All the time they are discussions about high school players that either never pan out, or are the superstars they were expected to be. No one ever mentions the exponentially greater level of training, lifting, practice speed, film, and general level of “ professionalism” that goes along with college lacrosse! Kids from hotbed areas have had more training during ms and hs, yes, but those kids enter college with , in general, little what I call “spare capacity”. Soo maybe coaches like Spallina has a knack for spotting the girls who, maybe their parents didn’t throw down money for every single exposure opportunity, every chance to be set by IL contributors, for funding and grabbing the real diamonds in the rough. My guess is Amonte-Hiller has that same knack. North, Scane, Gilbert, Hall and a few others all started relatively late (6th grade I think I read) never looked to see which of them had over of those storybook high school careers, but someone did their homework, chose not to after the low hanging fruit, and identified those with the biggest perceived room to grow at the college level. With the likes of IL and USAlax citing hs “superstars “ in the hotbeds, the real stars might be missed, and the soo called experts evaluations might more often than not be needed to be taken with a grain of salt. Soo I think part of my point, kinda buried a little, is that how the girls do in college is every bit of if not more a reflection of how they adapted to the college level and intensity of training, not soo much what they speed up with on the first day of college practice
Too much gibberish to respond to, Spallina would love to get more highly ranked players but cannot simply because going to SBU which is essentially a commuter school is not regarded as good a college experience by many. Take the scrimmage that they just played in the last 2 years UVA has brought in 7 UA senior AA to 1 for SBU so yes Spallina does more with players that were not as highly recruited. It is not that he can see their future potential over other coaches but its more that those players did not have as many options so that is who he can recruit to go there. Spallina seems to have the ability to get these players to reach their potential while many other coaches dont. Maybe its the illegal amount of hours that his teams practice ,who knows.
Agree, way to much gibberish...
To be clear, just because a player chooses to attend SBU does not mean that the player was not identified as strong players or recruited by other college programs. For many, cost of attendance is a major factor and for many LI kids SBU can be significantly more affordable than many other schools. Just like Maryland, I'm sure many of the Maryland kids would have loved to go to UNC, Virginia, Stanford, Florida, Penn State, USC, Penn, Princeton, Northwestern, Notre Dame etc... but at what cost?
This notion that the SBU players were not recognized by other programs is not true. Just about all of the high performing players for SBU in the past several years were very well known HS players. For many, it's about the $$$ and the kids happiness.
I seem to recall a post on here not long ago that pointed out that Stony Brook had more players the made the Long Island Underclass Under Armour team than any other college program. Players who earn a spot on the LI Under Armour Underclass teams are not diamond in the rough, they are very well known.
There has been a consistent narrative over the years that Pumps up JS as the best coach in college lacrosse (yes, he is an excellent coach). That narrative has also consistently downplayed the actual ability of the Stony Brook Players.
Stony Brook gets very good players.
Joe knows and recognizes very good players. He is also keenly aware that many good players get overlooked and lost in the politics of LI travel lacrosse. That is his gain for being able to spot these talented players. Yes most of those players he picks up are not at the top of all the notIntelligent “lists and teams”. And many of them go to SBU and break it open. Half credit to Joe’s coaching, polishing them as players, and half discredit to the politics of travel lacrosse. Many of these players were very deserving their whole careers, just ended up on the short end. That is also the chip on the shoulder attitude that joe motivates the whole team with, and he is not wrong.
"Joe knows and recognizes very good players."
I guess other coaches do not know how to recognize very good players. Who are the good players that get overlooked? You make it seem like other coaches are not able to spot talented players. What exactly are you referring to by "all the notIntelligent lists and teams"? What exactly do they break open? So, it's Joe and the politics that are responsible for any success that a Stony Brook player has? The player is not responsible? What exactly were all of these players deserving of?
What exactly has Stony Brook accomplished? You make it sound as though the SBU coach takes players off the street with no experience and wins National Championships with them. We all know JS is a very good coach but the constant beating of the drum of how it's all him is becoming absurd. Just about all of his top players over the years were very well know HS/Club players. As another post pointed out that Stony Brook had more players that made the Long Island Under Armour Underclass Teams than any other college program. The constant belittling of the Stony Brook players is getting old.
Stony Brook is a very good program, JS is a very good coach and Stony Brook gets some very good players. Some of you sycophants must be delusional if you think that JS is the only coach that can identify talent. You act as though the schools that tend to bring in the so called highly touted players are not the best programs in the country. The proof is there for all to see the programs that consistently bring in those highly touted player are consistently the most competitive programs.
When you look their record vs Top 10 teams (5 - 21) during JS's time at Stony Brook it becomes very clear that they are often overrated.
Stony Brook is no different than any other program, they use the same formula, which is: Consistently Identify, recruit and land top tier players/athletes and you will have a very good college team.
No coach wins without talent. as a John Wooden is to have said "it's more about the Jimmy's and the Joe's than about the X's and the 0's"
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