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January 19th, 2010 by Sean Burns- from insidelacrosse.com

Both before and after his article in the August 2009 issue of IL, former Syracuse All-American defenseman Ric Beardsley has been an outspoken fan, critic and personality for the game of lacrosse. We figured, why not tap into that and offer him a chance to throw his thoughts on paper for the upcoming season. Hopefully he’ll be able to send us regular updates, but for now, here’s his opening statement – Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Beast Blog…

Who doesn’t trust this man’s opinion?

Here we go again… My Preseason Picks

I just got an email from my buddy and 3-Time National Champion at Syracuse, Matt “Flag-Down” Palumb. The email was of the 2010 schedule for the Syracuse Orange. As I breezed through it, I see that Syracuse has only 6 home games compared to the 10 home games they had last year, oh well, looks like a sober spring for me!

Here are my thoughts:

How does Duke get ranked #1? I mean, think about it, doesn’t the team that won the prior year’s championship deserve to carry that #1 ranking (Face-off Yearbook 2010) going into the 1st Poll of the new season? Call me a Homer if you want but, if Duke had won the title in 09’ then I would have no problem with the #1 ranking.

Here is my take on 2010, Syracuse wins it all, AGAIN, that work for you? I am sure you are not surprised I went with the school I played at and why wouldn’t I? Why? Coach Simmons was my head coach (yes, I am that old) and he made you truly believe that you were the best team in the land each season even if your record and ranking said otherwise. And if we didn’t win a title each season year, it was considered a down year as far as the coaches and my teammates were concerned.

See people, that is why Syracuse is Syracuse. Love them or hate them, they still have shown time and time again that they can win championships year in and year out. Why are most Syracuse players cocky? It is because it was instilled in us to have a chip on our shoulders by our head coach. Go and ask any current or prior Orangeman and they will tell you the same thing (and how good they are/were), it is the chip that the coaches carry on their shoulders that rubs off on the players.

You might ask, where am I going with this? I am telling you why Syracuse should be #1 in every poll forever, how about that?

So in my Final Four I have: Syracuse, Harvard (Yes, Harvard), Duke and Virginia. I think the sleeper of the Tourney will be Harvard. John Tillman is a great guy and coach. He has pulled some legit recruits and seems to keep on pulling them in. I think with a season under their belts the rookies will pay off and take them into the Final 4, they will not be ranked #4 going in. It is a gut feeling, just like the gut feeling I had that Cornell would beat UVA last season to get into the Finals. I called it (a Cornell win) on a local radio show (ESPN 1260) and low and behold it came true! (I’m a genius, kidding). I think the Final is UVA and Cuse with Duke and UVA Playing on one side of the bracket and Harvard and SU playing on the other side of the bracket. I think Cuse is going to be Cuse (Sorry Coach S) and take home The Gold for The 3-peat.

So there you have it, let’s see how is plays out….

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 20th, 2010 at 11:45 am and is filed under News. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.