Eulogizing the 2013 College Lacrosse Season: (48) Georgetown

You spent the better part of four months meticulously dissecting the 2013 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 63 teams and their 2013 campaigns, mostly because everything needs a proper burial.

I. VITAL SIGNS

Team: Georgetown Hoyas

2013 Record: 6-9 (3-3, Big East)

2013 Strength of Schedule (Efficiency Margin): -0.70 (35)

2012 Strength of Schedule (Efficiency Margin): 1.06 (22)

Winning Percentage Change from 2012: -13.85%

2013 Efficiency Margin: -6.17 (48)

Efficiency Margin Change from 2012: -5.07

II. "ATTA BOY!" FACT

• Georgetown entered 2013 as a team that many thought would potentially surprise: With Kevin Warne and Matt Rewkowski leading a relatively veteran team, the Hoyas had the look and feel of a club that could crush a couple of skulls and potentially lurk as dark horse NCAA Tournament invitee. Unfortunately, things didn't start well for Georgetown: An overtime loss to Lafayette opened the season, a loss to Mount St. Mary's pushed the team's record to 2-3 (without a notable win), consecutive losses to Loyola and Duke in mid-March made things worse, and an uneven effort against Marquette made many question where the Hoyas would end up at the end of April with the bulk of Georgetown's Big East schedule remaining. The Hoyas could have wilted down the stretch -- Georgetown's remaining regular season games were against Villanova, St. John's, Notre Dame, Syracuse, and Rutgers, with all (except the Scarlet Knights) playing stronger ball than the Hoyas) -- but Georgetown, almost suddenly, became the team that many expected at the sunrise of the 2013 season: an average team that played with moments of brilliance. Now, Georgetown went just 2-3 in that stretch but played strong enough to get themselves into the Big East Tournament, salvaging a campaign that was edging on disaster. More importantly, over those final six games the Hoyas played better: Compared to the team's season-long performance values, Georgetown was more offensively efficient (about three-and-a-half goals better per 100 offensive opportunities), more defensively efficient (about four-and-a-half goals stronger per 100 defensive opportunities), shot the ball better (just over two percent more accurate) and decreased the team's defensive shooting rate (about four percent stronger), increased the effectiveness of the team's offensive ball movement (generating about a third of an assist more per 100 offensive opportunities) and dramatically decreased ball watching on the defensive end (the team was almost three assists better per 100 defensive opportunities), and generally became a more fun team to watch (in the "Fun Factor" scale, Georgetown increased about two points, finding a position that ranked it among the Loyola's and Ohio State's of the world). That's notable development, and it came in a portion of the Hoyas' season in which it was facing a difficult slate of opponents. It took until the dawn of April for Georgetown to become the team many wanted to see on The Hilltop, but it eventually showed up.

III. "YOU'RE GROUNDED UNTIL YOU QUALIFY FOR THE AARP!" FACT

• New regimes often carry with it a degree of growing pains; players must adapt to a new culture and level of expectations while coaches need to bend their charges to their will. The Hoyas weren't immune to that last season: With losses to Lafayette and Mount St. Mary's, not to mention close victories against Dartmouth and Navy, the start to the Hoyas' season came with complimentary eyes-leaking-blood. (Full disclosure: Based on year-end log5 calculations, Georgetown would have been a favorite only against Lafayette; all other games qualified as a "push.") Seeing what Georgetown became over its last six games, though, makes you wonder what could have been for the Hoyas in 2013 had Georgetown stormed out of the gates: The team's Pythagorean win expectation for the season was 34.70 percent; its Pythagorean win expectation in its last six games was 54.89 percent. The Hoyas had all kinds of opportunities in its favor this season and seemingly wasn't able to capitalize on them through the first two months of the season, frustratingly attempting to find momentum and an identity. Seeing a team that was among the nationally average at the end of the year spend much of the season among the bottom third carries weapons-grade pathos. Georgetown was priming the engine when it had the potential (based on the way that the Hoyas closed the year) to simply punch the accelerator and get up to 88 miles per hour. The residue is a thick "What if?" which is a tough way to look back on a season.

IV. MR. FIX-IT HAS A ONE-FIX ENGAGEMENT, AND IT'S . . .

• Let Warne, Rewkowski, and Brian Phipps take care of business. Georgetown showed important maturation in April, and the foundation for what this staff is looking to lay is curing nicely. There are few programs in the nation that have the kind of staff that the Hoyas have assembled; this is a group that can develop the roster into a strong Big East tent pole program. The process is starting to come into focus, and as long as Georgetown sticks to the plan, good things should come in the future.