NCAA lacrosse is back. While snowbanks still line the sidelines at several campuses, the players are eager and ready to play. The action already has been intense and impressive.

Schematic trends develop in the NCAA in response to constantly changing rules, skill development and coaching innovation. Over the course of the week, let’s review five schematic trends to watch for during the 2024 NCAA Men’s Lacrosse season.

Trend: NCAA Defences Will Slide Less In 2024

The first trend of 2024 is that defences will slide as little as possible. Dominant offensive players and teams create such efficient offence that the best plan for defences is often not to slide at all.

There are a few key developments that have given rise to this new trend.

Reason 1: Passing is Good for the Offence

In the current NCAA game, passing is good for the offence.

Studying trends in NCAA lacrosse is a study in long-term, collective skill development. While player development is normally understood on an individual or team basis, the developments that generations of players make collectively can have the most impact on the schemes that teams can or cannot play at the highest level.

In recent years, skill development at the youth and high school ages has led to a sport-wide improvement in the collective skill level of offensive players. Gone are the days of athletic midfielders with no skill, or skilled attackmen with no mobility.

In most good offences, all six players can handle the ball better than they have in the past. Furthermore, unscripted offence has blurred the lines between attack and midfield more than ever. 

The idea of traditional team defence relied on the opposite. Sliding was a means to not only stop the dodger from scoring, but to make him make a pass. The more passes a team had to make, the slower they would be. Most importantly, the more passes they had to make led to a higher likelihood of dropping the ball. Good defences “packed the paint,” and lived with exterior passes and potential skip passes. 

Consider this defensive possession from the Dave Pietremala led Johns Hopkins defence from the 2008 NCAA semi final against Duke. In this clip, Hopkins has no issue supporting any of their matchups. 

In this era of lacrosse, passing was good for the defence.

Notice first how eager the team is to slide to number 40 Matt Danowski. Now obviously Danowski is an all-time great player, but he is guarded on this play by Third Team All-American Matt Bocklet. Nobody in 2024 will slide this quickly to All-Americans. 

But the ball movement helps Hopkins. Duke has awkward spacing and the ball movement is too slow to punish the double team. Hopkins flies around and gets to Max Quinzani before he can shoot. 

Then, when Duke’s Danny Loftus (number two) works on a short stick matchup, Hopkins has five players within five yards of the goal line.

Despite Loftus not gaining a significant advantage, Hopkins slides again. 

On both slides, Duke has to throw the ball backwards, either through a roll back or a pull pass. By stopping the flow of the ball, Hopkins controls the possession and allows themselves to cover up the middle. 

Reason 2: Stealing Space is Harder Than it Used to Be

Hopkins uses a technique known as “stealing space,” which is when a defender stands two steps towards the ball to make the offensive player think that they might slide. This forces players to move the ball thinking the slide will come, but allows defenders to get back to their men quickly. 

Over time, defences began to rely on this more than outright sliding, and every good defence was using some form of the steal space method. 

These defences are more and more difficult to play as the skill level increases. Every player on the field is skilled enough to at least make the obvious transfers and most of them can also throw skip passes that really break a defence. 

Many of the successful teams mastered the art of throwing the ball forward rather than rolling back or reversing field. This can be done by simply providing an outlet ahead of the ball, or by drifting.

This makes “stealing space” difficult, as while a defender takes two steps one way, the offence moves two the other way. Good offences stack these micro advantages and their players are savvy enough to navigate the potential hesitation from the defender, leaving the defender covering nobody.

The obvious reaction is for off-ball defenders to play closer to their own men, in position to go with the offensive players on a cut or a drift. In doing so, the defenders lose their position to slide and end up further away from the ball. This makes sliding even more difficult, and further incentivizes defences to focus on letting the on-ball player win his matchup.

In other words, it encourages them not to slide.

Reason 3: Defensive Middies Are Awesome

While this revolution occurs on the offensive side of the ball, defensive midfield play is better than ever. Gone is the era when SSDM’s were the leftovers from the offensive side of the field. If you walk into any college weight room, there will be a guy that makes you ask the question “who the hell is that?” 

He is usually a defensive midfielder. 

For most teams, the decision making process of sliding or even “stealing space” is different than it used to be. When the player on the ball is highly capable if not dominant at stopping dodgers, stealing space is less important than it might have been in a different time.

With these athletes covering the ball a majority of the time (most offences target short sticks), teams can slide less and play their men even more.

So, What Are We Left With?

For those keeping score at home, that means that ball movement is better than ever, short stick defensive midfielders are better than ever, goalies are strong on unassisted shots, and teams only have to survive 60ish seconds on defense. 

While defences still need to be able to slide and recover, reckless or unnecessary slide decisions are more punitive than ever. With the risk of these bad slides cranked up, more and more teams will lean towards sliding less and less.

This leads to possessions like this one from the National Championship game last season. In this entire possession, Notre Dame doesn’t slide a single time. Remember that clip of Matt Danowksi drawing a double team? Notre Dame trusts their guys, even on the likes of Brennan O’Neill.

On the very next possession, Duke does the exact same thing. An entire possession with no slides. 

On both possessions, the offence gets a decent shot. But they are decent unassisted shots, which goaltenders have an easier time with. Expect teams, especially those with good goaltenders, to live with these shots in 2024.

Notice the difference between the Hopkins image from reason one, and the way Duke is supporting their SSDM’s. Duke’s off-ball defenders are playing much tighter to their man, and allowing the on-ball defender to play the ball. 

The other advantage of this strategy is that it minimizes the importance of scouting. Can’t figure out exactly what the offensive pattern is? The best strategy is to just play tight to your man away from the ball. 

In 2024, What’s Old Is New Again?

This puts offensive coordinators in an uncomfortable position, which is to require their players to actually be more selfish. This is especially difficult since so much time, effort, and persuasion is spent convincing players that moving the ball is the key to success. 

Unlike a decade ago when every midfielder wanted to get down the alley and put it bardown, players today want to get into the flow of moving the ball. Forcing them to dodge for their own can be difficult to accomplish, and hard on their mindset. In short, it puts them out of rhythm. 

The John’s Hopkins clip that was shown above was a reaction to the era. Ironically it was a setup that would have worked on their own team, led in scoring by a midfielder named Rabil who was lethal at getting his own shot.

Sliding quickly in that era was better than the inevitable: watching the best athlete on the field run it down your throat. By forcing them to pass, at least you had a chance.

In 2024, the inevitable is strictly the opposite. The best offences use ball and people movement to dizzying effect to create efficient, high percentage looks. Limiting slides and trusting midfielders and goaltenders is far from perfect, but it might be the best option out there.

At least it gives you a chance.