Eulogizing the 2013 College Lacrosse Season: (6) Maryland

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: Maryland Terrapins

2013 Record: 10-4 (2-1, ACC)

2013 Strength of Schedule (Efficiency Margin): 2.94 (6)

2012 Strength of Schedule (Efficiency Margin): 3.27 (2)

Winning Percentage Change from 2012: +4.83%

2013 Efficiency Margin: 8.78 (6)

Efficiency Margin Change from 2012: -2.44

II. "ATTA BOY!" FACT

• Prior to the sunrise of the 2013 season, everyone was staring at Maryland and wondering whether the Terrapins would be able to cha-cha under new pace-intensive rules. Long a pragmatic team, Maryland had finished toward the bottom of the country in possessions per 60 minutes of play ("Pace") in 2011 and 2012; much was made that the Terps' dedication to playing lacrosse like a Florida retiree on the interstate underlied the team's back-to-back Memorial Monday appearances in the two seasons preceding 2013. There just wasn't clarity as to how -- and whether -- Maryland would adapt to this new regime. As it turns out, the Terrapins handled things just fine:

  MARYLAND'S ADJUSTMENT TO PACE-INTENSIVE RULES

  METRIC	2011	2012	2013
  Pace	59.77 (55)	59.17 (59)	64.29 (45)
  Adjusted Offensive Efficiency	31.58 (12)	36.76 (3)	34.46 (12)
  Adjusted Defensive Efficiency	24.30 (8)	25.57 (8)	25.68 (12)
  Adjusted Efficiency Margin	7.28 (8)	11.20 (3)	8.78 (6)
  Pythagorean Win Expectation	69.27% (8)	75.51% (5)	71.33% (6)

  The next step for Maryland: Spending all that Big Ten television money on jet packs and proving, once and for all, that the Terps' affection with pace-deflated play was just a phase that they were going through.

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

• Maryland had the look of a crushing destroyer of souls over its first six games of 2013: The team throttled Mount St. Mary's and Hartford to open their campaign; followed those two wins up with a nice victory at Loyola and a shellacking of Duke in Durham; and then quietly earned two nice wins against Stony Brook and Villanova. After that start, however, things kind of went sideways for Maryland: After proving to be -- and I'm quoting from Flight of the Conchords here -- vincible against North Carolina, Maryland meandered through the final portion of its season, seemingly without the volition that characterized the team in the early portion of its schedule. What was most shocking about Maryland's final eight games compared to its first six was that the Terps' offense melted when the heat was turned up:

  MARYLAND'S OFFENSIVE PERFORMANCE: FIRST SIX GAMES VS. LAST EIGHT GAMES

  METRIC	FIRST SIX GAMES	LAST EIGHT GAMES	SEASON VALUE
  Adjusted Offensive Efficiency	38.43	30.24	34.46
  Shots per Offensive Opportunity	0.99	1.05	1.02
  Raw Offensive Shooting Rate	41.28%	26.57%	33.13%
  Assists per 100 Offensive Opportunities	22.62	15.89	19.00
  Opponent Saves per 100 Offensive Opportunities	23.53	32.95	28.60
  Opponent Save Percentage	36.62%	54.14%	45.82%
  Strength of Schedule: Opposing Defenses Faced	32.15	28.00	29.78

  The real driver behind Maryland's decline over the final portion of its schedule was the team's differential in offensive output: The Terps' lost about eight goals per 100 offensive opportunities on the offensive end compared to yielding only about four more goals per 100 defensive opportunities in the second portion of the season compared to the first (interestingly, Maryland played relatively equal offenses -- in terms of offensive efficiency -- in the first six games of its campaign compared to its final eight; this stands in contrast to the difference in strength of opposing defenses that the Terps played over the final eight games of its schedule compared to its first six). The end result of all of this is straightforward: Maryland was a team, based on Pythagorean win expectation, that was anticipated to win 82.56 percent of its games through its first six contests; over its last eight dates, Maryland was an above-average team, expected to win 57.87 percent of its games.

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

• John Tillman brings the top-rated recruiting class to College Park (included in that group is Matt Rambo, who could step in immediately and contribute), but the Terrapins are going to need to replace all kinds of key contributors going into 2014, including its top four scorers from 2013 (Kevin Cooper, Owen Blye, John Haus, Jake Bernhardt), Billy Gribbin, Jesse Bernhardt, Landon Carr, and Curtis Holmes. That's a ton of value that walked out of Byrd Stadium and there are bound to be growing pains for the Terps (even with Niko Amato, Goran Murray, Casey Ikeda, and Michael Ehrhardt returning to form the team's defensive core). How quickly Tillman can fill all of these holes -- especially at the offensive end of the field where the situation is best described as "Mike Chanenchuk, Jay Carlson, and [Your Face Here!]" -- will ultimately determine where Maryland goes in 2014.