February 28th, 2016 at 12:24 AM ^
My first glimpse of the team as it was the first televised game.
Kyle Jackson is gonna be up for B1G Player of the Year. He is GOOD.
Gerald Logan would probably be a good hockey goalie. That's how good he is in net. 13 saves felt like 43. They were all fantastic saves, too.
Great response. Took us nearly 5 years but we finally got a win over a CAA team (1-6 record).
We were winless when we first played Delaware in 2012 and got beat. Now the roles were reversed.
Next up is a March 5th outdoor game at a surely empty Michigan Stadiuma against Vermont. I really hope they hurry along with the building of the Lax stadium.
February 28th, 2016 at 12:33 AM ^
Logan was very impressive in goal. He made the saves he was supposed to, and then some. Moving Kyle Jackson back to attack was clearly the right move. He's too good to have off the field. He will have extremely tough competition for B1G POY, but I agree that he'll be in the conversation. My $$ is on Ryan Brown.
Michigan has clearly recruited some excellent athletes - they won this game between the restraining lines winning contested ground balls, clearing with sheer speed, and putting pressure on Delaware's clearing game. Some of these D-middies have serious wheels.
February 28th, 2016 at 10:25 AM ^
The Lax stadium should start construction this spring and then be ready for the outdoor games of the 2018 season.
And the forecast for Saturday is 34 degrees. The game will likely be moved to Oosterbaan.
February 28th, 2016 at 12:30 AM ^
February 28th, 2016 at 12:37 AM ^
This is it. We're not beating (or in some cases hanging with) the top-20ish teams, but we're right there behind them. UNC is a very good team and Penn is also very good, they had a top-5 recruiting class this past year. But Colgate is also a solid team and we pulled off that win and Delaware is an established program and we looked good against them.
We've got a couple tough games against Ivy League teams coming up and a super tough conference (even Rutgers looks good this year) but this team has made another solid step forward and is finally beating that aren't bottom of the barrel types. It's exciting and will only keep getting better.
February 28th, 2016 at 12:41 AM ^
Rutgers will find a way to screw it up because RUTGERZ.
February 28th, 2016 at 1:04 AM ^
Good W over a legit east coast program. Delaware is down on its luck lately but traditionally its no slouch. Delaware has made the Final 4 and produced John Grant, Jr.. a National Player of the Year who is one of the greatest collegiate players of all time.
Its still hard to tell what kind of team Michigan is at this point. But, it looks like they are really turning it on. The rest of the season should be really interesting.
Michigan salvaged a tough week for the Big Ten - #4 Maryland got upset by a good Yale team and #12 Penn State got hammered by Villanova. On Friday, Ohio State got a meh win over UMBC but that was after falling out of the rankings because they got crushed by UMass. But Rutgers won and may actually be good which is bad news for Michigan who probably considered them a probable-to-definite win.
In other news - it was a good week for young programs. High Point beat #10 UVA which is probably the best win by a recent program so far. And BU beat #16 Navy today. Those are good wins and indicates some of the new programs are making serious progress and the hegemony of the blue bloods may be starting to crack (even just a little).
February 28th, 2016 at 11:31 AM ^
Requires a subscription to BTN Plus for anything other than OSU, John Hopkins or Rutgers.
February 28th, 2016 at 11:31 AM ^
February 28th, 2016 at 11:48 AM ^
But one would think that someone else would pick it up for non-conf. and if I look at the "off broadway" programming on BTN I HAVE to think that even a non-marquee big ten game like Rutgers, or non-conf like UNC, Dartmouth, Brown, Colgate, Penn, etc. would garner more interest/eyeballs than some of what is currently broadcast. I mean, it doesnt warrant at least 1-2 games?
Maryland? Why not?
I played on the M Club team waaaay back in the day (I picked up LAX in college, I'm not good) and live in San Fran now and my son plays, so it would be great to be more connected to the team/games.
Making matters worse is that Crapcast in SF has BTN at extremely low def, so hockey games are a challenge in squinting and wondering where the puck is, lacrosse will likely be the same.
It just sucks we can't see any games until the last three of the season and they are all ones they aren't going to be favored to win.
February 28th, 2016 at 5:16 PM ^
More and more games are being streamed, and the quality is getting better and better.
