Here is a great article from the NY Times discussing how realignment has benefited Maryland in terms of exposure for its sport teams, specifically women's lacrosse.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/10/sports/maryland-women-in-big-ten-find-exposure-for-their-lacrosse-dominance.html
Maryland Women, in Big Ten, Find Exposure for Their Lacrosse Dominance
By MARC TRACY MAY 9, 2015
PISCATAWAY, N.J. — At a morning shootaround on May 1, several hours before her top-ranked team was set to play Ohio State in the semifinals of the inaugural Big Ten women’s lacrosse championship, Maryland Coach Cathy Reese chatted with Kara Lentz, a Big Ten Network broadcaster. Lentz said she would interview Reese that night at halftime if Maryland were ahead or if the game were tied.
Reese shrugged.
“If I’m losing,” she said, “no one wants to talk to me.”
The comment was, in retrospect, prophetic: Although Maryland entered halftime ahead at Rutgers’s High Point Solutions Stadium, the Buckeyes roared back in the second half, turning a 7-4 deficit into an 11-8 lead, and eventually held on to win, 11-10.
It was the first loss of the season for the Terrapins, the defending champions, who were featured on the cover of the April issue of Inside Lacrosse with the headline “Best Team Ever?” At 17-1, they still received the top overall seed in the N.C.A.A. tournament, which began Friday, and they will play Massachusetts at home Sunday.
Also notable was that a member of the news media wished to speak with Reese at halftime at all. Since Maryland joined the Big Ten last year, not only has the Terrapins football team received more attention, but Terrapins lacrosse has, too, especially because the conference has its own network. Maryland’s new allegiance has had perhaps the biggest effect on the sport that, by some numbers, is among the fastest-growing in the United States.
Adding Maryland and Rutgers gave the Big Ten five men’s and six women’s lacrosse teams (Northwestern has only a women’s team). The conference added Johns Hopkins’s storied men’s program and thus earned automatic-qualifying status for both the men’s and the women’s N.C.A.A. championships.
The upshot is that in one year, the Big Ten Conference went from not having lacrosse at all (its few teams played in other conferences) to having a full lacrosse season, as well as teams that have won 11 of the 44 total N.C.A.A. men’s championships and 20 of the 33 women’s championships.
For now, Big Ten lacrosse attendance is slim — only a few hundred people were in the stands for the May 1 game, most of whom had a direct connection to the players — and ratings are modest, although, not including the championship weekend, they are up 70 percent over last year, according to a Big Ten Network spokeswoman.
But the trend lines are looking up.
“It’s a growth sport when connected to programs like Hopkins and Maryland,” said the Big Ten commissioner, Jim Delany. “There’s a great chance to leverage off that.”
While the Big Ten’s football tradition is revered — Maryland’s players marveled at playing in Ohio Stadium, which, one noted, was even “bigger than the Ravens’ stadium”— when it comes to lacrosse, whose hotbeds reside on the Eastern Seaboard, the dynamic is reversed. It is no coincidence that the Big Ten staged its first women’s and men’s lacrosse tournaments here in New Jersey and in College Park, Md.
Lacrosse is the official team sport of the state of Maryland, and the University of Maryland women’s team has won 11 N.C.A.A. championships. It seems appropriate, if coincidental, that the sport’s distinctive yellow ball matches the taxicab hue on Maryland’s uniforms.
“It’s an interesting marriage, because they have the history and tradition,” Delany said. “For us, it’s newer.”
Yet if there is any sport in which Maryland is a natural fit in the traditionally Midwestern Big Ten, it is women’s lacrosse. Five of the conference’s six women’s coaches are Maryland alumni.
Referring to her coaching peers Kelly Amonte Hiller (who won five straight national titles at Northwestern from 2005 to 2009), Missy Doherty, Alexis Venechanos and Jenny Ulehla, Reese said, “I played with Kelly of Northwestern, I played with Missy of Penn State, I coached Alexis of Ohio State, and Jenny of U. of Michigan was a couple years older than me.”
Maryland’s previous conference, the Atlantic Coast, does not have its own cable network. By contrast, the Big Ten Network aired lacrosse games throughout the season, and all were available on its app, BTN2Go. There were five cameras at the Maryland-Ohio State game, and, yes, there were halftime interviews.
The increased exposure is a boon, Reese said.
