UVA Lacrosse: What Went Wrong in Virginia's Blowout Loss at Ohio State

Virginia men's lacrosse left Charlottesville for the first time this season and faced its first true road test up in the bitter cold of the Midwest. The Cavaliers failed that test in shocking fashion, getting run off the field by an Ohio State squad that came in 4-1, but the Buckeyes had yet to face a good team... well, maybe they still haven't.

Ohio State was better prepared and more willing to play a physical game of lacrosse in the cold and, at least on this day, appeared to be the better team and the better coached team. But the problem for the Cavaliers, other than the disastrous final score of 14-5, is that this game was not a flash in the pan, a "bad game" that can be attributed to some unique set of circumstances. The problems that popped up all over the field on Saturday were already prevalent, and in some cases, rampant, through UVA's first three games of the season, and they are repeatable. We'll dive into some of those issues in this article, but Saturday exposed that Virginia has a great many weaknesses and Ohio State exploited them to the fullest.

We're going to try our best to dissect exactly what went so wrong for Virginia on Saturday and what it means going forward for the rest of the season.

Let's start with the offense because... how can we start anywhere else considering the final score? Even if you didn't make the drive to Columbus or shell out the subscription fee to watch Big Ten Plus, you'd get a pretty good picture of how terrible this game was for the UVA offense just from looking at the box score. Virginia's five goals were its fewest in a game since the season opener in 2016, UVA's final season under Dom Starsia. The Cavaliers scored only one goal in the first half and that came 36 seconds in as Virginia capitalized on an unsettled early-offense situation right off the rip.

That's an important part of UVA's offensive failures. Virginia has always thrived on chaos under Lars Tiffany, who has given his uber-talented players free reign to play fast, make mistakes, and take chances in transition and those early offense moments when the opposing team doesn't have its full defense set.

But that cannot be Virginia's entire offense. So far this season, the Cavaliers have had no flow whatsoever in settled 6v6 situations whenever they play even semi-competent defenses. No disrespect to Colgate or High Point, but Virginia has faced two decent defenses so far this season and both of those teams were able to stymie the Cavaliers because, simply put, they are pretty easy to stop right now. If you can keep the Hoos from getting too many quality chances on the fast break, they aren't going to be able to score much. Hold on to that thought about stopping UVA in transition; we'll return to that later.

Why is it so easy to stop Virginia in settled 6v6 possessions? Okay, yes, Connor Shellenberger and Payton Cormier are not on the field anymore and that's the simplest and most convincing answer. But it's not as if there isn't still talent on the UVA roster. Lars Tiffany didn't suddenly stop recruiting the best players in the country; this offense is still littered with former four and five-star recruits and Virginia has never had problems reloading before. But going back to last season, there was a disturbing trend of of UVA getting way too top-heavy in its offense. Shellenberger, Cormier, and then-freshman McCabe Millon accounted for 228 of UVA's 403 total points last season. There was next to no reliable midfield production and it led to John Tillman's Maryland defense easily shutting down UVA's offense in the semifinal loss.

Now, it's just Millon. And while he is a very talented player with a bright future ahead of him, the early returns of this season seem to indicate that he is going to struggle now that he is 1.) facing the top cover defenders in the country and 2.) has absolutely no pressure relief valve alongside him on UVA's offense. Connor Shellenberger was legendary, but he never played without either an excellent dodger like Matt Moore or McCabe Millon or elite-level finishers like Payton Cormier and Xander Dickson. Ohio State's Bobby Van Buren will probably be an All-American defenseman this season, but this matchup wasn't even close as Millon scored zero goals on 10 shots and turned the ball over three times before taking a brutal cheap shot from Ari Allen in the final moments of the game. We wish McCabe a speedy recovery.

Ryan Colsey had a fine day with four goals and one assist and Truitt Sunderland, who started the season with a six-goal game and looked to be the reincarnation of Ian Laviano as an inside finisher, has now had two games where he was almost entirely neutralized. Sunderland was forced to be a facilitator only with three assists and only one of his four shots was a quality look and he put that one right into the stick of the goalie on the crease.

Virginia's midfield looks like it hasn't improved at all from last season. A couple of those guys who we just mentioned moved up to the attack line, it doesn't seem like the returners in the midfield have developed much, and the two transfers who were supposed to have a big impact - Bryant's Johnny Hackett and Duke's Charles Balsamo, have yet to make a difference. Hackett was a preseason All-American and has yet to score a goal. Balsamo hasn't scored either and he didn't even get into the game on Saturday. Season-ending injuries to highly-touted freshmen Ryan Duenkel, Kyle Colsey, and Sean Browne certainly didn't help.

