NCAA Final Four

[More Cowbell]

I also for one am happy that Duke did not win the championship. The disgraced lacrosse with their actions last year. I know that all charges were dropped, and the allegations were false, but the team should have never had the party in the first place. In my opinion they were guilty when the party happened. The players should also not get their year back. Everything that happened was brought on by the Duke players by having the party, and not by anyone else.

So it wasnt brought about by the lies of the woman, or the blatant ethics violations by Nifong? The Duke players should have known that having a party with strippers would spiral into this? are you serious?? Men have strippers at parties all the time, it is not illegal. I don't understand how they disgraced lacrosse..this was 3 innocent kids that didn't do anything wrong but were demonized in the media. If anything the scandal increased the national exposure of lacrosse (like the article on the main page says). I don't understand how you can say these kids brought this on themselves for simply having a party similar to countless college parties across the country.

[byualum]

I thought Q spoke to this pretty well, in particular the impact on Pressler. At a minimum there was underage drinking. It's possible that the hiring of the stripper violated some sort of ethics code of the university or the athletic department. Certainly there was some bad judgement.

Had Pressler stepped-up immediately when he found out and suspended a couple players, could it have saved his job? I don't know. But through this entire ordeal, Pressler is the one guy I could not be any more impressed with. I've got to think he'll be back in the DI ranks pretty soon.

Oh yeah, Rabil is the best player in the country.

[TexOle]

I agree that Q's statements were right on. The team was guilty of stupidity. They should have never put themselves in that situation. Nifong and the others involved should be held accountable for their actions, but can you actually say that the team did nothing wrong? Can you say that the team honored Duke University and lacrosse? If you want lacrosse to grow in popularity due to an incident like this then fine, but I expect more from lacrosse.

[echo 600]

A couple of quick thoughts (moving away from the Duke party topic-quickly):

-two FANTASTIC games this weekend, really what the sport needed with all the publicity and press for the weekend.

-I thought Q did a great job...but I always think that. However, what was with the segments with Q and Danowski and Greer, where pretty much all Danowski did was talk about being on the same page with his teammate? I didn't pick up anything about fastbreaks or driving from the crease. Thought that could have been better.

-Speaking of doing better: I thought the Warrior and Brine commercials were pretty dumb, especially the one where the lacrosse player in the green and white uniform was running around like one of the 28 Days Later zombies. They all seemed to be kind of frantic and epilepsy inducing. At least they could have shown some clips of some plays.

-Blue Devils, Blue Hens, Blue Jays, Big Red. Very colorful themed group of teams this year.

-ESPN sideline reporter George Smith wearing the suit, can somebody get that guy a polo?

-Was that the Air Cav sticker on the back of the Duke helmets? What's the back story on that?

[NT19]

-I thought Q did a great job...but I always think that.

The only thing I didn't like about his commentary was how he repeated things over and over game after game. I think that we all know that Paul Rabil is 80% deaf in one ear and a great student at this point.

Other than that I really enjoyed all of the coverage. Amazing game! I had to leave for the airport with 10 minutes left in the game, but I made sure to DVR it at home. I was not disappointed.

[OAKS]

-Was that the Air Cav sticker on the back of the Duke helmets? What's the back story on that?

Maybe their adopted unit?

http://www.asa-usa.org/site/PageServer? ... m_lacrosse

[BigheadTodd]

There was a duke lax grad who enlisted and was killed in iraq or afghanistan.

[Brent Burns]

-I thought Q did a great job...but I always think that.

The only thing I didn't like about his commentary was how he repeated things over and over game after game. I think that we all know that Paul Rabil is 80% deaf in one ear and a great student at this point.

