Welcome to Beyond the Basics!

My name is Zack Capozzi, and I run LacrosseReference.com, which focuses on developing and sharing new statistics and models for the sport.

The folks at USA Lacrosse Magazine offered me a chance to share some of my observations in a weekly column, and I jumped at the chance. Come back every Tuesday to go beyond the box score in both men’s and women’s lacrosse.

There aren’t too many weeks left. Two more scheduled games for most teams and then we are on to the conference tournaments. That means that, by and large, Act I of each team’s season story is more or less written. The conference and national tournaments are always the headline when we look back at how a team did, but that’s Act II. Act II is the payoff, the climax, the lasting memory.

But that doesn’t make Act I flyover country. Act I is where teams forge the identity that carries them through to whatever postseason success they end up having. Act I only gets attention when that postseason success fails to materialize. But as we all know, it’s about the journey, so let’s give Act I some attention before it gets swept into the dustbin of history.

For some teams, the journey of the 2022 season has been as exciting as any postseason run. Best practices in story development will tell you that suspense and the unexpected are two of the hallmarks of a captivating narrative. Even if the teams below won’t necessarily make deep postseason runs, their 2022 season has certainly been unexpected. Today we are going to go through the five teams that have most outplayed their expectations.

And, this being Beyond the Basics, of course we are going to use numbers to figure out the most salient parts of that story. Before the season started, I ran my simulator through all of the scheduled games a couple thousand times to get a sense for what sort of outcomes we could expect for each team. This gave us a handy value for each team, the number of “expected” wins they would come up with prior to Selection Sunday. In parallel, I also created a contest where fans could predict whether each team would end up winning more or fewer games than the expected number.

This gives us two variations on the expectations for each team. What did the model expect them to do and what did the lacrosse community expect them to do? What follows is a look at five teams, what we all thought they’d do and an analysis of just how they managed to outperform those expectations by so much.

UTAH (4.7 wins over expectation)

It’s easy to look at Utah and give coach Andrew McMinn the lion’s share of the credit here. The team is on pace to double the projected win total from the start of the season and they are a near-lock to hold the top seed in the ASUN conference tournament. In the Win Totals Contest, 75 percent of entries picked Utah to win more than 4.9 games. Since the win projections don’t account explicitly for coaching changes and fans do, it seems that most people expected them to be better this year.

But I think that relying on the coaching change as the primary reason is too simplistic. The improvements are just too broad. At the unit level, for example, the Utes are at least 10 spots better in the national rankings for offense, defense and faceoff win rate. The only area where they have not improved is save percentage.

As for the offense, it’s the unit that clearly has seen the biggest jump since last season. The Utes’ opponent-adjusted offensive efficiency is 33.6 percent in 2022; that is good for 17th nationally. Last year, that same number put them at just 26.8 percent (44th). If you want to point to one player that is representative of the difference in the 2022 Utes, you could do worse than Tyler Bradbury. Bradbury’s individual efficiency mark has bounced back this year after a tough 2021 season.

He’s been the primary facilitator for Utah with 27 percent of their assists (highest on the team). His individual assist rate, which quantifies assists-per-touch, puts him in the 92nd percentile nationally. We see it with Notre Dame and Pat Kavanagh too; having a point guard with a high ball security rating and excellent vision sets a great tone for an offense.

JACKSONVILLE (4.5 wins over expectation)

In the Win Totals Contest, just 37 percent of entries picked Jacksonville to win more than 8.5 games. They are currently projected to end the year with 13.

The SoCon is an exotic conference from which ACC upsets seem to pour forth every spring. But when the lacrosse naturalists describe the beasts lurking in the jungles of the Southeast, it’s almost always Richmond or High Point that get the attention. And for good reason; they’ve been the ones to knock off the ACC giants with some regularity over the years.

But this year, it’s been Jacksonville that’s taken the crown, at least so far. As we sit here on April 20, the Dolphins are locked in as the SoCon top seed and will have a chance to earn an NCAA berth later this month. One of the keys for the Dolphins’ has been ball security. Richmond and High Point lead the conference in opponent-adjusted turnover rate, but Jacksonville is right there behind them. And more importantly, it’s been an area that they’ve improved on in the second half of the season.

With the exception of a February victory over Mercer, their last five games have been their lowest turnover rate games of the season. They are the second-rated shooting percentage team in the nation, so having fewer turnovers has meant more shots/possession, which has led to higher efficiencies as the season has progressed. The SoCon tournament is going to be fun.

