Each week, we will look back at the games that were to see which players had the largest individual performances. I say largest because the contributions that we can measure (from play by play) tend to be things that are easy to count. This includes, goals, shots, assists, turnovers, penalties, etc. We can’t measure a defender who shuts down an opposing player so completely that he doesn’t even touch the ball. Still, it is interesting to be able to identify the players that really filled it up each weekend and give them a shout out here.
For a bit of background, in order to rank single game performances, we needed a way to condense box score stats to a single number for each player. In order to do this, we relied on our expected goal values methodology, which assigns a goal value to each type of play depending on how often it leads to a goal in the next 60 seconds. By adding up all the expected goals added for each player, we can get to that single number and these rankings.
We have also tagged each performance with the opponent’s ELO rating. The higher the number, the stronger the opponent. This should help to give some context for each performance. Did the player feast on the dregs of D1 or did they put up these numbers against a quality opponent?
Click on any player’s name or the PRO logo () and you’ll head straight to the detailed breakdown on their LacrosseReference PRO page. As opposed to last year, all players appearing in the weekly rundown are unlocked and the information on their page is available to all readers.
Down 4-2, the Dukies won the 2nd half 12-3 to score the victory in DC. All in all, it was not an especially impressive offensive performance (it was their 2nd worst raw efficiency of the season), but for Brennan O’Neill, it was. To me, the 3:1 assist to turnover ratio for him is key. Yes, 6 goals is nice, but you need guys that can do multiple things well. In this one, he was that guy.
Stony Brook hung around with Cuse for quite a while in this one. Ultimately though, Dordevic’s offensive explosion was just too much for them to handle. There was some frustration that likely got worked out in the 2nd half of this one. The 4 GBs that Dordevic added to his line tells me that this was an effort performance too.
Now the question is whether this is something they can build off of as they head into the teeth of ACC play.
If there was any doubt about whether Luke Wierman was an elite FOGO, it was totally exorcised on Saturday at Audi Field. 24 faceoff wins against Petey LaSalla is really something. Add in an assist and it was quite a coming out party for Wierman.
Weirman’s season faceoff win rate is 5th among qualified FOGOs, but according to the faceoff Elo model, he’s now the 2nd rated FOGO in the country behind Lehigh’s Sisselberger.
I don’t want to alarm anyone, but on an opponent-adjusted basis, the Terps are now the #1 offense, the 3rd ranked defense ,and the 4th ranked faceoff unit. That is frightening.
Even after the offensive fireworks, Penn and Princeton are still both top-20 opponent-adjusted defenses. And there were 41 goals scored in this game. That is absurd.
For some more absurdity, Chris Brown is now shooting 58% on the season. And he’s taken just the 3rd most shots on the team. This is such a balance offense; no one has a play share higher than 10%, which is rare. Brown and Alex Slusher are battling for the title of most efficient Tiger. Just so much fun to watch.
It’s a ways away, but circle April 9th, when this offense will meet the #1 defense in the country in the BU Terriers.
Sure, Princeton got the win, but you didn’t think Penn could score 20 goals and not have some representation on the list did you? Sam Handley led the way for the Quakers with a whopping 8 assists.
I have always thought the narrative around Handley underestimated his facilitation skills. In his three seasons in Philly, his Madden-style assist rate rating has gone 93, 99, 91.
Staying in the Ivy League, Gunty was dominant at the faceoff stripe for the Bears. The 85% faceoff win rate helped the Bears to a +15 possession advantage in this game. If not for that, it wouldn’t have been the close game that it ended up being.
Gunty missed the last game against Stony Brook, and it showed. Brown won 85% today after winning just 24% last week. With this performance, he’s up to 14th in the faceoff Elo ratings.
Yale nearly pulled off a Type C victory with their comeback against Cornell. A Type C win is when you have a worse per-possession efficiency than your opponent, but because of a big possession advantage, you still win. Thanks, in large part, to Ramsey, Yale had 14 more offensive possessions than the Big Red did (52 to 38).
Going up against Angelo Petrakis, this was far and away the best game of Ramsey’s young career. The 75% win rate looks even better given that Petrakis has been one of the better FOGOs this year. Oddly enough though, Yale’s 2 best faceoff games have been their 2 losses.
The win rate isn’t going to wow anyone who’s been following Zach Cole’s stats of the years (59% against MSM), but when you account for the 2 points he added, you get a sense why, despite the win rate, he still landed a spot here this week.
This St Joe’s team is going to be a tough team to beat in the NEC this year. As long as Cole’s around, they are probably going to have a possession advantage against anyone they play. But this year, the offense has hit some heights not seen for the Hawks in many years too.
4 in a row for the Falcons! Against Mercer, Crouse was the volume guy, taking 18 shots (season high) and finishing with 6 of the 13 goals. But despite the volume, this was still his 3rd most efficiency game by usage-adjusted-EGA. Now it has been 4 in a row, but this one didn’t come easy.
It was not a great day for the Riverhawks against Jacksonville. The 14 goal margin was the biggest defeat of the season, albeit against the best team Lowell is likely to face this year.
But there was a bright spot, and it was the faceoff play of Liam McDonough, who finished the day winning a season-high 17 faceoffs. Oh, and he added a goal on 3 shots as well. In terms of raw EGA (expected-goals-added), his 5.93 makes this the 6th most productive game of his four-year career. And according to the faceoff Elo model, he’s the 14th rated FOGO in all of Division I at the moment.
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) and you’ll head straight to the detailed breakdown on their LacrosseReference PRO page. As opposed to last year, all players appearing in the weekly rundown are unlocked and the information on their page is available to all readers.
March 28, 2022 @ 11:29 am
Richie LaCalandra LIU 6g/5a doesn’t rate?