Denver associate head coach Matt Brown tinkers with a complicated jigsaw puzzle. Instead of cardboard pieces, Brown has a midfield and attack that have interchangeable roles. Switch pieces as he pleases, and the finished product remains the same.
Brown concocted an offense on the foundation of box lacrosse and laid a framework for his parts to fit inside. To find offensive pieces, Denver has looked beyond the West Coast, designing one of the most volatile offenses in the country. Only having lost one starting midfielder from last season’s potent offense, the Pioneers were ranked No. 1 in the Inside Lacrosse preseason poll.
“I’m sure there are no coaches out there playing the violin, feeling bad about us having that considered our challenge,” DU head coach Bill Tierney said of having a variety of offensive options.
Brown’s newfangled offense is steeped in box lacrosse, the dominant game in Canada.
Box lacrosse is played with six players on each team on an ice hockey rink covered with turf, smaller nets and a 30-second shot clock. Field lacrosse is played with 11 players on each team, on a field slightly larger than a football field, with larger nets and no shot clock at the college level — just a stall warning.
Brown’s offense draws on box lacrosse’s ball movement, player movement and picks, bringing a free-flowing element to the offense. Brown compares it to the Princeton offense in basketball, with a focus on cutting and setting screens off of passes.
“Everybody can play each position,” said Teddy Jenner, a former National Lacrosse League player, about Denver’s offense, “… whether it’s an attackman or a middie, they all have to know the spot that they’re in, what that role is.”
Denver has set plays, but rather than X’s and O’s, Brown gives his players parameters to play within, attack Jack Bobzien said. Players don’t have set positions, but their roles in a set are dependent on where they are on the field.
An offense like Denver’s requires more passing than most, exposing it to more potential errors, Brown said. When it comes to recruiting, Denver highly values skill. Sean Cannizzaro, now a key midfielder, was undersized and under-recruited because of his 5-foot-6, 135-pound stature, but he had the skill to play in Brown’s offense.
“We don’t care if a guy is 5-7, 145 or 6-7, 245,” Tierney said, “as long as he can execute the skills that are needed for our program to get a piece of the jigsaw puzzle.”
Brown has picked up pieces from The Hill Academy — a school that helps transition box lacrosse players to the field game — like Zach Miller, last season’s Inside Lacrosse Freshman of the Year. The Hill Academy’s coach, Brodie Merrill, is a friend of Brown’s. The two have known each other since they played against each other at the junior level. Now there are three Hill Academy players on the Pioneers roster.
While Brown’s personal roots are in Canada, Denver’s offense and Brown’s involvement in Canada’s national lacrosse program have drawn Canadian talent like attack Wesley Berg, who is proficient in box lacrosse, to Denver. An IL preseason first-team All-American, Berg is perhaps Denver’s most lethal offensive player.
Denver’s offensive threats complement one another: Bobzien is the distributor, Miller is the do-it-all type with a vacuum for a stick, Cannizzaro is the “engine of our offense,” as Brown put it and Connor Cannizzaro described Berg as the “banger” on the team. Throw in Tyler Pace and Erik Adamson, who combined for 91 points last year, and there’s seven pieces for a six-man picture.
Brown toyed a bit with his jigsaw in a scrimmage against Johns Hopkins this season, moving Berg to the midfield and relegating Cannizzaro to the second midfield.
Despite making three final fours in four years, a national championship appearance has eluded Denver. With what could be Brown’s best attack, the Pioneers may be able finally break through. Until then, Brown will keep tinkering.
Said Brown: “The job’s not done here until we hoist that first trophy.”
