Getting sick of John Tillman

A couple of years ago, the university of Maryland hired John Tillman to turn around their lacrosse program. After a couple of years in starting to think that Tillman is part of the reasons why the Terps fail to win on the games biggest stage. Tillman's slow it down offensive game doomed them against Denver in the National Title game.

During the game yesterday, Tillman's offense looked out of step. The hold the ball for a 45 seconds game made the Terps look terrible on offense. There where several different chances that the Terps could have gotten out and run but instead they pulled the ball out and ran lack luster offensive sets. This is a team that has Matt Rambo in attack and they couldn't find a way to get him a good look. 

I'm not saying Tillman needs to go, but a chance in offensive style is needed. If not it could another four decades until Maryland wins the title. 

Professional Tailgating: lacrosse goes west

The NCAA Lacrosse championships have been on Philly before and I decided to not to go but this year that changed. My son and I headed up and loved it and saw Denver become the first team west of the Mississippi to win the National Title. 

Professional Tailgating: Lax Gameday

   

After weeks of promising my son I would take him to a lacrosse, I finally did. On Saturday we made our way to Princeton for their game against Rutgers. 

 

A drink for every game

The gang over at College Crosse has done lacrosse fans a favor and put together Drink Pairings. The pairings put together adult beverages and this weekends first round games. A must have list for any fan.

It's tourney time

After months of waiting the NCAA Lacrosse tournament is set to start. Here are our picks for the opening round of the tournament:

• Lehigh (12-4) at No. 5 North Carolina (12-3): North Carolina 
• Yale (11-4) at No. 8 Penn State (12-4):  Yale 
• Detroit (5-9) at No. 2 Notre Dame (10-4): Notre Dame
• Albany (13-4) at No. 4 Denver (12-4): Albany  
• Towson (10-7) at No. 3 Ohio State (12-3): Ohio State 
• Loyola (Md.) (11-4) at No. 7 Duke (12-5): Loyola 
• Bryant (8-10) at No. 1 Syracuse (13-3): Cuse 
• Cornell (12-3) at No. 6 Maryland (10-3): Cornell  

Quick Thoughts NCAA Lacrosse Tournament

Here are so quick thoughts on the field of 16 for the NCAA Lacrosse Tournament.
• Surprised Syracuse Number 1 overall seed, thought it would be North Carolina.
• Seems the committee valued Penn State a national seed despite dropping CAA title game.
• How is North Carolina a 5 seed nationally despite being ranked first in both media polls. Don't get it.
• Denver/Albany sign me up now for if. First one to 20 goals wins. Glad they paired two offensive teams up like this best thing for fans.
• I know Dick Vitale is smiling somewhere when he saw Detroit vs. Notre Dame.

Is lacrosse on the down slide

Over the weekend the NCAA held their lacrosse championship in Foxboro, Mass. The event was lowest draw since 2002. Does this main lacrosse's popularity is falling. Inside Lacrosse takes a look at the attendance and what changes could be coming. Was some the lack of attendance because of lack of area schools or is it at trend. I think that is the question that needs to be answered.

Cover Story: Loyola finally does it

After years of playing second fiddle to Hopkins and Maryland, Loyola has finally had their day in the sun Monday. The Greyhounds beat Maryland to claim their first National Championship in lacrosse. Here is how the front page of the Baltimore Sun covered the events in Foxboro.

There is no reason for Rutgers to be this bad at lacrosse

During the last couple of weeks, Only Time Will Tell officials have been spending a lot of time watching lacrosse and specifically college lacrosse.

During that time one thing has become clear, there are a lot of good players from New Jersey that are playing in other states.That got me to thinking, if there are so many good players coming out of the Garden State, then why is the Rutgers Lacrosse program a train wreck.

Just look around at lacrosse's traditional powers and you will see a Garden State flavor. Duke features three kids from Jersey. Virginia features four kids including Scott McWilliams, defender, from Mountain Lakes and Chris LaPierre, midfielder, from Medford. Johns Hopkins features five kids including standout midfielder Rob Guida from Chatham. Notre Dame features six kids from the Garden State. While Syracuse features five kids from New Jersey. The situation is almost as bad as the situation that Rutgers football was in about a decade ago and they have seemed to turn it around.

