Mission Impossible

[Jasper]

FU Men's lacrosse is currently losing 9-2 to a good Air Force Academy team. That in itself is not newsworthy unfortunately. What is startling is that the AFA has won 13 of 14 faceoffs so far. That is simply ridiculous. That much of a winning % in the X gives your opponent 12 more possessions - 12 more chances to score. Furman actually has a pretty good LAX team but for the second year in a row, we do not have a player who can win a decent number of faceoffs and that makes it impossible to win the game. We rarely even have the opportunity to score unless our goalie stops a shot or they commit a penalty/turnover. I feel badly for the kids.

[gman]

I don’t understand the faceoff rule. Seems to me like it puts all the pressure on one player.

[Flagman]

I'm not an aficionado of lacrosse and I've only been to (maybe) two games. How many faceoff "wins" results directly in a goal? The games I watched resembled soccer, with the offensive possession changing with the wind.

[Jasper]

Goals in lacrosse are 10x’s that of soccer so possessions are much more important. You lose a face off and you may not see the ball for several minutes. Multiply that by a differential of 12 out of the first 13 possessions and it’s virtually impossible to win no matter how well you defend. In the 4th qtr. today down 11-2, we started to win some face offs and scored 5 goals. The team is actually pretty talented when they are able to get possession of the ball somewhat equally. Most teams have good FO specialists and the results are more equal and therefore not as large a factor as this . we do not.

[fufanatic]

So what's the solution? Clearly it must not be something that can be taught or else I'm sure the coaching staff would have done so in the last few years. So what's the process for recruiting a draw-control specialist? And how many good ones are out there, that we get slaughtered by many opponents in that particular stat? If it's true that the team has the potential to be really good otherwise, it's gotta be so disheartening to the other players. The lacrosse face-off is so interesting to me as there's really nothing like it in sports. Can you imagine if there was a jump ball after every basket in basketball or some sort of scrum after every TD or FG in football? It feels like currently we are the opponent trying to win an opening tip against UCF's 7-6 Tacko Fall.

[Jasper]

So what's the solution? Clearly it must not be something that can be taught or else I'm sure the coaching staff would have done so in the last few years. So what's the process for recruiting a draw-control specialist? And how many good ones are out there, that we get slaughtered by many opponents in that particular stat? If it's true that the team has the potential to be really good otherwise, it's gotta be so disheartening to the other players. The lacrosse face-off is so interesting to me as there's really nothing like it in sports. Can you imagine if there was a jump ball after every basket in basketball or some sort of scrum after every TD or FG in football? It feels like currently we are the opponent trying to win an opening tip against UCF's 7-6 Tacko Fall.

I cant imagine why we have not been able to recruit a face off specialist. I assume that was a major priority for the coaching staff after we lost the original specialist we had from day one. That was 2 years ago though. Why they were not successful is a mystery to me. I don't know the exact statistic but it seems like we lose about 3/4's of the face offs. I think we won 5 of 21 on Saturday vs. the Air Force. We lost 11-7. IF we had won 1/2 of them, the AF would likely not have scored 11 goals and we would have scored more than 7. Good BB analogy. Its like having a jump ball after a score and your biggest man is 5'9". I am sure the coaches have tried to teach up some non specialists on the team but face offs are a real skill that is developed over many years. I know a family that has sent 2 generations of F/O specialists to UVA on scholarships in that skill. I hate to see a really good program being thrown under the bus because of this situation and I really feel for the kids. Lacrosse and Furman are a really good match.

[FUBeAR]

So what's the solution? Clearly it must not be something that can be taught or else I'm sure the coaching staff would have done so in the last few years. So what's the process for recruiting a draw-control specialist? And how many good ones are out there, that we get slaughtered by many opponents in that particular stat? If it's true that the team has the potential to be really good otherwise, it's gotta be so disheartening to the other players. The lacrosse face-off is so interesting to me as there's really nothing like it in sports. Can you imagine if there was a jump ball after every basket in basketball or some sort of scrum after every TD or FG in football? It feels like currently we are the opponent trying to win an opening tip against UCF's 7-6 Tacko Fall.

