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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: Stony Brook Seawolves
2013 Record: 7-9 (2-3, America East)
2013 Strength of Schedule (Efficiency Margin): -1.33 (40)
2012 Strength of Schedule (Efficiency Margin): 0.03 (35)
Winning Percentage Change from 2012: +2.57%
2013 Efficiency Margin: 1.59 (25)
Efficiency Margin Change from 2012: -1.77
II. "ATTA BOY!" FACT
- This may create some cognitive dissonance -- and if so, don't feel bad: the Internet computing machine is really good at doing it -- but here's some truth earned through control of circumstances: Stony Brook, despite a sub-.500 overall record and a middling 2-3 effort in the America East, was one of the more interesting teams to watch in 2013. In fact, the Seawolves were arguably among the most fun dozen or so teams in the nation last season. This position is built on both Stony Brook's style of play and their actual performances, using foundational tent poles that I've planted as indicia of what creates fun and what doesn't (in function, the "Fun Factor" scale). Here's how the Seawolves stacked up in the scale at the close of the season:
YOU CAN GO 7-9 AND BE FUN! I SWEAR! METRIC VALUE NT'L RANK Fun Factor 4.40 9 Adjusted Offensive Efficiency 33.99 13 Adjusted Defensive Efficiency 32.40 35 Raw Offensive Shooting Rate 35.25% 2 Pace 66.02 34
III. "YOU'RE GROUNDED UNTIL YOU QUALIFY FOR THE AARP!" FACT
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This is what I wrote about Stony Brook last year:
Here's a great way to ruin things: Have a great offense and never give it the damn ball. On the year Stony Brook drew at only 37.22 percent, a mark that ranked 58th in the country. / / This woeful effort on the whistle helped Stony Brook to the fifth-worst possession margin mark in the nation at an almost four possession deficit per 60 minutes of play. Had the Seawolves been able to draw at the national average -- around 50 percent -- Stony Brook actually moves into a positive possession position, about two extra opportunities per 60 minutes of play. That's pretty significant for a team that scored a goal on just about every third possession they'd have.
This is what I'm going to write about Stony Brook in 2013: Here's a great way to ruin things: Have a great offense and never give it the damn ball. The Seawolves' biggest problem this past season was the same issue they encountered in 2012: A suffocating inability to generate possessions (but unlike 2012, the Seawolves added an additional degree of difficulty by failing to maximize opportunities to work in functional offensive possessions). This chart illustrates Stony Brook's underlying possession problems:STONY BROOK'S PERVASIVE POSSESSION PROBLEMS METRIC VALUE NT'L RANK Opportunities per 60 Minutes Margin -5.22 60 Possession Ratio 46.05% 60 Faceoff Percentage 40.43% 57 Clearing Percentage 82.55% 55 Ride Percentage 9.42% 58
IV. MR. FIX-IT HAS A ONE-FIX ENGAGEMENT, AND IT'S . . .
- Possession-generation, possession-generation, possession-generation, possession-generation, possession-generation, possession-generation, possession-generation, possession-generation, possession-generation, stronger play from within the crease, possession-generation, possession-generation, possession-generation, possession-generation.