College Crosse Prospectus - March 3, 2017: Michigan Over Mercer, Ben Williams Expected To Play Versus Virginia.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD MORNING, College Crosse Nation!! Thanks for making us a part of your day! Here are your links for March 3, 2017.

College Crosse News.

The Wolverines handled their business last night against Mercer 9-2. Chris did a recap of the game here.

Syracuse fans are going to love this: “Good news at the 'X' as Ben Williams expected to return for Syracuse lacrosse.”

Syracuse lacrosse coach John Desko said Thursday afternoon that All-American faceoff man Ben Williams should be healthy enough to play Sunday when Virginia visits the Carrier Dome.

An unspecified ailment forced Williams to miss his team's 14-13 loss to Army on Saturday. In his absence, Dan Varello went 10-17 for the Orange on faceoffs and Cal Paduda was 3-13.

"Practiced today, should be good to go,'' Desko said of Williams. "I think that Army had a lot of possessions, especially in the first half. Some people were questioning why we didn't get certain people in on offense. We didn't have the ball at the offensive end of the field much. They were able to generate a lot of shots. I think having Ben out there, we would have had some more faceoffs and had the ball more on the offensive end of the field.''

Here’s a preview of the Syracuse vs. Virginia game by the good people at Citrus TV. (Ed. Note: They do need Chris on this show one of these days.)

Our man @OrangeLax with a nice preview UVA vs. Syracuse of his own for Troy Nunes.

These new Syracuse lids are pretty sweet.

Penn State’s Mac O'Keefe’s early play has turned a lot of heads.

Penn State men's lacrosse coach Jeff Tambroni admitted he's never seen a stretch like this before -- especially from a freshman. Mac O'Keefe, a 19-year-old attacker, leads the NCAA in goals scored with 24 in four games, his first four games at the collegiate level. For context, Penn State's goals leader all of last season was Nick Aponte with 30 over 15 games. If O'Keefe keeps to his six goals per game average, he'll tie Aponte's 2016 mark when the No. 5 Nittany Lions host No. 8 Penn at noon Saturday.

So, it begs the question: How has O'Keefe taken the lacrosse world by storm? Tambroni said he'd be stretching the truth to say he predicted O'Keefe would be atop the nation's scoring list -- but the former national coach of the year always knew the potential was there. "He has the skill and, as a freshman, it's whether or not you have the confidence," Tambroni said. "Do you have the poise to make those plays when the lights are on? At this point, Mac has answered the bell every single way."

Learn about US Lacrosse’s Tenacity Project, “a national movement to get more girls playing lacrosse and learning life lessons through sports.”

“University of Notre Dame senior men's lacrosse players Shane Doss, Nick Koshansky, Anthony Marini and Sergio Perkovic have been selected as captains for the 2017 University of Notre Dame men's lacrosse squad.”

ESPN W. with a nice article about Riley Donahue and how she handles the being a part of a Syracuse lacrosse dynasty.

To make it in lacrosse, especially in Syracuse, a region with strong historic ties to one of the country's oldest team sports, means a great deal, especially considering how much lacrosse has grown nationally. While the sport has spread all the way to the Pacific coast, its history stands strongest in New England and the mid-Atlantic. Succeeding in lacrosse at Syracuse means you are good.

Living up to the family name of a local lacrosse dynasty? That means you are very good.

"We've always come so close," Riley says. "It's in the back of your head. But don't let the family [legacy] define you."

Growing up, Riley joined her brothers as five or six neighborhood yards went up against one another. Each house had kids around the same age, and as Riley's older brothers rallied the neighborhood kids to play in big games, she eagerly joined in.

"Even though Riley's 4 years younger, it was never a problem," Dylan says. "She just showed up, and she could hang around."

The only "issue" was that she kept playing with a short-handed boys' stick.

"We eventually realized we just needed to get a girls' stick," Kevin says, "since she's actually playing the sport ... and she was playing it well."

Rutgers wants to focus on Brown and not its high ranking to start the season.

“It’s nice to win,” Brecht said. “When you’re 4-0 in the month of February and you’re ranked tenth in the country, I would think confidence is very high.”

But a top-10 ranking does not satisfy Brecht right now. While he admits it is nice to have the ranking, he wants the team to continue its success and maintain a top-10 mark throughout the entire season.

The Knights are not even a third of the way through their season, with five more games before they start conference play. Although the Big Ten currently has three top-five teams in the country, Rutgers conference wins were not enough to get them into the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Tournament.

What is the fix? This season’s non-conference schedule is identical to last year’s, except for one team — Brown. The Knights nixed Monmouth for a preseason top-10 team to help boost their resume come postseason.

“Obviously it’s a long season It’s nice being ranked 10th in the country right now, but I want to be ranked 10th in the country when we head into the month of May,” Brecht said. “Obviously this Saturday will go a long way with helping that.”

The good people at 18 Stripes with a fun tongue-in-cheek article here.

Before we get to the business of the upcoming lacrosse action between #1 Maryland and #4 Notre Dame (Saturday at noon, Arlotta Stadium, ESPN3), we must first discuss the misguided efforts at co-optation by supporters of the Maryland lacrosse team of the style and image of one of the greatest hip-hop groups of all time. The use of the term Run-DMC to refer to the members of the Maryland attack is a tragic failure for more reasons than we can count, but we ask them to consider three and to refrain from further defiling the name of this great band:

What’s Up, Philly?

This Temple grad really hustled after graduation. Too bad it was to create a $54M ponzi scheme.

With little more than a Temple University degree and access to a few acres of Eastern Tennessee highlands, Troy Wragg built a revolutionary real estate and energy firm that attracted more than $54 million in financial backing.

At least that’s what he told his investors.

In truth, the 35-year-old admitted Thursday, even as his Bala Cynwyd-based Mantria Corp. was promising to make its backers “stinkin’, filthy rich,” the company was bleeding millions of dollars a quarter.

Chip Kelly to do tv? YES, PLEASE!!!

After being fired by the 49ers, Chip Kelly has been linked to a couple of once-vacant offensive coordinator jobs, but failed to impress the Atlanta Falcons, the Jacksonville Jaguars or the New England Patriots enough to land a gig. Now, he might be setting his sights on television. According to Yahoo! Sports' Charles Robinson, the former Eagles and 49ers head coach has auditioned for a job with FOX as a game analyst.

World/National News.

Megyn Kelly vs. Matt Lauer at NBC is going to be so much fun to follow.

Now she is in place. But she is not there all by herself: another pricey star has been at NBC for a very long time. Matt Lauer is one of the highest-paid men in television news—he reportedly will receive up to $25 million a year through at least 2018 under the terms of his latest contract. Many rivals, superiors, counterparts, and colleagues have fallen by the wayside during his 20 years atop Today, which attracts just over 4 million viewers every morning (down from 5.5 million in 2008). He has survived many storms at NBC News, always emerging more powerful from each wave of turmoil. Lauer is very good at what he does as a morning-show host, and he has become a big figure in the television-news landscape—even as the landscape itself has contracted.

Your GIF for March 3, 2017: The real batman.

That’s it for today!! I’ll see you out there!! Make sure you follow us on social media!

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Managing Editors: Safe Fekadu, Chris Jastrzembski, Ryan McDonnell.