As a fan and a broadcaster for the Patriot League on ESPN, I most certainly follow college lacrosse.
But I won’t pretend I follow the sport to the level that I’d be comfortable making a declarative statement like “John Tillman is the best coach in the entire sport,” particularly after his team got roughed up, 15-5, by Notre Dame in the NCAA championship game.
But some of the folks who follow the sport even more closely than I do didn’t have such hesitation.
“Whether they win or lose tomorrow, John Tillman is the best coach in college lacrosse,” ESPN analyst and former Syracuse star Paul Carcaterra told me on 105.7 The Fan May 26. “I don’t say that lightly because there’s so many great coaches. Yale’s Andy Shay and Kevin Corrigan from Notre Dame, Lars Tiffany from Virginia. There’s so many unbelievable coaches. But John Tillman, the way that he makes adjustments and the way that he’s able to find certain things within a game plan and tinker and probe and poke, it’s unbelievable.
“When you think about it, from a talent perspective, Duke was a more talented team than Maryland. Doesn’t mean they’re a better team because there’s pieces to a puzzle and there’s chemistry, but he beat that team and he completely dominated Virginia [May 25] after they were beat 14-10 in the regular season. And I just think that he is the best at making adjustments if you give him time to prepare for a week, but he’s also the best at making adjustments in-game. You give him long prep, he’s the best at it. You give him short situations within the confines of the game, he’s the best at it.”
ESPN lead college lacrosse play-by-play voice Anish Shroff told me something similar just days before on Glenn Clark Radio.
“He is the best coach in the country and I don’t think it’s particularly close,” he said.
Look, there’s not much to say about the Terrapins’ title game setback, at least not after their early 2-0 lead. This Irish team was loaded and deep and did everything well. There’s a reason Notre Dame lost just one game all season (and none in regulation) en route to winning a second straight NCAA Tournament title. There are myriad reasons the Irish won their six postseason games (ACC tournament and NCAA Tournament) by a staggering 7.6 goals (!) per game.
Still, Maryland was playing on Memorial Day but came up short for the sixth time since 2011. But not all runner-up finishes are created equal. This one wasn’t at all like the heartbreak of the top-seeded 2016 team blowing a late lead and losing to unseeded North Carolina in overtime. That was crushing. This was a bummer.
Because this Maryland had essentially no business playing for a national title at all. This team was 8-5 coming into the NCAA Tournament (albeit against a very difficult schedule) and had lost four of seven games, including a 19-9 shellacking at the hands of Penn State in the Big Ten tournament.
Maryland wasn’t even favored to win its tournament opener against Princeton, much less expected to come within one win of a third national title in eight seasons. And it’s not just that the Terps didn’t have a Tewaaraton Award-caliber attackman like Matt Rambo, Jared Bernhardt or Logan Wisnauskas. It’s that they had only one offensive player who received any All-American consideration — Eric Spanos, who received Honorable Mention recognition from the USILA.
“And this is the other piece too, Glenn,” Carcaterra added. “No one feels bad for Maryland in the recruiting world, right? Maryland gets recruits. But they do not beat Duke, Virginia, Notre Dame. They don’t beat those teams — North Carolina a lot of times — for recruits head-to-head. Now you get guys that want to be Terps and there’s legacies and they find a certain type of tough kid who fits their mold, and they get outstanding lacrosse players to come to Maryland.
“But you rarely see the top recruit in the country or they rarely have the top recruiting class in the country. That’s typically Duke or Virginia or Notre Dame. So I think John Tillman — I don’t want to say ‘does more with less’ because that’s a shot at this team. There’s a lot of talented kids. But if you compare him to some of those other blue bloods, he doesn’t get the five-star, glitzy recruit that those other teams that I just mentioned get.”
That’s the tough part about giving all of the credit for Maryland’s miraculous run to Tillman. Faceoff specialist Luke Wierman was an insane 72-for-101 in the NCAA Tournament. Goalie Logan McNaney made a string of spectacular saves in their early-round games. Defender Ajax Zappitello (the first-round pick of the PLL’s Maryland Whipsnakes) proved why he truly was one of the best players in the country all season, holding Tewaaraton finalist Connor Shellenberger of Virginia to just one goal and one assist in the semifinal win.
But orchestrating it all was Tillman. He put together incredible game plans, made spectacular adjustments after falling behind 5-1 in the quarterfinals against Duke and orchestrated a ten-goal turnaround against the Cavaliers in a four-goal regular-season loss. Even in falling short of a third national championship, he proved why so many people within the sport believe he’s worthy of being considered the best in the game.
And perhaps there’s nothing more significant that can be said about the overall health of the program than that in a very disappointing, truly “down” year … the Terps were playing for a national championship.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Maryland Athletics