Now the school has the chance to turn everything around. On Monday Jim Stagnitta, who spent the past nine seasons coaching the Rutgers men’s lacrosse team, has announced his resignation. Stagnitta’s nine-year tenure was highlighted by consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances in 2003 and ’04, but the program languished in recent years. The Scarlet Knights turned in losing seasons in six of the last seven years, including a 6-9 mark this spring. Stagnitta compiled a 58-82 record after taking over for Tom Hayes — the winningest coach in program history — in 2001-02.

With the search for a new coach on, this is the chance for Scarlet Knights to make a real impact on the lacrosse field again. The school has to go out and spend the money and hire someone that will help bring recruits to the State University of New Jersey. If they don't make a splash there is a chance that Rutgers lacrosse will continue to be irrelevant.

Land of the Children

The old saying goes: "and a child shall lead them", well at North Carolina that has been the case on the both the basketball court and the lacrosse field. Both teams have been lead by a freshman that are well beyond their years. In basketball the team was carried in the second half of the season by Harrison Barnes (above), while on the lacrosse field the team has been lead by Nicky Galasso (below).

The pair both have a ton in common. Barnes came to North Carolina as the number one player in high school basketball, while Galasso showed up on campus as the best high school lacrosse player in the counry. The two have also fit in really well with their teams. Barnes, after a slow start, came on as the season went on as other members of the teams started to see the skill set that he had. The same is true with Galasso, as the year has gone on he has become a focal point of the offense with his goal scoring and playmaking skills.

While freshman are making an impact at a variety of sports across the board, its rare to see two that are this good, playing this well at the same school. North Carolina has truely become the Land of the Children

Curse of the hats

So this year I got back into lacrosse and bought a couple of hats. I bought a 'Cuse lacrosse hat when I made the trip up there for the Rutgers vs. Cuse football game and also purchased a Hopkins Lacrosse hat at some point during the year.

So these purchased were not good karma for these teams. Cuse was upset in the first round by Army, while Hopkins was run off the field by Duke. I hope for Virginia sake that I don't find a hat of theirs or it could be doom for them.

Making Red Bull Arena work

So Red Bull Arena has opened and its an amazing building, which I got the honor to see on Wednesday night, but their is a question that I keep asking my self. How are they going to make this work. When I say work I mean from a business point of view.

In this economy a building can not survive on one sport alone. I'm not saying turn it into an all purpose facility but I do think that the building needs to hold a couple of different type of events. So far events that are scheduled including the Churchill Cup (Rugby) on June 19 and the Big East Soccer Championships in mid-November.

This is a great start, while not the most sexiest events, these events will bring people in. Another way the building can be used more is to have state finals for soccer there. It would give the players a great feeling of what its like to play in an venue like that. The state already has a similar set up with both the old Giant Stadium and Rutgers Stadium hosting different state football finals. The hosting should not be limited to soccer, maybe even have the lacrosse and football finals there, only if the field is big enough.

How great would a Bergen Catholic vs. Don Bosco sectional football final be in that building. In the past 20,000 people have shown up at Giant Stadium for the game. Sure that is a good number but in a building like Giant Stadium the people get lost, in Red Bull Arena that would be awesome and the atmosphere would be amazing. The Home Depot Center, where the Galaxy play, has a similar set up with hosting the state high school football finals.

These are just a couple of suggestions to make Red Bull Arena a profitable place, hey it did cost them almost $200 million to build the thing.

Professional Tailgating: Rutgers Lacrosse

Last week the OTWT Tailgating Crew made the trip up the Rutgers Spring Game. Because we got there so early we also go to take in a Rutgers Lacrosse practice, which was interesting to watch. This year, Rutgers, competing the in the new formed Big East Lacrosse Conference, is 5-7 so there is still some work to do. This was on my camera so I figured I would just post it.