“This year, having gone through it, we have so many different people that reach out and say, ‘Hey, I’ve gotten the chance to watch your team play, and you were awesome,’ ” she said. “I’ve gotten emails from all over the country.”
Reese added, “As far as recruiting goes, people who may not easily attend our games can watch us on TV.”
National television is also a perk for the players.
“My grandma watches every single game,” the Maryland junior midfielder Taylor Cummings said. “And she loves it, because she can sit on her couch in Buffalo and not have to go out in the cold.”
The father of the freshman midfielder Taylor Hensh said that relatives in Michigan and Alabama watched her games.
More exposure might even do something for the sport of women’s lacrosse, which has long labored in the shadow of the more physical men’s game. Inside Lacrosse’s April cover was the first since 2006 to exclusively feature women’s players.
“When you get the mega-conferences having women’s lacrosse as a conference sport, it really starts to validate your sport,” said Cindy Timchal, a former Maryland coach who won seven straight N.C.A.A. titles there and now coaches at Navy.
It also helps a sport to have a winning team to attract extra attention, and although the Terps’ perfect season is over, they still seem cover-worthy. Of Division I’s 107 teams, only Maryland is in the top 10 in both scoring offense and scoring defense — a fine distinction, given that most teams with a lead deploy a keep-away, four-corners offense that does not produce many goals.
The team returned all but two starters from last year’s championship squad, including four first-team all-Americans.
The newcomers include goalie Alex Fitzpatrick, a transfer from Lehigh, and the freshman Megan Whittle, who played high school lacrosse at McDonogh School outside Baltimore and, before Friday, had not lost a game since middle school.
“We work together,” the senior attacker Brooke Griffin, who is also a captain, said about the advantage of returning so many players. “When I’m behind the cage, I know who’s cutting. We know how to feed the ball. You’re working together as a unit.”
Maryland’s experience and chemistry also produce unusual shootarounds. While many teams fill that hour with intense drills, Maryland prefers to goof off. The players stretch, shoot and play the catch-the-ball game 500.
“I think if other teams see our shootarounds, they’re like, ‘What in the world?’ ” Cummings said. “But that’s just how we are. That’s how Cathy is. It’s how we’ve always done — just joking around.”
She added: “That’s why I think we’re so good. We enjoy playing.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/10/sports/maryland-women-in-big-ten-find-exposure-for-their-lacrosse-dominance.html
Maryland Women, in Big Ten, Find Exposure for Their Lacrosse Dominance
By MARC TRACY MAY 9, 2015
PISCATAWAY, N.J. — At a morning shootaround on May 1, several hours before her top-ranked team was set to play Ohio State in the semifinals of the inaugural Big Ten women’s lacrosse championship, Maryland Coach Cathy Reese chatted with Kara Lentz, a Big Ten Network broadcaster. Lentz said she would interview Reese that night at halftime if Maryland were ahead or if the game were tied.
Reese shrugged.
“If I’m losing,” she said, “no one wants to talk to me.”
The comment was, in retrospect, prophetic: Although Maryland entered halftime ahead at Rutgers’s High Point Solutions Stadium, the Buckeyes roared back in the second half, turning a 7-4 deficit into an 11-8 lead, and eventually held on to win, 11-10.
It was the first loss of the season for the Terrapins, the defending champions, who were featured on the cover of the April issue of Inside Lacrosse with the headline “Best Team Ever?” At 17-1, they still received the top overall seed in the N.C.A.A. tournament, which began Friday, and they will play Massachusetts at home Sunday.
Also notable was that a member of the news media wished to speak with Reese at halftime at all. Since Maryland joined the Big Ten last year, not only has the Terrapins football team received more attention, but Terrapins lacrosse has, too, especially because the conference has its own network. Maryland’s new allegiance has had perhaps the biggest effect on the sport that, by some numbers, is among the fastest-growing in the United States.
Adding Maryland and Rutgers gave the Big Ten five men’s and six women’s lacrosse teams (Northwestern has only a women’s team). The conference added Johns Hopkins’s storied men’s program and thus earned automatic-qualifying status for both the men’s and the women’s N.C.A.A. championships.
The upshot is that in one year, the Big Ten Conference went from not having lacrosse at all (its few teams played in other conferences) to having a full lacrosse season, as well as teams that have won 11 of the 44 total N.C.A.A. men’s championships and 20 of the 33 women’s championships.
