Originally Posted by NorthEastLaxer
Originally Posted by Anonymous
Originally Posted by Anonymous
Originally Posted by Anonymous
BL has tested a new business model with '23 Academy. It worked. BL Zeus will be vastly improved in the coming year with the additions recruited through Academy. detest 'em or love 'em, they have transformed themselves from "one of the top teams in Philly" to THE top team. Don't know don't care about the other years, but it's a compelling proposition that will certainly be copied. As we learned first hand with Duke's, once a very good player gets a taste of elite caliber play, it's ddictive! The kids gravitate toward excellence--they want to play up.

IMO, this is good for Philadelphia lacrosse. The top programs should be developing teams that can compete with the Crabs, the Hawks, the 91 and Express wherever versions. Of course, it remains to be seen if BL will step up and take on comparable competition and actually risk losing an occasional game, or continue to slum in club tournaments.


I think the jury is out in terms of whether or not this strategy "worked". Sure, they got some amazing players from Mesa to move to BL, but as you said, where are they going to take that.

Two things - first, as you said, they need to play in higher caliber tournaments. And second, they are going to have to show that they can manage the high school recruiting process.

As for other teams copying this strategy, I think NXT was the first to offer "elite" training as a method for recruiting talent via NLA and Hype Night. Of course that's at a larger scale than Academy.


You need to have talent to attract talent. 23 and 24 have talent (thanks to earlier mistakes by Freedom and RR) all other teams are weak so no one is coming. NXT didn’t attract anyone with their Hype nights and media circus because they don’t have talent.


Saw that Brotherly Love went 3-0 while NXT went 2-1 losing to BL 9-2 @ the Jersey Invitational.

Freedom played @ the Liberty Fall Classic (a weaker tournament compared to the Jersey Inv.) and went 2-1 losing to Blak Widow with wins over Black Bear 7-5 & Cavalier 7-2. Thoughts?


NXT had a very weak schedule at the Jersey Invitational. Their first 2 games were against low B teams. The preds team they played was the C team. The O2 team was horrible.

The Freedom team you are talking about is Freedom White, their B team.