The North Carolina Tar Heels will play the University of Maryland-Baltimore County Retrievers in the first round of the men's NCAA Division I Lacrosse Playoffs on Saturday. North Carolina comes in as the six seed in the tournament and UMBC comes in as unseeded after earning the automatic bid from the America East Conference. It is an interesting matchup as UMBC coach Don Zimmerman was seemingly the front runner for the North Carolina head coaching job before signing an extension with UMBC, leading UNC to hire alumnus Joe Breschi away from Ohio State. UMBC brings in the highest scoring first midfield in the country in Peet Poillon, Alex Hopman, and Kyle Wimer. These three players have 44, 40, and 39 points respectively. The midfielders drive UMBC's offense, the next highest scorer has a total of 30 points. Wimer and Poillon are much more balanced in their scoring with double digit assists while Hopman has 33 goals to only 7 assists, of his 33 goals 11 are extra man goals, which goes to show his ability as a shooter. All three are smaller midfielders, the biggest being Wimer at 6-0 175lbs. The offense for the retrievers is typically initiated by the midfield, specifically Wimer and Poillon; the other four offensive players typically set themselves up to work as shooters off of dodges from the midfield. Due to this offensive system as well as the relative weakness of the Tar Heels' defensive short stick midfielders, it would seem to behoove the Heels to shift one of their defensemen up to so that they have long stick defensive players on both Poillon and Wimer while keeping a short stick on attackman Chris Jones, the least productive member of the Retriever attack. The UMBC midfielders, as evidenced by their assist totals, do not panic when the slide comes. They tend to keep their heads up find the open man or change their direction causing the slide man to be out of position. This is an advantage of initiating from the top in that it allows the dodger to see the field and where the slide is coming from. North Carolina must change their slide packages so that the midfielders are not seeing the slide come from the same spot each time. The UMBC midfielders also do a good job of not being forced into bad shots on alley dodges. They like to roll back to the center of the field for a better shot. UNC cannot allow them this roll back for a better angle. The bigger North Carolina defenders must slide when UMBC rolls back toward the center and must slide to the body, putting the offensive player down. When UMBC does get a shot off, The Tar Heels must be wary of rebounds. True Freshman James Petracca has been solid since taking over for Grant Zimmerman during the Virginia game; however he tends to allow rebounds and has trouble controlling the ball after the save. It might be beneficial for the Tar Heels to send one or two guys crashing to the goal almost like a basketball team would in order to control the rebounds. This might be a good assignment for the shortstick who is covering an attackman as it should not be tough for him to assist with corralling the rebound and if necessary getting back to his own defensive assignment. If North Carolina can control the rebounds they should be able to eliminate the second chance opportunities that have plagued them since Petracca took over. This is crucial for UNC's success in stopping the Retrievers. In order to stop UMBC, UNC must be physical and control the rebounds but, they cannot foul as UMBC has one of the best extra man units in the NCAA. UNC must be physical on defense, but also must be smart in avoiding fouls.
On the other end, UNC possesses an enormous advantage at the face off X in all time NCAA face off win leader Shane Walterhoefer. UMBC comes in winning on 43% of their face-offs on the year as opposed to North Carolina's 62%. This advantage should create extra possessions for North Carolina offensively. Once North Carolina gets these possessions, they create some problems for UMBC immediately. Carolina's first midfield unit has two players who command a long stick, but UNC's attack gets more production than UMBC's, which does not allow for UMBC to take the same approach of sliding a long stick to the midfield and put a shortstick on an attackman. Attackman Billy Bitter is one of the best players in the country and with his quickness he has caused problems for the best defensemen in the country all year long. He is such a dynamic talent that teams have to slide to him almost before he even beats his man. Defenses lose their men when Bitter has the ball, which allows the off ball players to get open shots. The main beneficiaries of this treatment are the other two attackmen, Bart Wagner and Gavin Petracca. The only negative thing I have noticed of late from Bitter is that he has tended to wait until his team absolutely needs him before he puts pressure on the defense rather than test the defense on dodge on them from the opening faceoff. A dodger of his ability should be pressuring the defense from the opening possession and always be a threat to the other team. UNC's midfield is highlighted by Sean Delaney and Ben Hunt. Both of these players absolutely command a long stick defenseman, however teams cannot put a long stick on both of them. Both players are both big strong athletes at over 6-0 and over 200lbs. Delaney should be able to use his strength and bully his way to the goal in this game and cause some real problems for UMBC. Meanwhile, Hunt will use his length and long strides to gain an advantage. Both also have strong outside shots, which will cause problems for UMBC in both even and extra man situations. UMBC's strong extra man unit is countered by a rather weak man down unit. UNC must take advantage of any extra man opportunities they get. In the end UNC has too many weapons for UMBC to deal with and when that combines with the extra possessions they will get through the face off X, UNC should be able to pull out a victory and move on.
Prediction: UNC 14- UMBC 9
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