Same - I was trying to think of analogy to it from other sports and couldn't come up with a good one - maybe high level tennis - use both players hit 1 ball to see who can get a ball closest to the opposite baseline to start AND between every game...and the 'winner' gets to serve that game...The Player Ranked #1 in ATP wins over 92% of the games he serves and the Player ranked #200 STILL wins 75% of the games he serves. Winning Faceoffs in LAX is almost THAT important, I think. It seems (not 100% sure) that Teams average about 50 possessions/game...so, yeah, possession does change frequently...about every 40 'clock seconds' - so it's similar to College Hoops...and they now, just this year have added a 'shot clock' - 80 seconds (which I think includes 20 seconds to 'clear' their defensive zone and 60 seconds to shoot....and about 26 Faceoffs/game. So, if we look at the Top NCAA Team FO % (Yale), it gives them 16 more possessions/game than their opponents. The worst FO % Team (St. Bonaventure) averages 13 fewer possessions than their opponents. Furman 'only' averages 4.25 fewer possessions than their opponents.

Someone asked about FO wins result in Goals...while I can't find a stat with that direct correlation...I can calculate it. The average number of NCAA Goals/Game/Faceoffs Won is 0.89 (mean & median) with a range of 0.55 (Marist) to 1.37 (Army). So...you could stretch that a bit and say that every time your Team wins a Faceoff, they are going to score a Goal (almost)...maybe not on THAT Faceoff, but overall.

Below (if you can read it) is some of that data for the NCAA LAX Top 10 in Faceoff % and all SoCon Teams. Furman is 56th in the NCAA & 5th in the SoCon, ahead of Richmond, Bellarmine, and Jacksonville.

RANK TEAM GAMES FOS WON FOS LOST TM FOT PCT. FO/Game FO Won /Game FO Lost /Game +/- Possessions GOALS PER GAME Goals /Game /FO Won
1 Yale 5 112 31 143 0.783 28.60 22.39 6.21 16.19 69 13.80 0.62 [Team is Ranked #3 in NCAA]
2 Towson 7 143 45 188 0.761 26.86 20.44 6.42 14.02 91 13.00 0.64 [Team is Ranked #8 in NCAA]
3 Lehigh 8 124 57 181 0.685 22.63 15.50 7.13 8.37 84 10.50 0.68 [Team is Ranked #15 in NCAA]
4 Marist 6 89 45 134 0.664 22.33 14.83 7.50 7.33 49 8.17 0.55 [Team is Unranked in NCAA]
5 Hobart 7 142 74 216 0.657 30.86 20.27 10.58 9.69 117 16.71 0.82 [Team is Ranked #22 in NCAA]
6 Massachusetts 8 129 69 198 0.652 24.75 16.14 8.61 7.52 104 13.00 0.81 [Team is Unranked in NCAA]
7 Cleveland St. 9 135 79 214 0.631 23.78 15.00 8.77 6.23 88 9.78 0.65 [Team is Unranked in NCAA]
8 UMass Lowell 8 123 75 198 0.621 24.75 15.37 9.38 5.99 74 9.25 0.60 [Team is Unranked in NCAA]
9 Holy Cross 8 116 74 190 0.611 23.75 14.51 9.24 5.27 74 9.25 0.64 [Team is Unranked in NCAA]
10 Detroit Mercy 7 117 75 192 0.609 27.43 16.70 10.72 5.98 79 11.29 0.68 [Team is Unranked in NCAA]

