The final three games of the Big East men’s lacrosse will be played on Friday night across the country, so it’s probably a good time to make some postseason award picks, huh? That Big East conference tournament starts up on April 30th in Rhode Island, and you know the league office is going to fire off the official award results before we get there. Gotta beat them to the punch, y’know?
One tiny hiccup in the proceedings this time around. For whatever reason, the Big East’s official stats page is hallucinating
two Georgetown games. It’s not that they’re giving the Hoyas credit for 13 total games played when they’ve only played 11, it’s that they’re actually giving the players involved goals and assists and so on from those games. Weird! In any case, I’m solving for the erroneous data by using the League Play Only stats to make some picks here. Is that fair in a sport where everyone has played more than 10 total games? Probably not, but it’s the Big East’s fault for having a weird data set.
Onwards!
Offensive Player of the Year: Liam Connor, Georgetown
If you’ve been reading these posts for lacrosse and soccer over the years, then you know that I’m a complete mark for making sure that the people who add assists to the board get the credit that they deserve. Too often, we see the Big East coaches just blindly voting for the player with the most goals even though someone else is doing absolutely sick work when it comes to distribution. Liam Connor is leading the Big East in points per game, and he’s the only guy averaging more than six points a contest. He’s doing this by averaging four assists per game and then ranking fifth in goals per game, too. Connor is one of just two guys with double digit assists through four games of Big East play — Marquette’s Carsen Brandt is the other — and he’s getting my vote.
His older brother Rory Connor is probably going to be the coaches’ pick, and hey, that’s fair. He’s got a one goal lead on Villanova’s Luke Raymond in the goals/goals-per-game department, and at 44 goals on the year, Rory is the only Hoya with more than 17 goals this season….. and the GU player with 17 is Liam.
Defensive Player of the Year: Ty Banks, Georgetown
I’m just guessing here. Banks was the Preseason Defensive Player of the Year back in January and he won this award last season, too. It’s hard to quantify Who Is Good At Defense and the Big East handed out nine Defensive Player of the Week awards to goalkeepers this season. Yes, I get that it’s easy to say “oh, he made 17 saves, best defensive player this week,” but if you’re going to name a DPOY AND a Goalkeeper of the Year, you’ve got to to a better job with the weekly awards. Anyway, the coaches obviously love Banks, let’s just stick with him.
Goalkeeper of the Year: Anderson Moore, Georgetown
If there was ever a year where saves per game are telling you a story of exactly how little a team’s struggle has to do with the goalie, look no further than Grayson Manning in Denver. Over 14 saves a game and he’s stopping 57.6% of shots on frame, but the Pioneers are 1-3 in the league and 5-7 overall. Anyway, Moore is a brick wall, allowing 7.44 goals per 60 minutes and stopping nearly 63% of shots on goal. Both items lead the Big East in conference play, and Moore and his team are 60 minutes away from running the table in Big East play.
Freshman of the Year: Jake Bickel, Georgetown
Hey, I wonder if the Hoyas are any good this year.
Bickel is 10th in the league in points per game in Big East action, scoring seven goals and five assists in Georgetown’s four games so far. He has 14 goals and six assists on the year, making him the #3 scorer on the GU roster behind the Connor boys, and Bickel was named Freshman of the Week three times, too. Seems like an obvious pick, right?
Big East Coach of the Year: Kevin Warne, Georgetown
Villanova misfired non-conference play worse than Georgetown did, Providence is only 6-8 overall, Denver’s a mess, Marquette’s not better than last year when Jake Richard won this, St. John’s has two wins. The Hoyas aren’t going to get into the NCAA tournament without the autobid, but they’re still undefeated in Big East play and none of their games have been particularly close. There isn’t an outstanding and obvious case for Kevin Warne, but you can’t possibly give this to anyone else.
All-Big East Team
Ty Banks, D, Georgetown
Carsen Brandt, A, Marquette
Rhett Chambers, M, Providence
Liam Connor, A, Georgetown
Rory Connor, A, Georgetown
George Glomb, FO, Villanova
David Link, M, Villanova
Jake Melchionni, LSM, Villanova
Charlie McGurrin, D, Georgetown
Anderson Moore, GK, Georgetown
Luke Raymond, M, Villanova
Jack Shoemaker, D, Villanova
The only thing I don’t have in here is a short stick defensive midfielder, which is mostly because 1) it’s hard to read stats and figure out who that guy is and 2) as mentioned earlier, the Big East tabbing goalies as “best defender this week” really handcuffed the entire operation. Still, it was easy to identify Jake Melchionni as the long stick mid on the list because he was Specialist of the Week a season high three times and he’s second in the league in caused turnovers per game. It was just as easy to pick George Glomb as the best faceoff guy when he 1) was Villanova’s top FO guy this season and 2) leads the Big East at 64.5% winning percentage in the four games of league action.
Both of the Connor boys, Banks, and Moore get in by way of their individual honors and/or my point that they are just as likely to get the individual honor. I mentioned Brandt and Raymond when slicing through the OPOY discussion, so there they go. McGurrin leads field players in ground balls per game in league play, while Shoemaker has that honor in caused turnovers, and that makes it easy to give them the honors next to Banks on defense.
That left me with two midfielders to fit in, and I kind of had to hunt around to figure this out a little bit. Chambers is sixth in the league in points per game and seventh in goals, so he seemed obvious, at least because he’s listed as a pure midfielder on Providence’s roster. I went with Link as the third one more because I don’t think Marquette needs another guy on this list, even if Ethan Salvia has been ripping up Big East play as of late. Maybe there’s a two-way middie out there that the Big East coaches really like? I’m also adhering to a strict 3/3/3 system for attack, midfield, and defense here, and I don’t know if the coaches actually have to do that when they’re voting.
Questions? Complaints? That’s what the comments section is there for!
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