ST. BONAVENTURE (3.8 wins over expectation)

Did I really just see a college player forgo a year of eligibility to go to the professional ranks? Congrats to Bonnies goalie Brett Dobson on continuing his lacrosse career at the next level. That was just a wild announcement to see.

Anyway, part of the reason for the announcement was the fact that he’s had such a great season this year. According to the excess saves model, Dobson has been the fifth-best keeper in the nation on a per-shot basis.

But even though they are losing their all-world keeper, the future is bright for St. Bonaventure. Just take a look at how their offense has improved the past two seasons.

This St. Bonaventure's fourth year as a Division I program, and you can see how the offense has made strides over that time: 73rd in 2020, 56th in 2021, 41st this year. More importantly, the Bonnies have the best opponent-adjusted offense in the conference.

Now, there is always room for improvement, and the Bonnies are no exception. The offense currently sits 65th nationally with a 49-percent opp-adjusted turnover rate; the strides they’ve made have come from better shooting, not better ball security. Take Sean Westley as an example. He’s the highest usage rate guy on this offense, but ball security is the area where he could make himself even more effective.

It’s interesting though, because they are a young program, and this is exactly the same statistical profile that you see with high-potential young players. Scoring is there, but can they raise the efficiency by keeping the positive plays and avoiding the negative? That’ll be the next step for coach Randy Mearns’ bunch.

BOSTON UNIVERSITY (3.6 wins over expectation)

The fans were pretty split on BU’s prospects this year. The projection said they’d win 6.5 games, and 51 percent of the entries thought they’d end up with seven or more wins. What’s interesting about this team is the continuity from last year’s team. Almost all of their contributors were part of the 2021 team that did not reach the heights they’ve found this year.

Now that said, the roles these guys are in has changed. Jake Cates is perhaps the best example. In 2021, his usage rate was 1 percent and he took just 2.5 percent of the team’s shots. This year, he’s had the fourth-highest usage rate on the offense. He’s currently got 9 percent of their team assists and has taken 11 percent of their shots. And the key here is that his increased role hasn’t led to a meaningful downgrade in his efficiency; he’s in the 92nd percentile on that mark in 2022. Kudos to coach Ryan Polley and staff for putting their players in a position to succeed (though news came out Saturday that Cates is out for the rest of the season due to injury).

I think the big question for the Terriers heading into the postseason is how much the experience of playing three Ivy League opponents (and a generally tough schedule) helps prepare them for the Patriot League tournament and a potential NCAA berth. (They get into the tournament in 31 percent of the simulations that I ran most recently.)

I do get the sense that possession margin is going to be a key stat in determining how their 2022 finishes. BU has three losses this year, to three Ivy League opponents, and in all three of those losses, its opp-adjusted possession margin was negative. In every one of its wins, its adjusted possession margin has been positive.

The per-possession efficiencies for this team are good enough for a postseason run. The question is whether the Terriers can get enough possessions from their faceoff, clearing and riding units to let it happen.

OHIO STATE (3.6 wins over expectation)

The COVID season of 2021 had different effects on different players and teams. There are lots of players for whom 2021 looks like an outlier; their stats were down last year only to pop right back up to normal levels this year.

Ohio State saw that pattern, but at a team-wide level. As a result, the expectations that people had for the Buckeyes coming into this year were fairly low. As with the rest of these teams, it’s safe to say that they’ve exceeded them.

And we’d be remiss if we didn’t talk about the most important player on this team (maybe with the exception of Justin Inacio). That is of course, Jack Myers.
 

Myers has been the bell-weather for the Buckeyes. He’s averaging 3.99 EGA (expected goals added) per game, which puts him among the top 2 percent of most productive players in Division I men’s lacrosse. But in their four losses, he’s averaged just 1.39 EGA and 3.2 turnovers per game. The challenge for Ohio State to advance deep into the postseason is to figure out what to do when Myers is not having the kind of days he’s had in their eight victories.

LACROSSE STATS RESOURCES

My goal with this column is to introduce fans to a new way to enjoy lacrosse. “Expand your fandom” is the mantra. I want you to walk away thinking about the players and stories presented here in a new light. But I also understand that some of these concepts can take some time to sink in. And part of the reason for this column is, after all, to educate.

To help this process along, I have several resources that have helped hundreds of lacrosse fans and coaches to internalize these new statistical concepts. The first is a Stats Glossary that explains each of my statistical concepts in more detail than I could fit here. The second is a Stats 101 resource, which provides context for each of my statistics. What is a good number? Who’s the current leader? That’s all there.

And last, I would love to hear from you. If you have questions or comments about the stats, feel free to reach out.