Q&A with ESPN's Matt Ward
ESPN analyst and 2006 Tewaaraton Trophy winner Matt Ward generously shared a few minutes to talk about Saturday's game between No. 8 Johns Hopkins and No. 1 Virginia. Ward, a former attackman for the Cavaliers, also took the time out to offer his thoughts on the first six weeks of the lacrosse season.
Question: What’s been the most surprising development thus far?
Matt Ward: "I think it’s Duke struggling. I believe that when I talked to you last time, I said my Final Four included three ACC teams, and I left Maryland out. Looks like at this point, I should’ve left Duke out. But I’m not down on them completely. They’re a team that gets better each week, and once they start playing with confidence, they have the players. I think the other surprise is Johns Hopkins. I think they came in expecting more out of their players, and right now, I think they’re on the outside looking in for the NCAA Tournament. They’re going to need to win one of these games against a top-four program – whether it’s Virginia or UNC or Maryland. They need one of these wins because a lot of the wins they have from earlier in the season that were initially strong wins have kind of fallen flat now. Delaware just lost to Villanova and UMBC is really struggling. They’re going to have to win one of these games to have one quality win in their season."
Q: Is there a player or team that has exceeded your preseason expectations?
MW: "I think it’s Syracuse. Coming in, they had a lot of questions. They lost an unbelievable amount of talent in their quarterback, but it just shows how Syracuse reloads, they don’t rebuild. They’ve had players stepping up, and it’s fun to watch them play. They don’t necessarily get a lot of goals from dodgers. They get their goals when they make a couple crisp passes, and they have shooters who can put the ball past any goalie from any part of the field. They’re really fun to watch. And then I really like what UNC has done. They’re a team that started to get it last year in terms of confidence. They’ve always had the athletes, but they really started to believe in the system last year. They won their first ACC game last year against Maryland in the ACC Tournament, and that seems to have carried over to this year. They have, in my opinion, the best player in college lacrosse in Billy Bitter, but the other players there have been playing with confidence. To see them take down Duke pretty easily and beat a tough Princeton team just speaks to the confidence level that they’re playing at right now."
Q: Which coach is on the hot seat right now?
MW: "If I had to pick one, I would think it has to be Glenn Thiel at Penn State. If I was an up-and-coming coach, that is a program I would want to coach. Philadelphia is a few hours away, and you’re in one of the biggest hotbeds in the game. So there’s no reason you should be losing a lot of those kids to other schools. Penn State is everything you look for in a school – a good academic institution, the social atmosphere is unbelievable. If you have a recruit that you want to go there, take him to a Penn State-Michigan football game at night or a Penn State-Ohio State game at night, and tell him that he couldn’t find another experience like that. I think that’s a program that is really a sleeping giant. Once they get a new coach, that’s a program that could get turned around really quickly."
Q: Has Maryland’s 6-0 start solidified a new contract for coach Dave Cottle?
MW: "I’ve never believed all of that talk about Dave Cottle being on the hot seat because I have a lot of respect for him and his background as a coach. He’s one of the true mental coaches in the game. He’s very schematic in that he knows how to pick apart teams. He knows how to game-plan for certain match-ups, and I think he’s starting 6-0 with a team that is young. They really don’t graduate a whole lot this year, and I think Maryland Terrapins fans are in for a couple more good years. They have great players on that team. They run three midfields, they’re man-up team is No. 1 in the country and is always near the top, and I think that’s an indication of how smart Dave Cottle is as a coach. For people to think that he’s on the hot seat, I would disagree with them. I think he’s done a great job recruiting some of the best players in the country. He’s has a few years – I think it’s three years in a row now – where the team hasn’t made the Final Four, but they’ve had to tough draws. They lost to the national champion in the quarterfinals last year. And I look for them to be a serious contender this year."
Q: Is it fair to say that North Carolina junior attackman Billy Bitter is your leading candidate to win the Tewaaraton Trophy?
MW: "It’s always tough to tell who’s going to win that because it comes down to how your team plays at the end of the year and there’s a lot of lacrosse left. But he is right now, in my opinion, the most dangerous player on the lacrosse field. He’s got the rare ability to change direction on a dime, but what’s so great about Billy’s ability to change his direction is that he doesn’t have to turn his back. He does everything in front of his face, which gives even more of an advantage to gain a step on a defenseman. His point production may be down, but his leadership level is even up higher because he’s never forcing the issue. He’s always playing smart and playing within the system. When you play against UNC, you have to say, ‘We need to game-plan for Billy Bitter.’ And yet he’s able to get his teammates to play at the highest level. He is, right now, the best player in the country. Ned Crotty is always a great player and Max Quinzani is doing well, but Duke’s not doing as well, so I put them down a little bit. I also think you have to look at Rhamel Bratton at UVA. He’s having a great year. Shamel, in the beginning of the year, was the leading candidate for UVA, but he has been hampered by a hamstring. His brother has stepped up and then some. He’s played great. If you watched him against Syracuse, he had Joel White on him and he’s one of the best long-stick middies in the country, and Rhamel ran right by him a few times and stuck goals. Teams have to think about him."
Q: Of the four remaining undefeated teams in Division I – No. 1 Virginia (8-0), No. 3 North Carolina (8-0), No. 5 Maryland (6-0) and No. 14 Lafayette (6-0) – which one will be the last to lose?
MW: "I’m going with Lafayette. They’re playing right now at a level that no one in the Patriot League can match. And then you have the ACC teams about to play each other week in and week out, and I think they’re going to start picking each other off. It’s just too competitive. So I wouldn’t be surprised if Lafayette ran the table."