For now, Big Ten lacrosse attendance is slim — only a few hundred people were in the stands for the May 1 game, most of whom had a direct connection to the players — and ratings are modest, although, not including the championship weekend, they are up 70 percent over last year, according to a Big Ten Network spokeswoman.
But the trend lines are looking up.
“It’s a growth sport when connected to programs like Hopkins and Maryland,” said the Big Ten commissioner, Jim Delany. “There’s a great chance to leverage off that.”
While the Big Ten’s football tradition is revered — Maryland’s players marveled at playing in Ohio Stadium, which, one noted, was even “bigger than the Ravens’ stadium”— when it comes to lacrosse, whose hotbeds reside on the Eastern Seaboard, the dynamic is reversed. It is no coincidence that the Big Ten staged its first women’s and men’s lacrosse tournaments here in New Jersey and in College Park, Md.
Lacrosse is the official team sport of the state of Maryland, and the University of Maryland women’s team has won 11 N.C.A.A. championships. It seems appropriate, if coincidental, that the sport’s distinctive yellow ball matches the taxicab hue on Maryland’s uniforms.
“It’s an interesting marriage, because they have the history and tradition,” Delany said. “For us, it’s newer.”
Yet if there is any sport in which Maryland is a natural fit in the traditionally Midwestern Big Ten, it is women’s lacrosse. Five of the conference’s six women’s coaches are Maryland alumni.
Referring to her coaching peers Kelly Amonte Hiller (who won five straight national titles at Northwestern from 2005 to 2009), Missy Doherty, Alexis Venechanos and Jenny Ulehla, Reese said, “I played with Kelly of Northwestern, I played with Missy of Penn State, I coached Alexis of Ohio State, and Jenny of U. of Michigan was a couple years older than me.”
Maryland’s previous conference, the Atlantic Coast, does not have its own cable network. By contrast, the Big Ten Network aired lacrosse games throughout the season, and all were available on its app, BTN2Go. There were five cameras at the Maryland-Ohio State game, and, yes, there were halftime interviews.
The increased exposure is a boon, Reese said.
“This year, having gone through it, we have so many different people that reach out and say, ‘Hey, I’ve gotten the chance to watch your team play, and you were awesome,’ ” she said. “I’ve gotten emails from all over the country.”
Reese added, “As far as recruiting goes, people who may not easily attend our games can watch us on TV.”
National television is also a perk for the players.
“My grandma watches every single game,” the Maryland junior midfielder Taylor Cummings said. “And she loves it, because she can sit on her couch in Buffalo and not have to go out in the cold.”
The father of the freshman midfielder Taylor Hensh said that relatives in Michigan and Alabama watched her games.
More exposure might even do something for the sport of women’s lacrosse, which has long labored in the shadow of the more physical men’s game. Inside Lacrosse’s April cover was the first since 2006 to exclusively feature women’s players.
“When you get the mega-conferences having women’s lacrosse as a conference sport, it really starts to validate your sport,” said Cindy Timchal, a former Maryland coach who won seven straight N.C.A.A. titles there and now coaches at Navy.
It also helps a sport to have a winning team to attract extra attention, and although the Terps’ perfect season is over, they still seem cover-worthy. Of Division I’s 107 teams, only Maryland is in the top 10 in both scoring offense and scoring defense — a fine distinction, given that most teams with a lead deploy a keep-away, four-corners offense that does not produce many goals.
The team returned all but two starters from last year’s championship squad, including four first-team all-Americans.
The newcomers include goalie Alex Fitzpatrick, a transfer from Lehigh, and the freshman Megan Whittle, who played high school lacrosse at McDonogh School outside Baltimore and, before Friday, had not lost a game since middle school.
“We work together,” the senior attacker Brooke Griffin, who is also a captain, said about the advantage of returning so many players. “When I’m behind the cage, I know who’s cutting. We know how to feed the ball. You’re working together as a unit.”
Maryland’s experience and chemistry also produce unusual shootarounds. While many teams fill that hour with intense drills, Maryland prefers to goof off. The players stretch, shoot and play the catch-the-ball game 500.
“I think if other teams see our shootarounds, they’re like, ‘What in the world?’ ” Cummings said. “But that’s just how we are. That’s how Cathy is. It’s how we’ve always done — just joking around.”
She added: “That’s why I think we’re so good. We enjoy playing.”
