Penn St. Week

[Caliknight]

Obviously a big a game. We need to get two wins anywhere to get to the bubble. Getting one at PSU will be hard, but not impossible. We laid an egg offensively Sat, mostly due to unforced simple errors. I don't mind those in the course of making plays but many of the turnovers we had were simple transition passes. We can't do that against PSU or any other decent to good team. Good news is we can clean that up fairly easily.

Another monster game. Not turning it over, groundballs, and more stellar play from Stoller and the D are going to be needed. Their offense can put up numbers and their D is good, but the one place we can attack them from is at the midfield. Their D mids are not our D mids. They can be had.

This game is played for the "Friendship Cup" every year, which I'm not sure why it is called that given their isn't much friendship. It should be renamed the Tom Hayes Cup for obvious reason.

 

[Wagram97]

Win at PSU would give us 2 wins against teams in the top 3 of the RPI (Maryland is current 2 and PSU is 3). We're at 18 in the RPI, the loss against Mich didnt hurt too much, so would think a win and we jump to around 12-10 range.

Plus a win and we should wrap up the #3 spot in the conf tourney (since we own the tie breaker over Maryland even if they win). Then we're hosting a playoff game against a struggling JHU team. Loss to PSU and we're hoping Maryland loses or else we drop to 5 and playing on the road against PSU or Maryland. JHU is stuck at 6 win or lose.

 

[Caliknight]

Can't see Hopkins beating Maryland but you never know, it's a rivalry game. Hard to root for Hopkins because who doesn't want to see them go winless in conference but it would help us so go Hop.

A win at PSU would be massive. Having two wins against to of the top 3 RPI is something I doubt anyone else can boast.

Going to be tough game but we have lanes to win. Strong goaltending and D needs to obviously rule for us, and we need to bury our chances when we get them. I contend their D middies can be vulnerable. I hope the guys don't get too caught up in the former Knight on the other side. Beat him up sure, but they can't lose sight of the overall goal.

 

[rbled]

We need to press transition and initiate from up top early in the shot clock. Teams that are successful working the clock are those that are patient and wait for the D to get out of sync and attack the inside, which we don’t do. The later it gets in the shot clock the more likely we are to put up a low percentage outside shot that either misses the cage and we ending the possession with a shot clock violation or into the goalies stick. We are not a good 6 on 6 offense.

We are best when we’re initiate from midfield either off transition or early in the shot clock and either shoot off the dodge or dodge and dump. We have a decided advantage with our Dmids on offense vs their omids. We need to exploit that. Juengerkes could probably start on most first midfield lines.

 

[Caliknight]

Agreed about early in the shot clock. Sommer has the ability and vision to feed the crease but we don't see it from others, though Aiello has had some nice passes. It's really the missing piece from our offense. When we have great shooting days we put up some decent numbers but when we don't it's a real struggle and much of that comes from not getting shots in that 5 yard range. Our EMO last week was tragic. You could see they kept pushing out more and more to shooters and we simply wouldn't throw it inside to even try and keep the honest. I get we don't have that super slick guy on the inside but still. You have to throw it in there to make them at least know you will so they are forced to honor it.