players and get them in their penalty boxes for about sixty minutes worth of penalties. And yes, it was a game-changer: the resulting goal was the first of seven in a row. There's a lot UVA could have done to change the outcome, but there's no denying that was the turning point. Give us the ball like we should have had, maybe the game is 9-5 instead of 8-6 and who knows what happens after that?
My 2 cents: goalie was in the crease - there should be no contact. Period. Furthermore, he was hit in the head, which is strictly verboten. Terrible reffing.
and most infamous miscarriages of 'justice' in this century, and you think that their redemption from that is "nauseating"?
OK, this takes us a bit off topic, so my apologies, but here's why I find the redemption story so problematic.
Their lost season was a self-inflicted wound, and the NCAA's decision to fix it for them was very political. Duke's later insistence that they cancelled the season due to concern re: the safety of the players was quite BS. What has been lost in the "post-miscarriage of justice/road to redemption" story, is that while no one got raped, the behavior of the team that night was FAR from decent, and that there were alcohol problems and run-ins with the law at an unacceptable rate. Imagine for a moment that a story came out about Michigan football having a drunken house party with strippers from Ypsi. In the middle of the season. And that a high proportion of the football team had been busted for drinking-related issues. Don't you think there would be serious consequences for Michigan's football program?
Anyway, while I have great sympathy for the guys who were falsely accused, and while I agree that the Duke administration had a rush to judgment, there was plenty of justification for Duke to make the decision to shut that season down. The redemption story only works if you paint the whole team as a bunch of kids as pure as snow, and forget about the factual context that provided those false accusations with so much traction. That's what I find nauseating about the redemption story - it exists only in a world of black and white - either they were guilty, or they were totally shafted. The reality is what reality usually is: a shade of gray.
Edit: negbang me if you like, but please make sure you know the whole Duke lax story, not just the headlines.
"Their lost season was a self-inflicted wound...there was plenty of justification for Duke to make the decision to shut that season down."
This is madness. The Duke basketball team had a party with a stripped the same week; they didn't have their season cancelled, and Coach K wasn't summarily fired with the words "it's not about the truth."
It really shocks me how people keep peddling this "well they may not have raped anybody but they are still a bunch of assholes."
What media have you been watching? I haven't seen any stories of redemption; all I have seen are media stories about the Virginia case relating a violent sociopath with three Duke men falsely accused by a drug-addled prostitute; these stories do their best to back away from the reality that the Duke case was a complete hoax. In fact two days ago an ESPN reporter uttered even more mendacious words about the case, claiming that "questions remain" in a case where the attorney general pronounced the team innocent of any crime.
Get a grip. I DO know the whole story, and you aren't speaking with any kind of perspective. The university did two in-depth studies of student life after the rape allegations were levied. The first one was politically cooked by campus activists, and was basically thrown out by the school; the second one was done by officials from the law school. Their findings were stark: while they noted the lacrosse team had a bad habit of excessive drinking, they also ranked near or at the top on campus in grades and community serivce, and got high praise for their treatment of service staff from athletic department employees to flight attendants. Presciently, they noted that the lacrosse team's status as social alphas on campus was going to bring out all sorts of jealous losers ready to tear them down.
"And that a high proportion of the [lacrosse] team had been busted for drinking-related issues."
As I recall, about a third of the team was subject to alcohol violations prior to the spring break party. But there is considerable evidence that Duke athletes in general were disproportionately punished for minor alcohol violations by a rogue Durham police officer, including things like jailing a student overnight for what would normally be a ticket infraction for minor in possession. This was especially problematic in the off-campus housing area where the party took place. And heavy college drinking is hardly unique to jocks.
"the behavior of the team that night was FAR from decent"
The "behavior" included dispersing the party five minutes after it started and then going about their lives. One player copped a Chris Rock line about slaves raising cotton, but only after one of the strippers insulted his race. I don't have a real preference for strippers, but have we gotten so puritanical we raise hell over college kids hiring two strippers for a drinking party? When people in American colleges are going to bed with people they don't even know on a regular basis, I find it hard to get worked up over strippers.
I love you.
To bring this back to Michigan...would a ND national championship help the Michigan case for varsity lacrosse at all? I'm sure it would at least open some eyes, even if temporarily. And it certainly indicates that it's possible to compete at the highest levels of the sport outside of the traditional powers.
It pains me to say this, but Go Irish!
It might help the case but I'm not sure it'd be a difference-maker. But I think it'd definitely hurt Michigan's recruiting efforts should they go D-I. The two schools would essentially be offering the same thing to the same recruits - the last thing we want is for ND to also be able to offer the chance to look at a shiny trophy. I think M fans ought to be rooting for Duke here.
I'm not so sure - I think that Michigan is a more popular school, and Ann Arbor certainly has a lot more to offer than South Bend. Better college town! It would be an important message that a mid-west football power that takes lax seriously can achieve serious success. (possible, however, that this effect is already achieved by a finals appearance?) Meanwhile, interesting things are happening at PSU - the word is that they are interviewing Coach Cottle. That should provide an instant credibility upgrade for that program. Yet more indicators that the AD better get moving here! Anyway, I'm with laxalum here, as much as it hurts.
You make an interesting point, however, ND and Michigan are not the same thing. Like jhu said, Ann Arbor is a better collegetown. Also, ND is a Catholic school, which may not be for everybody (Shit, I know Catholic dudes who didn't go to ND because the Catholic aspect made them feel uncomfortable). And let's not forget how much hatred there is out there for the Irish.
Having ND in the championship game is great because they appeal to a national audience, unlike a JHU or Cornell. But, for every person who loves ND there are probably at least 2 who love to see them lose no matter what sport they are playing. (Don't get me wrong, there is heaps of hatred for U of M out there, too, so maybe that wouldn't be an advantage - ha!).
Also, the other night I ran into a guy I knew who played 4 years at ND and he said Coach Corrigan is the WORST. He said that he and all his teammates hated Corrigan's guts. So, maybe that is an edge U of M would have- JP is a stand-up guy and is a great coach to play for.
And of course a national championship would be an advantage in the recruiting arena, but if U of M were to get serious, they would have to recruit against the likes of Syracuse, JHU, UVA, etc. who all have national titles too.
But, my opinion is that an Irish championship may not necessarily directly help U of M's chances. But, it will turn heads westward. I think at the very least, it couldn't hurt.
Surprisingly quiet thread as it's overtime.
Boom 4 seconds into OT, wins face off, sprints down field, put it in the goal. Game over. Duke wins. What a great play by the face off guy.
Haha, that was absolutely hilarious. Like the parting of the seas there for the ND defense.
I feel really bad for that Notre Dame faceoff man. I hope he wasn't a senior.