GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD MORNING, College Crosse Nation!! Thanks for making us a part of your day! Here are your links for February 15, 2018.

#WhitneyInOT

Shout out to Chris for putting this one together.

College Crosse News.

Check out our Week 2 Aggregation of the all the top polls and our own in the graph directly below. Additionally, check out how everyone here at College Crosse voted in our College Crosse Top 20 Poll for this week & our Week 2 Elimination Pool picks here.

Ryan, Chris, & I tapped a new Crossecast on Tuesday night.

The NCAA Lacrosse regular season is now in full-swing, and that means the return to our traditional format here at College Crossecast! Want some analysis on the results of the past week? A look ahead to the big games on the horizon? Maybe even some debate and banter? We’ve got you covered.

I’m joined by Safe and Chris as we go around the world of college lacrosse. We tackle the latest news and notes on the week (2:15), dive into the results of the past weekend (8:00), dissect the top 20 polls (1:02:00) and throw our own top 20’s out for you to debate. From there we get you set for a jam packed weekend, highlighted by Denver-Duke and Albany-Syracuse (1:16:15) and make our picks for the big games (1:29:00).

The Courier Journal fired back at Michigan men’s lacrosse manager’s Twitter account after the manager account put up a Tweet making fun of Bellarmine & Kentucky.

You rarely see the word “garbage” in a title and I don’t think I’ve ever seen one that was related to lacrosse, so this really is a “We Made It!!” moment for lacrosse fans.

Men’s Lacrosse Weekly talks to RMU’s Corson Kealey, Jimmy Perkins, & head coach Drew McMinn.

Albany is ready for their big game versus Syracuse this weekend.

Scott Marr laughed at first, then grew more serious as he worked his way through his thoughts about taking on Syracuse this weekend. His University at Albany men’s lacrosse team has lofty expectations, internally and externally, about how its 2018 season will play out -- and the Great Danes are something of a national darling, too, because of their fun style on and off the field.

So Saturday’s season-opening trip to the Carrier Dome to play the Orange puts the Great Danes in a unique situation. Many expect them to win a game they usually lose, and to do so in convincing fashion. “Everybody is hyping this game like we’re going to win by 10 goals. That’s just not a realistic scenario,” said Marr, whose program is 1-15 all-time against Syracuse. “They’re a team that’s better than they were last year. I think they’re more unselfish, and they have more guys that can score goals for them. Defensively, they’re better.” And? “Let’s be honest, OK?” Marr said. “Nobody on this team has beaten Syracuse.”

Not bad at all.

Towson will host the 2021 women’s lacrosse world cup.

Towson University has been selected to host the women’s lacrosse World Cup when it returns to the United States for the third time in 2021, Federation of International Lacrosse officials announced Wednesday. Towson’s Johnny Unitas Stadium will be the third United States venue to host the games, which date to 1982. The event was held in Swarthmore, Pa., in 1986 and in Annapolis in 2005.

The United States has won eight of ten women’s lacrosse World Cup titles, including the past three. However, Australia defeated the U.S. in the title game both times it was held on American soil. The World Cup will be held July 7-17 in 2021.

Here’s a nice post about Richmond’s Mitch Goldberg.

The University of Richmond lacrosse program lost a staff member and regained a prolific scorer during the offseason. Assistant coach Mitch Goldberg left. Fifth-year senior Mitch Goldberg returned.

Goldberg was the Spiders’ top offensive player from their inaugural season of 2014 through April of 2016, when he seriously injured his left knee against Virginia at Robins Stadium. Goldberg missed the remainder of that season, and all of 2017.

“Once I realized I wasn’t able to play last year, coach (Dan Chemotti) wanted to keep me involved, and I wanted to stay involved,” said Goldberg.

Chemotti invited Goldberg to become a student assistant coach while rehabilitating, an arrangement that Chemotti feels benefited both parties.

“(Goldberg) would see things in the game that no other coach would see. He was able to communicate with the guys very clearly,” said Chemotti, whose team went 12-4 in 2017.

2-0 Lehigh travels down to North Carolina this weekend to dance with the Tar Heels.

The Lehigh men’s lacrosse team is gearing up to travel to Chapel Hill on Saturday, Feb. 17 to compete against the University of North Carolina, a top-15 team that won its fifth national title in 2016.

The Mountain Hawks are 2-0 this season, recording a 13-8 home win against the New Jersey Institute of Technology in their Feb. 3 season opener and another 13-8 win at Mercer University last Saturday, Feb. 10. The team is eager to capitalize on a potential win against UNC (2-0) to set the tone for the rest of the season.

“We are hoping to have the best practice and training week of the season so we can be prepared to play our best game of the season,” coach Kevin Cassese said. “Preparing for and playing a team like this will make us a better team.”

Junior defender Craig Chick said the team pushed itself in the off season to prepare for its challenging schedule during the regular season. He was one of three players who was named preseason all-league.

What’s Up, PhilaJersey?

What an idiot: Franklin Institute partygoer stole thumb off 2,000-year-old Chinese statue, feds say.

More than a month after the defacing of an ancient piece of Chinese cultural heritage, federal agents in Philadelphia have finally fingered a suspect – a guy, you might say, they now have firmly under their thumb. Prosecutors allege that Michael Rohana, 24, of Bear, Del., sneaked into the Franklin Institute’s “Terracotta Warriors of the First Emperor” special exhibit in December and snapped the thumb off one of the priceless statues inside. With the filched finger shoved in his pocket, he left an after-hours “Ugly Sweater Party” he was attending at the museum that night and kept the clay digit in a desk drawer in his bedroom for more than three weeks. Luckily, though – said FBI Art Crime Team investigator Jacob B. Archer in an affidavit filed in federal court – Rohana left his thumbprints all over this crime.

World/National News.

No one is attending any of the games at the Olympics.

Shortly after 11 a.m. for the last several days, Sung Baik-yoo, the chief spokesman for the organizers of the 2018 Winter Olympics, has leaned into a microphone at a news conference and provided a ticket sales update. The news is always a little more positive than the day before.

By Thursday, Sung said organizers were within one percent of their target of 90 percent sold out, a figure that equals about one million tickets sold. Yet the scene at venues here in Pyeongchang, South Korea, from the ski slopes in the mountain cluster to the ice sports stadiums of Olympic Park, tells a story far different from Sung’s pronouncements of success.

Swaths of empty blue seats have been a familiar backdrop despite organizers’ efforts to fill in gaps by providing volunteers with so-called passion tickets that allow them to attend events and by bringing in school groups by the busload.

So far, fans have been able to show up right before the start of all but the most popular events and buy a ticket.

Your GIF/Video for February 15, 2018.

NO! You get this one!

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.