You spent the better part of four months meticulously dissecting the 2012 college lacrosse season. You shouldn't stop now because cold turkey is a bad way to go through life, man. College Crosse is providing decompression snapshots of all 61 teams and their 2012 campaigns, mostly because everything needs a proper burial.
I. VITAL SIGNS
Team: Dartmouth Big Green
2012 Record: 5-9 (1-5, Ivy)
2012 Strength of Schedule (Efficiency Margin): 0.43 (29)
2011 Strength of Schedule (Efficiency Margin): -0.39 (33)
Winning Percentage Change from 2011: 0.00%
2012 Efficiency Margin: -2.61 (39)
Efficiency Margin Change from 2011: +0.50
II. "ATTA BOY!" FACT
- Our computer overlords -- "You can never take my soul, XB00110!" -- ranked it as only the sixth biggest upset of the season, but when the calendar turned to May it became the result that made your brain leak out of your ears due to a system overload of confusion: Dartmouth rolled into Hamilton at the end of February and walked away with a 9-6 victory. The Big Green's defense -- which played at a pretty average clip all season, if not slightly better -- held Tewaaraton winner Peter Baum to three points; freshman carpet bomber Ryan Walsh was limited to a two point day and punishing post-game wind sprints.* (*Maybe. How the hell am I supposed to know (other than by, you know, investigating and stuff (no time for that; I'd rather make up potential lies/truth)).) Even more impressively, Dartmouth's effort against Colgate's deathswarm offense was only one of two times in 2012 that the Raiders failed to score at least double digits in a game (the only other occurrence was against Duke in the national quarterfinals in Philadelphia). Just . . . crazy brain worms infecting college lacrosse; please never find a cure, America.
III. "YOU'RE GROUNDED UNTIL YOU QUALIFY FOR THE AARP!" FACT
- Let's play Carnac the Magnificent for a second: "58th in the country in possession percentage; only held a 46.20 possession percentage in Ivy League games; played at an over four possession deficit per 60 minutes of play; only won 37 percent of their draws on the season." "What is the reason that Dartmouth made people's eyes bleed in 2012." There are only a few teams in the country that can survive without ever having the ball, and the Big Green aren't one of those teams. Compounded by the fact that Dartmouth really needed to volumize their offense this year to make the scoreboard blink (the Big Green only rolled with an offense that was ranked 44th nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency), the huge possession deficits that Dartmouth played with was a huge factor in the team's nine losses -- in only one of those games did the Big Green actually dominate possession (against North Carolina, a 13-10 loss).
IV. MR. FIX-IT HAS A ONE-FIX ENGAGEMENT, AND IT'S . . .
- Dartmouth needs to find ways to generate and maximize possessions. Cleaning up the team's work at the dot is obviously pressing, but the Big Green only cleared at an average rate in 2012. This is a concern -- not on the level of robot invasion, but concerns nonetheless -- that needs some addressing or else another rough Ivy League slate looms for the Big Green in 2013.