The Crease Dive's College Lacrosse Weekend Preview Featuring Chris Gray From Boston University
Chris Gray stepped on campus last year at BU and put up a casual 70 points as a freshman. For the couple of years leading up to last year, Jack Wilson and James Burr were the two dudes for the Terriers so maybe you could have chalked those 70 points up to teams not being prepared for Gray, and also paying a little more attention to Wilson and Burr defensively. So everybody was waiting to see what Chris Gray had in store for his sophomore season, to see if he was the real deal or not. So what has he gone out and done so far this year?
Oh, ya know. Nothing too big or anything like that. He’s just the leading point scorer in the nation right now with 84 points on 35 goals and 49 assists. And he had 8 of those points last weekend as BU laid an absolute goddamn smackdown on Pat Spencer and the Loyola Greyhounds.
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Not a big deal or anything. Just making a game against Loyola look like a summer ball game against a bunch of washed ups.
So this week we had Chris Gray on to talk about the Terriers being the latest sports team in Boston to go on a run, about what it’s like to be a kid from Long Island up in Boston, and then obviously a little talk about bagels and pizza.
You can download/subscribe/listen to this week’s full episode right here on iTunes:
Weekend Preview
I think something that is really important to keep in mind this weekend is that tomorrow is 4/20 (the weed day). So you look around that schedule and there are definitely going to be some funky games. Like imagine playing in Denver on 4/20? All I’m saying is that if I’m looking for a Lock of the Week, I’d put my money on Providence +3.5 and might even take them outright.
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But pot smoking aside, we are now down to the final 2ish weeks of the regular season. As always, the year has flown by and we’re now getting into the games that’ll determine seeding for conference tournaments, as well as resume boosters for teams that’ll need to impress the selection committee for the NCAA Tournament. So there aren’t a ton of great games on the schedule but this time of the year is always so fucky that you never know what’s gonna go down. But here are the games that you can’t miss.
#4 Yale @ Albany | Tonight, 7pm | ESPN+
Since the NCAA semifinal game last year at Gillette, these two teams have gone is complete opposite directions. Yale has two losses on the year but they are both only by 1-goal. Meanwhile, Albany has pretty much been a disaster this year sitting at 5-6 and none of those wins are necessarily quality wins. So as far as the actual lacrosse aspect of this game is concerned, it’ll be a domination from the Bulldogs.
But this is still the spiciest matchup of the weekend considering it’ll be TD Ierlan’s return to Albany after transferring to Yale over the summer. I feel like with the way that Albany’s season has been going so far, they won’t exactly be thrilled to see him back in town. Kind of hard to get over the breakup when one person is clearly winning said breakup, and the other is clearly losing. So between the fact that Yale beat Albany in the Final Four last year and TD Ierlan making his return? This game has the potential to get extra greasy out there. Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if maybe you take TD Ierlan out of this game after the 1st quarter just to be safe, ya know? It’ll be chippy for sure, but I think Yale will most likely have this game under control after the first 15 minutes so no need to let it get too out of hand. But yeah, if there is one quarter of lacrosse you’ll want to watch this weekend, it’ll be the first quarter of Albany v Yale.
#2 Maryland @ #9 Ohio State | Saturday, 1pm | Big Ten Network
Ohio State is coming off of a 1-goal win over Johns Hopkins last weekend. Which was a good win for them, no doubt. But it’s always hard to follow up an emotional game like that and come out the next week with that same energy. Especially considering Maryland is way better and much deeper than Hopkins. And it seems like Maryland is playing their best lacrosse right now after figuring out how their offense runs without Connor Kelly. Maybe the fact that Maryland needs to travel out to Ohio State on a holiday weekend is going to make this game a little closer than it should be, the Terps are still going to TCOB this weekend. Taking Care Of Business has been the motto for this team for the past 5 years. And until the day comes that Maryland is no longer a Final Four team, I will never pick against them against Ohio State. Those are simply just the rules.
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#19 Johns Hopkins @ #1 Penn State | Sunday, 12pm | ESPNU
Penn State’s offense is the biggest wagon in college lacrosse right now. I mean nobody has been able to figure out how to slow them down. Their only loss on the year was a 1-goal loss to Yale in February, and if that game was 30 seconds longer than they probably tie the game up and win in overtime. That’s a serious issue for Johns Hopkins when you look at their losses on the season.
They gave up 17 goals in a loss to Towson. They gave up 18 goals in a loss to Loyola. They gave up 14 goals in a loss to Syracuse. They gave up 16 goals in a loss to Virginia. And they gave up 14 goals in a loss to Ohio State last week. So this Hopkins team has shown that they aren’t necessarily great at shutting down elite offenses. And considering Penn State has the best offense in the nation, it’ll take a miracle for them to be held to anything under 15-16 goals on Sunday. They lowest amount of goals they’ve scored in a game so far this season is 13 and that came against teams like Yale and Maryland.
Now the only thing that makes me a little bit nervous about this game is the fact that Penn State could probably use a loss heading into the conference tournament and NCAA tournament. This time of year is all about peaking at the right moment. You don’t want to be playing your best lacrosse on April 21. You want to save your best game for Memorial Day. So maybe a loss here could kind of reset Penn State and get them peaking at the right time. Or they’ll just end up winning every single game from now until Memorial Day and they’ll just be constantly peaking. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see. But it’s pretty much a win-win for Penn State here.
Now go out there and have yourselves a weekend, boys and girls.
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