Q did say that back at the 2005 Championships in Philly. Yeah, that was the only tiresome quote I read on the captions, but I guess he had to come up with a story. Q did talk about Rabil's ability to feed off to his teammates, about his hidden wrist release, etc. However, his point about Rabil's 80% hearing loss is only a fraction of a reason for his being more focused on becoming a very good player. Of course, Rabil has to work harder to be on the same page with his teammates (high school and at JHU). His 5 assists were simply amazing especially the last one off to Huntley in the waning moments of the 4th quarter. That tells me that he also worked hard on his visual cues to scan the field.

Kudos to Hop and Duke for making it a very exciting lax game yesterday. Something to remember by for years to come. Too bad, I missed the Blue Devils-Big Red game last Saturday, for I was on the road. However, I got text messages keeping me informed about the game.

What was the total attendance?

[Beta]

I also for one am happy that Duke did not win the championship. The disgraced lacrosse with their actions last year. I know that all charges were dropped, and the allegations were false, but the team should have never had the party in the first place. In my opinion they were guilty when the party happened. The players should also not get their year back. Everything that happened was brought on by the Duke players by having the party, and not by anyone else.

Sonny, I didn't know Nancy Grace posted on these boards!

[Zeuslax]

The two biggest observations from the games this weekend. During the second semi it seemed that the ref's paid attention to the face offs from the first and tried to clean it up a little. Secondly, the stall warning in some cases seemed a little premature. There were some instances where both teams were going to the goal, but the D was playing solid.

Great games....Even though some didn't like the first semi, I still thought it was a solid game. A little bit of a throw back defensive battle.

[NT19]

What was the total attendance?

inside lacrosse said for the championship game it was 48,443.

[byualum]

There was a duke lax grad who enlisted and was killed in iraq or afghanistan.

Jimmy Reagan...played at Duke from 1999-2002. He was killed in Afghanistan when the vehicle he was riding in struck a land mine. If you look again at the Duke helmets, there was also a "JR/10" sticker in his honor.

[Brent Burns]

From Laxpower:

Below is the table of the NCAA lacrosse championship attendance:

http://www.laxpower.com/laxnews/news.php?story=7316

[StrykerFSU]

-I thought Q did a great job...but I always think that. However, what was with the segments with Q and Danowski and Greer, where pretty much all Danowski did was talk about being on the same page with his teammate? I didn't pick up anything about fastbreaks or driving from the crease. Thought that could have been better.

-Speaking of doing better: I thought the Warrior and Brine commercials were pretty dumb, especially the one where the lacrosse player in the green and white uniform was running around like one of the 28 Days Later zombies. They all seemed to be kind of frantic and epilepsy inducing. At least they could have shown some clips of some plays.

I have to disagree here. On the first point, I always feel that Quint and company are awful. Who ever told them that you had to talk every single second without pause needs to have their head examined. I get so very tired of being told about how to play the game. Do NFL announcers spend the whole Super Bowl acting like it is an instructional clinic? I would much prefer analysis of the offensive/defensive matchups, what kind of formation a team is using on clears, zone vs. man to man, etc then to hear them chattering like a bunch of monkeys in a tree about scooping groundballs. I have gotten to the point that watching the game on mute is a viable option.

The Warrior commercial featured Nick Polanco who is widely seen as the most intense and physical defensemen in the MLL so I think that the commercial was just about perfect. He is also featured on the cover of this month's IL magazine. If you want to get upset about Warrior advertising, check out the ad in that same issue for the "Stiffi".

Great games but it was clear that Duke was sluggish following their battle with Cornell while Hopkins was fresh after having a relatively easy time with Delaware. It's a shame. I have been to many Final Fours and it is a wonderful celebration of the sport but is it time that the semifinals and finals be put on different weekends?

[horn17]

i went this past weekend to celebrate....great weather and great games...90 degree plus weather...plus I was sitting in the lower corner when greer finished that remarkable feed in the final 5 seconds...the place went nuts....of course everyone was going nuts durring that game....

out of all the championship games...Salisbury was the most impressive...they came out and DOMINATED the second half using thier speed to break down Cortlands game plan....