The outcome is what we saw against Ohio State on Saturday. Millon couldn't beat a great cover defender and no one else on the field could win his matchup either. Virginia was taking a ton of low-percentage shots, many of which were nowhere near the cage, and then for extended stretches of the game, UVA wasn't taking any shots at all as Ohio State made mince meat out of what used to be the most prolific offense in the sport. Other than a three-goal run in the third quarter over a span of 90 seconds, a run that again made use of unsettled situations plus a man-up goal, UVA's offense was utterly incompetent for most of the game.

This discussion has been heavily personnel-based so far, but the coaching staff is in on this too. The problems we have illustrated with UVA's offensive personnel are not unexpected. Anyone could see this coming from a mile away given the team's offseason departures and Lars Tiffany acknowledged this in his preseason media, admitting that the offense had to evolve in order to better fit the personnel. He said the plan was to run a more "nameless" offense that further emphasized ball movement and off-ball cutting. There wasn't a whole lot of either of that on Saturday in Colubmus, as Virginia attempted unsuccessful dodge after unsuccessful dodge against an Ohio State defense that slid early and didn't have to work to keep up with the ball. The players have to execute better, sure, but Tiffany and Kevin Cassese must make significant adjustments to the offensive plan that those players are trying to execute.

Okay, now let's talk about why Virginia's bread and butter transition game is gone. Yes, having players like Connor Shellenberger and Payton Cormier waiting on the wings and making the decisions as to when to attack and when to hold and wait for substitutions was a big component. But UVA has been making money on its transition game since the day Lars Tiffany arrived in Charlottesville. The frequency of UVA's chances in transition have plummeted this season so far. Why is that?

This, as opposed to some of the personnel-heavy stuff we were discussing earlier, should be laid primarily at the feet of the coaching staff. Virginia's clearing and substitution game is the worst we've seen in a very, very long time. UVA operated at just a touch under 90% clearing the ball last season and had 47 total failed clears in 18 games. This season, UVA has 20 failed clears through the first four games and is clearing at less than 80%. That's horrendous. There are only a handful of teams in the country who are clearing at a lower rate than Virginia right now.

Factoring into that is issues with the substitution game. Virginia has been called for offsides a few times each game, can't seem to get its spacing on the same page, and instead of clearing the ball quickly and generating offensive opportunities in transition, the Hoos are more frequently giving their opponents great opportunities in transition with their turnovers in the middle of the field. And it's not as if teams have some magic 10-man ride they are throwing at UVA. Ohio State goalie Caleb Fyock barely left his crease when UVA was clearing the ball; Virginia just couldn't get the ball across the midline consistently against a basic Ohio State transition defense.

Then there's the flip side of the clearing game. UVA typically generates a ton of great scoring opportunities with its own ride. Virginia is still trying to make the 10-man ride work despite giving up a long-range pole goal in the Richmond game (UVA could've been scored on three times in that game actually) and Ohio State made breaking that formerly vaunted 10-man ride look pretty easy. Ohio State went 22/24 clearing the ball. Virginia only had four failed clears, but even slowly transitioning the ball to the offensive zone means it's a win for Ohio State because UVA then has to operate in a settled 6v6 offensive possession.

Goalie play comes into this a bit as well, but let me make something clear: I don't think Kyle Morris, Matthew Nunes or the Virginia defense are playing poorly. Neither Morris nor Nunes had good numbers between the pipes on Saturday, but they both saw a lot of high-percentage shots they had little chance to save. But the part we want to focus is on is the saves that they do make. It really helps the transition game if the goalie can save the ball cleanly and throw an outlet pass to Ben Wayer or Noah Chizmar or someone else to start the transition chance.

That didn't happen very much on Saturday. Too many times, the UVA defense is playing a good possession, forcing a turnover or a missed shot, and then either losing the ensuing ground ball battle, failing to clear the ball, or watching as the Virginia offense takes an early bad shot or turns it over and then it's right back to work on defense. If the other parts of Virginia's game fall in line, I think this can actually be a great defense. They have the pieces for it; they are just on the field way too much right now. That's despite the fact that Virginia dominated the faceoff 14-6 against Ohio State. What's happening with those possessions on the other end of the field is not getting the job done.

Okay, so we have diagnosed (at least partially) what went wrong at Ohio State. How do we fix it? It's gonna be tough and it's not going to get any easier as Virginia goes to play at Johns Hopkins next week. But the Cavaliers must at least attempt to reinvent their offense to make it more unselfish with more ball movement and less of the ball sticking and less dodging because they simply aren't winning those matchups. Virginia needs to move the ball immediately when the slide comes, move to open space, and create more stepdown shots and looks from the doorstep. Then, get the transition game going. Fix the issues clearing the ball; that's the area where I think Virginia could improve the most and the quickest). Maybe consider abandoning the 10-man ride since it seems to be doing more harm than good and then take advantage in transition. This will not be a top offense in the country this year; that ship has sailed. But there is a successful lacrosse team somewhere in that locker room that can be achieved with a more balanced and complimentary approach.

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