Brooks

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Date	Title	Body
14 weeks 6 hours ago	Teams at the D1 level will	Teams at the D1 level will normally carry a roster of 45-50 people, as a couple of other posters have mentioned in some other comments. As far as scholarships, men's teams are allowed between 12-13 scholarships (the numbers kind of vary).  Here is the most recent article I could find from a very, very credible source in Laxpower, if you'd like more information.  A little dated since it's from 2008, but you can get some more info: http://www.laxpower.com/laxnews/news.php?story=11652
14 weeks 2 days ago	Thanks, and great point.	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!
45 weeks 5 days ago	Solid conference and great	Solid conference and great news for Michigan
46 weeks 4 days ago	Great point, and just an	Great point, and just an innocent mistake not to include Matthews on my list-- he was far and away the best Canadian player in D1 this year.  Without him, I agree that Denver never gets anywhere near the Final Four.  However, I was surprised with the attention Denver received this year, that they only had 4 players on the roster from Canada.  At times the media made it sound as if they were 50% Canadian, when in reality they were successful because they had found one amazing player and a couple other solid contributors. What I was trying to respond to was the notion that "if we own Canadian recruiting, we will own D1 lacrosse immediately" thread that was starting to emerge.  I completely agree with you that if Michigan gets some of the top players out of Cananda, whether from the Hill school or converted hockey players are boarding schools in the Midwest and New England, they will certainly be game changers and important to buliding a solid program.  What I don't think is the answer is to sign classes with 6 or 7 Canadians each year. Currently, I think Canada is a bit like the Midwest-- the very best players can compete with anyone, but I'm not sure if it has the depth to make it the centerpiece of your recruiting.  Time may very well prove me wrong, and if that means Michigan is competitive faster then I'm all for it. Thanks for your comment and feedback-- it's a great 2 cents, and keep the great stuff coming out of IL!
47 weeks 6 days ago	Great question, a lot of this	Great question, a lot of this does have to do with reputation of schools and areas. And, as people have pointed out in this and the previous diary, if the sport continues to grow at it's current rate the more talented players (particularly from the Midwest) will be available to Michigan. So, the big difference right now between the Midwest and the hotbeds are two fold. First, players in the hotbeds begin playing youth and club lacrosse in kindergarten and first grade. For most kids in the Midwest, your first real opportunity to play for a team is seventh grade. So while you may be a great athlete in the Midwest, you are also 6-7 years behind in terms of stick skills and game knowledge. That takes a while to overcome no matter how great an athlete you are. There are some places, like Columbus, that have great youth programs, but those players are just now starting to hit high school and the college level. Second, there is a huge difference in coaching. The head coach at UNC was at Ohio State until 2009, and he said that a 7th grade coach in Baltimore would be a varsity coach anywhere in the Midwest. Players in Baltimore have alums from Hopkins, Maryland and UVA coaching them from the minute they start playing-- in the Midwest, you may very well not have a coach that played college ball until you make a varsity team.
47 weeks 6 days ago	Thanks a lot for catching	Thanks a lot for catching that.  That's a typo on my part-- I did include Rhode Island when I totaled up the percentages, but forgot to include it on the chart.  The 13.5% number is accurate, but I labled it wrong.  When I get the chance, I'll edit that to include RI. To elaborate on Tim's point from this date, the number in New England broke down as such: 22- Connecticut 18- Massachusetts 5- Rhode Island 4- New Hampshire 0- Vermont, Maine So the gap between MA and CT is not as big within these top programs as it is nationally, but CT is still the leader even in this smaller sample size.
48 weeks 1 day ago	Tim, thanks for the catch on	Tim, thanks for the catch on the data and the inclusion of Air Force.  I've edited the post to include those points.  If you catch any other data errors, please let me know
48 weeks 1 day ago	Thanks a lot for the idea.	Thanks a lot for the idea.  I'll try and write about this more in depth after I finish this recruiting write up. Here's the short answer.  The field lacrosse game is played on a field roughly the same size as a football field, and in settled situations it's 6 offensive players vs. 6 defensive players (plus a goalie).  Those 6 offensive players have an area roughly 60 yards by 60 yards.  Indoor lacrosse (also called box lacrosse or boxla) is played on an indoor soccer field and is 5 v 5.  So roughly the same number of people, but a dramatically smaller field.  Also, while field lacrosse goalies only have a larger stick and the same pads as field players to defend a goal that is 6ft x 6ft, box goalies where hockey goalie equipment and defend a goal that is half that size.  While a lot of American players in the North will play box in the winter before going back outside in the spring, Canadian players historically have only plaed box. Growing up on a smaller field, Canadian players are used to playing in much tighter spaces than some Americans.  This means they can feed passes through much tighter windows, catching feeds under a lot of defensive pressure and getting off quick shots, and shooting on goalies that take up almost the entire goal.  When these players go into the field game, they are very successful because they are able to shoot and score in situations where other players would consider themselves covered.
48 weeks 2 days ago	Yeah, pretty much.  At any	Yeah, pretty much.  At any given point in a game, you are allowed to have 4 long poles (players with the 6-foot defensive lacrosse stick) on the field at one time.  When you lose possesion of the ball, normally you try to sub off one midfiielder on the fly (like in hockey, for a midfielder with a long pole called at 'Long Stick Middie' or an LSM) in order to get your fourth long pole on the field.  In general, the moment you regain possession of the ball and clear it past the midfield line, you sub out the long pole in order to get an offensive player back on the field.   Some very talented teams with very talented LSM's may keep their long pole on the field while on offense.  This past year Syracuse, Maryland, and Villanova all had amazing LSM's that gave them this option  The reason is that when you start subbing your defensive players off the field, it give the opposition a chance to take off their offensive middies and put in a more defensive-minded line.  So, you will keep your extra long pole on the field in order to keep their bad offensive middies on the field.  It's a match-up advantage some coaches may try to exploit, just like a football team in a no-huddle offense will remain in a 4 wideout set on a 3rd and 1 running play so the opposing defense  stays in the nickle on a fairly obvious running down.