2015 NCAA Lacrosse Tournament Championship Preview: (6) Maryland v. (4) Denver

Everything that's worth knowing about Maryland-Denver in the championship of the NCAA Tournament.

Date and Time: Monday, May 25, 2015 at 1:00 ET
Location: Philadelphia, PA (Lincoln Financial Field)
Television/Internet: ESPN2 and WatchESPN have a traditional broadcast; ESPNU has a Spider Cam feed
Game "Fun Factor": 4.59 ("Solid")
Bradley-Terry Victory Probabilities on Massey Ratings Power Ratings (Through 5/17/2015 Games):

The Massey Ratings' matchup probability -- one that illustrates the Pioneers as expecting a 10-9 victory over the Terrapins -- is aggressive, providing the Pioneers with a 58 percent chance of victory. Utilizing the site's power ratings material in a Bradley-Terry model, though, Denver is closer to a 52 percent favorite against Maryland, a probability that aligns much more consistently with other approaches to creating a success probability (including a tempo-free analysis). Terps-Pioneers is decidedly a toss-up game with Denver residing as a tenuous one-goal favorite, a situation that carries forward an insane Championship Weekend in which no team held a probability advantage that advanced past toss-up status. Regardless of whether these are the two best teams in the nation, Memorial Day will feature two concerns that are competitively equivalent, the perfect capstone to an excellent Division I season.

Denver
NCAA Tournament First Round: Beat Brown, 15-9
NCAA Tournament Quarterfinals: Beat Ohio State, 15-13
NCAA Tournament Semifinals: Beat Notre Dame, 11-10 (OT)
Spirit Animal: A Chevrolet LSX 454R crate engine

Maryland
NCAA Tournament First Round: Beat Yale, 8-7
NCAA Tournament Quarterfinals: Beat North Carolina, 14-7
NCAA Tournament Semifinals: Beat Johns Hopkins, 12-11
Spirit Animal: Dr. Christian Szell from Marathon Man

Both Maryland and Denver are comfortable and prefer a deflated pace, and that should generate circumstances in which the Terrapins and Pioneers offer a tempo that hovers around 56 or 57 total possessions. That's slow -- about six opportunities off of the estimated national average -- and it isn't likely to deviate significantly from the expected volume of possessions: Against opponents ranking among the nation’s most efficient at the offensive end of the field, Maryland has averaged about 57 total opportunities per 60 minutes; against opponents ranking among the nation's most efficient at the defensive end of the field, Denver has averaged around 54 total possessions per 60 minutes. The profiles of these two teams -- especially in the context of the offense-defense struggle that will heavily influence the result of the game -- indicate an hour of pragmatism and patience, the residual issue inuring from this situation being whether Maryland-Denver will have sufficient heat around the deflated tempo each team is expected to support: Will this be a tedious sub-60 possession game or a compelling sub-60 possession feud?

• Against opponents ranked in the top 20 in adjusted offensive efficiency (Yale, Princeton, North Carolina, Loyola, and Johns Hopkins), Maryland's defense has excelled in important ways, averaging a raw defensive efficiency rate that ranks below the national adjusted average while yielding only an average of nine goals per game:

  MARYLAND'S DEFENSE AGAINST ITS BEST OFFENSIVE OPPONENTS

  METRIC	VALUE	BEST	WORST
  Raw Defensive Efficiency	31.23	17.39 (Princeton)	53.37 (Hopkins (Reg. Season))
  Raw Defensive Shooting Rate	25.93%	13.33% (Princeton)	40.54% (Hopkins (Reg. Season))
  Raw Shots on Goal Shooting Rate	46.37%	25.00% (Princeton)	65.22% (Hopkins (Reg. Season))
  Team Save Percentage	53.63%	75.00% (Princeton)	34.78% (Hopkins (Reg. Season))

  When Maryland's defensive efficiency value is adjusted for the five opponents it faced in eight games, the rate at which the Terps surrendered goals drops to around 27 percent, a ridiculously low rate relative to the rest of the nation (albeit somewhat higher than the team's overall adjusted defensive efficiency value). Maryland is built to withstand Denver's face-eating offense, an efficient machine that prods, pokes, and attacks from varied approaches. It's not likely that the Pioneers click on 40 percent or more of its offensive opportunities, and that's a major key for the Terps: If Maryland finds itself in a possession disadvantage and is forced deal with defensive exposure, the Terrapins aren't expected to permit an elevated rate of tallies, permitting Maryland to keep the scoreboard manageable in a pace-deflated game. Keeping the Pioneers within nine to 10 goals is a reasonable expectation for the Terps in a 57-possession tilt with Denver holding a three-opportunity advantage, and the volume of allowed markers decreases through both an eroded possession deficit and an even slower overall tempo, assuming Maryland's defense creates defensive stops on more than two-thirds of the team's defensive opportunities.
• Utilizing Patrick McEwen's Elo-based faceoff ratings going into Championship Weekend, Trevor Baptiste is going to have his hands full against Charlie Raffa. Baptiste, the nation's leader in faceoff percentage, is projected to win 50.7 percent of his draws against Raffa, a significantly lower rate than the Pioneers overall faceoff percentage of 60.56 percent. This is problematic for Denver as faceoff victories have been the primary function underlying the Pioneers' nation-leading possession margin, but more importantly, Denver has relied on faceoff wins to create offensive possessions:

  DENVER'S ESTIMATED OFFENSIVE POSSESSION PROFILE

  METRIC	VALUE	NT'L RANK
  Estimated Percent of Offensive Opportunities from Faceoff Wins	51.41%	1
  Estimated Percent of Offensive Opportunities from Clearing Postures	43.28%	69
  Estimated Percent of Offensive Opportunities from Opponent Failed Clears	5.31%	65

  Denver is the only team in Division I to earn more than 50 percent of its estimated offensive possessions from faceoff victories and the Pioneers are one of four teams to have more faceoff victories in 2015 than clearing opportunities. Faceoff execution means different things to different teams (this is a fact that eludes many observers as faceoff play tends to attract attention like a lightning rod, even if it isn't warranted), but for Denver it is profoundly important as (1) the Pioneers develop an insane rate of its offensive opportunities from success at the dot, and (2) Denver's defense hasn't exhibited a persistent ability to construct defensive stops on a per-possession basis, the lack of stops robbing the Pioneers' offense of responsive offensive opportunities. Denver can survive with a 50 percent effort on draws, but it makes the Pioneers' ability to design a lead much more difficult (and also subjects Denver's defense to jeopardizing circumstances).