One Eyed Observations: Lacrosse, Erik Murphy And Cody Larson, And The Top 25

One Eyed Willy is back answering some questions regarding the biggest Florida happenings of the moment.

The Bull Gator: What are the lacrosse team’s chances in the NCAA Tournament?

One Eyed Willy: First off, I love that I have become this blog’s resident-expert on all things concerning UF’s women’s lacrosse considering I never played lacrosse a day in my life. But lacrosse is a sport that I have begun to follow fairly closely given my wife and her family’s love of the game.

Now back to the question at hand (“Perfection is perfected, so I’m ‘a let ’em understand”). To put it bluntly, UF has a very good shot at winning the National Championship this year in women’s lax (sorry, but all the cool people call lacrosse “lax”). I think realistically, UF is the third-favorite, if there is such a thing, to bring home the championship. The favorite would have to be Maryland who has been ranked #1 throughout most of the year, was the national champions last year, and who lost only one game all year – which happened to be their last game, against #9 Dartmouth, in overtime. Second-favorite would have to be Northwestern. Prior to Maryland taking the title in 2010 (over Northwestern), the Wildcats had won the previous five women’s lax championships. That’s a pretty good run no matter what sport you are playing in.

In the first round, UF meets up with Stanford. The Cardinal are a pretty good team in their own right, having lost only twice this year, including a 1-goal loss to Northwestern and a 5-goal beatdown at the hands of Vanderbilt. Against like opponents, UF is 5-1 this year while Stanford is 2-2. And Stanford has only played four teams in the top 20 this year, while UF has played eight. But ultimately, the fact that the game is being played at UF, where the UF girls are undefeated this year, will be the deciding factor and send the Gators away with a win.

Duke will most likely await the Gators in the second round and if we can get past the Blue Devils then a showdown with the mighty Terrapins will be our “reward” in the semifinals. The key to our success may just be the shooting of #4 Kitty Cullen and the all-around effort of #13 Ashley Burns who have combined for 149 points (goals + assists) this year – 46% of the team’s total points. Cullen could not find the net in the Gators recent loss to NW and that can’t happen again if the team expects to advance deep into the tourney. Ultimately, getting to the Final Four would be a heck of an accomplishment for the Gators in only their second-year of play, but I am sure this team is hoping for, and expecting, much more.

TBG: Erik Murphy and Cody Larson had their charges reduced. Are they both back with the team next year? Should they be?

OEW: Although Larson and Murphy have not been involved with team activities since their arrests, they also have not been outright kicked off the team. Billy Donovan has said from the moment this happened that he was going to take a wait-and-see approach before making any final decisions. Because of this, and because the charges were reduced to misdemeanors, I believe you will see both of these guys playing on the team next year. Although some sort of partial-season suspension may still be coming.

In Murphy’s case, this is the first time I can remember him being in trouble. Maybe he did just mess up and make a big mistake. I think he probably deserves another chance to prove himself, although I wouldn’t be surprised if he were let back on the team only to transfer later anyway.

In terms of Larson, how many chances does one bad kid get? He was already on double-secret probation from what we had heard so I think this should be the last straw for him. Not to mention that Larson ran from the cops and pretty much refused to come back (based on the audio tapes I heard), which is a further testament to the type of character he really is.

If I had my choice: kick Larson completely off the team and suspend Murphy for the first 10 games of the season.

TBG: Extremely early preseason football polls are starting to spread like wildfire. In most the Gators are somewhere between 20 and 25. Where should they be?

OEW: I actually think the 20-25 range is probably fairly accurate. I think the highest you could possibly put UF would be in the 15-20 range and that would be a stretch. Maybe people have already forgotten, but this team was an absolute train-wreck last year. The offense was easily one of the worst in the NCAA and our defense wasn’t winning us any “Defense of the Century” awards.

The problem now is the unknown. How is Will Muschamp going to do as a head coach? How will Charlie Weis do as a second-in-command and changing the offense from a spread to a pro-style? How will John Brantley do this year? Who will be the other playmakers that step up? The list of questions goes on and on.

I have heard a lot of people say that “on paper” we have as much talent as anyone else in the country. Really? While I would like to believe that, I need to see it on the field first. Sure our front seven on defense could be insanely good this year, but many of those same guys were on the team last year and didn’t do squat. That may not be their entire fault, but nonetheless I don’t remember their names filling up the stat sheets. Hell, our linebackers were non-existent last year and a few of them (namely Jon Bostic and Jelani Jenkins) are the same guys we’re talking about being all-world this year. And don’t get me started on the question marks concerning the offensive-side of the ball. There are just too many to discuss!

Let’s face it, our only two dependable players on the team last year, Janoris Jenkins and Chas Henry (that’s right…a punter was one of our two most dependable players!), are gone for one reason or another. So 20-25 seems like a good range for us to be in….maybe even outside the top 25!