Been traveling, here are some thoughts:
-I was rooting hard for Penn State because my brother played there. It's insane to me that they go put in position to rematch the only team that could beat them with "kryptonite" at the faceoff dot. This tournament will be one of the great "what ifs" because 2/3/4 Duke, UVA, Penn could've been any order. They chose to make it rubber match games in the quarterfinals... which were compelling lacrosse... but not necessarily ideal when looking forward to the final four. If you played the semis in any other combination I have little doubt PSU is the champ, but what we got was classic rock-paper-scissors with favorable matchups.
-The Yale vs UVA final was the two least deserving teams to be there since...? Yale cheated with a transfer who was only eligible because of lacrosse's gentlemen's agreement on transfer eligibility out of conference, and everyone saw how UVA got gifted their semifinal birth. It's also absurd to me that a haughty Ivy League school would take someone with three years at Albany and confer a Yale degree on him like it ain't no thang... this happened in the same conference that disallows athletic scholarships and grad transfers. A school that is supposed to be top 5 in academics in the whole world has less stringent academic requirements for a lacrosse transfer than Notre Dame does for undergrad football transfers. What a time to be alive.
-UVA, specifically, had the luckiest season I have ever seen barred none.
-I'm convinced that Notre Dame has missed their window unless they do a Brian Kelly 2017 style rebuild. The defensive talent is wayyyyyyyyyy down from Sexton/Glazener/Epple/Landis. That's just a fact, I didn't realize at the time just how talented those players were. Plus the SSDMs are not what they once were, and our goalie finished outside the top 50 in save percentage. They need to take a long look in the mirror and figure something out because the "recipe" isn't working how it used to.
-I'll give credit where credit is due, the offense was way more balanced than it has been in years past and carried this team in their wins... crazy to think what they could've looked like with Garnsey for a whole year. It will NOT be easy to replace him and Gleason. The overall talent in the midfield next year will be scary though.
-Can't wait to see what Leonard does next year.
-The shot clock was a breath of fresh air. It greatly improved the product on the field in the NCAA, and coaching with it in HS it was apparent that it rewards good defense and punishes slow substitution patterns.