Hard to read the Nittany Lions. These guys have talent but oh boy do they blow hot and cold. Their record is now 14-7-1 after they hammered ODU 4-1 in the 2nd round -- their first game after getting hammered by Michigan by an identical 4-1 score in the Big 10 tournament final. And in the previous game, the conference semis, the beat the traditional power Indiana 2-1.
Looking back over their regular season, the 2-1 OT loss to Akron was no disgrace, but you wonder about an 2-1 OT loss to UMBC: isn't the Big10 supposed to get better talent than the likes of UMBC? And that game was in late October.
OK, so they have a bigtime scorer in Corey Hertzog (20 goals, 6 assists) and a playmaker in Matheus Braga (5 goals, 17 assists). After that they have Tyler Jordan (5 goals, 3 assists) and then nobody else with more than 3 goals on the season. They don't spread it around much. The aforementioned players are the ones who are going to create the offense and that's it. They have allowed 29 goals in 22 games (having scored 45 goals) so they are essentially outscoring their own defense. Compare that to Maryland outscoring their opponents 58-12. I note the fact that they have two goalies that have played a lot: Brendan Birmingham with 13 starts, and Warren Gross with 9 starts, with Birmingham having taken over just before midseason, so they may still have some issues there.
That said, I don't recall anyone having accused PSU Coach Bob Warming of being tactically conservative and I wouldn't expect him to play that way now. He had a long, distinguished career, mostly at Creighton with stops at St. Louis and ODU before arriving at Happy Valley. He has always been able to recruit, but didn't get his current job until May of this year, so he has been able to win with people already in the program when Barry Gorman resigned.
PSU may not have the talent that Maryland has, but we have seen this movie before. I expect a good game.
This post was edited on 11/23 12:59 PM by Fekula
Looking back over their regular season, the 2-1 OT loss to Akron was no disgrace, but you wonder about an 2-1 OT loss to UMBC: isn't the Big10 supposed to get better talent than the likes of UMBC? And that game was in late October.
OK, so they have a bigtime scorer in Corey Hertzog (20 goals, 6 assists) and a playmaker in Matheus Braga (5 goals, 17 assists). After that they have Tyler Jordan (5 goals, 3 assists) and then nobody else with more than 3 goals on the season. They don't spread it around much. The aforementioned players are the ones who are going to create the offense and that's it. They have allowed 29 goals in 22 games (having scored 45 goals) so they are essentially outscoring their own defense. Compare that to Maryland outscoring their opponents 58-12. I note the fact that they have two goalies that have played a lot: Brendan Birmingham with 13 starts, and Warren Gross with 9 starts, with Birmingham having taken over just before midseason, so they may still have some issues there.
That said, I don't recall anyone having accused PSU Coach Bob Warming of being tactically conservative and I wouldn't expect him to play that way now. He had a long, distinguished career, mostly at Creighton with stops at St. Louis and ODU before arriving at Happy Valley. He has always been able to recruit, but didn't get his current job until May of this year, so he has been able to win with people already in the program when Barry Gorman resigned.
PSU may not have the talent that Maryland has, but we have seen this movie before. I expect a good game.
This post was edited on 11/23 12:59 PM by Fekula