February 28th, 2016 at 11:43 AM ^
February 28th, 2016 at 3:56 PM ^
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February 28th, 2016 at 11:50 AM ^
February 28th, 2016 at 3:57 PM ^
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February 28th, 2016 at 12:25 PM ^
Is Coach Paul recruiting in Michigan? Just looked at the roster, and Kennedy and Walker are the only players from the state, and both are seniors (so, I think, the second or third recruiting class?). Women's lax on the other hand has just about one player from Michigan in each class.
February 28th, 2016 at 12:39 PM ^
Top talent is on the East coast.
February 28th, 2016 at 1:13 PM ^
Yes and no. Most of the top players do come from out East, but a lot of the best programs will grab a couple kids from Michigan/Ohio/CA/CO. For a long time, Brother Rice was a top-10 national program, but I think they've fallen off the last couple years. Michigan could do a better job grabbing a couple of these top players IMO.
February 28th, 2016 at 1:48 PM ^
We're pretty much in Rutgers football's shoes in Lax right now.
Any top player in our state will leave and go to the longtime powerhouse programs.
The difference is that that will change eventually as time progresses, and NJ will continue to be owned by Michigan Football.
February 29th, 2016 at 9:28 AM ^
Sorry, but if you think about it, this is a terrible analogy. First of all, Michigan is a top academic school, so any good laxer who's interested in a valuable degree should consider Michigan, even if it's not a lax powerhouse. Rutgers doesn't exactly have that going for them as a fallback attraction. Second, a succesful collegiate career at a college powerhouse could lead to a pro football career, whereas a successful collegiate lax career could lead to... well, you probably need that degree.
February 29th, 2016 at 11:40 AM ^
Rutgers is not on the verge of building out state-of-the-art football facilities any time soon that would put them way above M football n that respect. M LAX will accomplish that in 2017 with new stadium in conjunction with all the other facilities avaiable for LAX players.
By 2017 the only advantage Rutgers will have on M are:
-history/tradition
-better established recruiting relationships/pipelines
-location? (east coast players wanting to be closer to home)
-coaching/development - though I think that is a TBD, I'm not sure M will have overcome the perception that Rutgers has a better staff and offers better results - success on the field for M will determine this over the next few years
February 28th, 2016 at 5:20 PM ^
Outside of the hotbeds of Maryland and Central New York (and neighboring areas,) the new places to find talent are the three Cs of Canada, Colorado, and California. That's one of the main reasons yesterday's game was in Orange County. The state of Michigan has some talent, but not like these newer recruiting areas.
February 28th, 2016 at 1:23 PM ^
Good Q. JP's recruiting strategy seems to focus on east coast prep schools, California kids and Canadians for offense. He doesn't recruit Long Island very well and I wonder if he doesn't think he can compete there? I think he needs to get more public school kids from LI, NJ and upstate NY. M should schedule games vs Hofstra, Stony Brook, St. John's or even Albany & Syracuse to get some exposure in those areas. Getting those Canadians is a very smart move though.
He should put up a fence around Michigan and make sure that any great players from the state stay home and go to U of M. One of the best players in the game right now is from Detroit - Sergio Percovic for ND. I wonder if JP made a run at him when he was picking schools.
February 28th, 2016 at 2:49 PM ^
but at that time M wasn't nearly as good an option for a top player. ND is still probably a better option barring some sort of affinity for M outside of lacrosse, or possibly in-state tuition given they aren't likely on a full scholarship.
February 28th, 2016 at 2:57 PM ^
I would agree they probably made a run at Perkovic, but at that time the Michigan program was just starting out. They did get Alessi from the same Brother Rice team, who was arguably even better, but he ended up decommitting to go play football.
I've posted this before, but look at future Michigan classes. There are Michigan kids, Long Island kids, MIAA kids (Ryan Brown's brother, Jason, is coming next year - Ryan is the best player on Hopkins). Ryan Prior in next year's class is from Michigan, but goes to Culver. In the 2017 class Schmidt is from Brother Rice and Schwartz is from Ann Arbor, but goes to IMG. They have three public school Long Island kids in that class too, two from Manhasset and one from Northport.
And then the 2018 class gets here, which is supposed to be top 5.
I do think it's important to remember that this team is doing it now with no more club guys (I was one, and no way I would have helped this team) but with recruiting classes that have not been on anyone's elite lists yet. Good classes, but not great.