What Happened to Navy?

Walking out of Byrd Stadium with my construction hard hat on (long story) following Navy's 5-4 victory over Maryland on April 4, I was certain of one thing: Navy had just clinched a berth in the NCAA tournament. Yet as April ends, Navy hasn't won since and now is left to be very nervous about the selection show on Sunday night.

I think Navy Insider Dick Long is going to talk about this, too. But I'll focus on what happened to Navy's offense this year.

1.) Too many Attackmen
Of Navy's top six offensive players, only one was a true midfielder this year--sophomore Joe Lennon. The three starting attackmen were just that. Sophomore MF Patrick Moran is going to play attack next year and I believe he played attack in high school.

And the way sophomore MF Basil Daratsos was still bothered by his off-season knee injury, I thought the best place for him was either on attack or on the 2nd midfield. At attack, he would not have had to run past people. He would have set up as the player who would receive the second or third pass following a dodge; his job there would be to shoot.

On the second line, he would have seen the opposing team's 2nd-best LSM at least 50 percent of the time. Daratsos at 80 percent is better than most team's 2nd LSMs at 100 percent. Daratsos at 80 percent is not better than the starting LSMs at the top programs.

2.) Not Many Creators on Offense
Every time Navy got the ball I could swear they were looking at each other and waiting for someone to do something. Navy would have been fine if it had someone to break down the opposing team's defense. That would have opened up everything--Nick Mirabito's shooting from the wing, Tim Paul's cross-field skip passes, Daratsos's left-handed crank shot, etc.

A Division I coach said earlier this year that Navy didn't appear to have anyone who could run past defenders. And it proved true. No one could unlock Navy's offense by breaking down the defense.

The Midshipmen might have had that had Daratsos not been injured; had junior A Bruce Nechanicky not been injured in the fall and lost for the season; and had senior MF Rob Lenseth not left school.

Lenseth would have been the strong-running lefty who could have played first midfield and freed Daratsos to go to the second line. Nechanicky is creative from behind the goal and has good vision. Navy doesn't have enough talent on offense to lose players like that and not feel it.

3.) Bottom Line: Is Navy In the NCAA Tournament?
I asked this question at least 10 times to people at the ACC tournament and the verdict was fairly split. I think the bottom line is that Navy would do well to have Notre Dame not get an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament by winning the GWLL tournament.

Patrick Stevens of the Wash Times, who has a double-major in bracketology (basketball, lacrosse), said he thinks Navy needs teams like UMBC to win its conference tournament and that it needs Ohio State to win the GWLL tournament.

Even though Navy beat Ohio State, OSU has better numbers following its win over North Carolina a couple weeks ago. So OSU is likely going to get in ahead of Navy anyway; better they do so with the AQ. Also, if OSU wins the GWLL, that would give Navy wins over three teams in the field--Ohio State, Colgate and Maryland.

By Christian Swezey |  April 28, 2008; 12:54 PM ET  | Category:  Navy
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