16 High Point 8 138 94 232 0.595 29.00 17.26 11.75 5.51 120 15.00 0.87 [Team is Ranked #10 in NCAA]
22 Air Force 7 91 72 163 0.558 23.29 12.99 10.29 2.70 84 12.00 0.92 [Team is Unranked in NCAA]
46 Mercer 7 86 98 184 0.467 26.29 12.28 14.01 -1.73 61 8.71 0.71 [Team is Unranked in NCAA]
55 VMI 6 66 88 154 0.429 25.67 11.01 14.66 -3.64 60 10.00 0.91 [Team is Unranked in NCAA]
56 Furman 8 92 126 218 0.422 27.25 11.50 15.75 -4.25 89 11.13 0.97 [Team is Unranked in NCAA]
61 Richmond 8 80 121 201 0.398 25.13 10.00 15.13 -5.13 96 12.00 1.20 [Team is Ranked #21 in NCAA]
62 Bellarmine 7 69 108 177 0.390 25.29 9.86 15.42 -5.56 61 8.71 0.88 [Team is Unranked in NCAA]
68 Jacksonville 8 82 142 224 0.366 28.00 10.25 17.75 -7.50 92 11.50 1.12 [Team is Unranked in NCAA]

So...maybe not as bad as presented...but I don't know....FUBeAR likes LAX. He doesn't understand it.

Same Stats (sort of) for Individuals...

RANK NAME TEAM CL POSITION GAMES FOS WON FOS LOST FOS TAKEN TM FOT PCT.
1 TD Ierlan Yale So. FO 5 103 31 134 143 .769
2 Alex Woodall Towson Jr. 7 136 43 179 188 .760
3 Conor Gaffney Lehigh Jr. 8 107 47 154 181 .695
4 Dan O'Connell Holy Cross Jr. 7 110 55 165 190 .667
5 Peyton Smith Marist Jr. 6 87 44 131 134 .664
6 Matthew Pedicine Hobart Sr. 7 138 70 208 216 .663
7 Jakob Phaup Syracuse So. 6 62 32 94 161 .660
8 Tom Meyers Massachusetts Sr. 8 113 60 173 198 .653
9 Gerard Arceri Penn St. Jr. 7 100 57 157 229 .637
10 Danny Tesler Cleveland St. Jr. 9 124 71 195 214 .636

17 Trent Harper Air Force Sr. 7 80 50 130 163 .615
20 Davis Sampere High Point Jr. FO 8 105 69 174 232 .603
56 Ashton Wood Mercer Fr. 7 45 53 98 184 .459
59 AJ Krstulovic VMI Jr. 6 39 48 87 154 .448
61 Michael Abizaid Furman So. FO 8 54 70 124 218 .435
63 Nick D'Amaro Richmond Sr. M 8 41 54 95 201 .432
67 Hunter Turner Jacksonville Fr. FO 8 74 111 185 224 .400
68 Ryan Murray Richmond So. M 7 36 59 95 201 .379
None from Bellarmine in Top 72 or above 0.263 - actually they do have 3 above that %...and 1 of them seems to 'meet the minimum' on number of FO's, but has only played in 4 games...so maybe that's why he's not included with a .410 win %...lowest number of "Games" on the list is 5.

[Jasper]

Those stats are illuminating, Bear - but like all stats they have to be interpreted. For instance, Richmond has played a tougher overall schedule than Furman so they are lower than us in ranking. Yet they dominated the X when we played them and beat us handily because of that. Conversely, VMI is higher ranked than FU but are the lowest team in the SoCon I believe. We should be about even on face offs with them and therefore should beat them because we are better if many other aspects of the game. Watch the High Point game this weekend. They are 16 in the country in FO winning % - about 60%. - despite the fact they have played a tough schedule. I would think that 60% would go a lot higher against us - maybe 75% and if that happens, it is simply hard for us to compete. You cant score without the ball. Last week we lost 12 of the first 13 FO's and got into a deep hole score wise. That's what happens when we play a good team. We won 5 FO's in the 4th period and made the game score closer than it was. I had to leave and don't know why or how that happened. Perhaps "garbage" time maybe.
My sons played LAX and it is a great game. I don't know why the staff did not do a clinic for fans when the program first started. It is a tough, fast game with tremendous skill players and is very exciting. The FO is what enables teams to come back from large deficits quickly if they can get on a hot streak in the X. I have seen teams make up a 6 goal deficit in the final 5 minutes of a game and win. Lots more southern high schools playing the game and many of the kids who play football are switching over when they see they are not going to be big enough to play Div. 1 football. Lots of 5'10", 210 lbs. running backs with good but not great speed are switching. I don't know half the rules myself but enjoy the games very much.