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PRINCETON, N.J. — You know the clip. If you think you don’t know the clip, think again.

Joey Spallina stands on the James M. Shuart Stadium turf, a field he says he practically grew up on, fresh off his crowning achievement: an eight-point performance against No. 3 Princeton to send the Orange to last year’s Final Four. The eye black he dons practically consumes his face whole as he awaits the question from ESPN sideline reporter Morgan Uber.

Spallina, looking into the camera, speaking into the ESPN microphone in front of his face. Issuing his one final rebuttal to the detractors that have dogged him since before he hit puberty.

“But hey, I guess I can’t dodge anybody, or beat anybody,” Spallina said sarcastically, looking into the camera as he shrugged the criticisms off. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Spallina would eventually go on to say that he wished he had said something different in the moment.

Days like Friday are reasons why. Searching up “Spallina” on X, hours after he was held without a point for the third time ever in No. 6 Syracuse’s (3-2, Atlantic Coast) 11-7 loss to Princeton (2-1, Ivy League), yields an unsurprising result. All those detractors who said that he can’t dodge? That he can’t beat anyone one-on-one? They crawled back out of the woodwork in full force, taking aim at both him and SU’s offense.

“Grok, can you find Joey Spallina?” a user sarcastically posted.

Realistically, it probably couldn’t. No one could find Spallina on Friday.

The Orange offense goes the way that Spallina goes. That is an undeniable fact. And so, when Spallina disappears, the Orange offense disappears entirely as well. The seven-goal performance — a season-low, and SU’s first game under double-digits this year — speaks for itself.

And still, even that undersells how stagnant Syracuse’s offense was on Friday. The Orange went the entire first quarter without a goal, the first time that’s happened since April 19, 2025 — also an 11-7 loss — against Duke. It took them 23 minutes and 54 seconds to find the net Friday, when Luke Rhoa broke the most arid drought imaginable with a vicious stepdown from some 15-odd yards out.

It was a classic, long-range Rhoa shot. But the thing is, it’s a classic Rhoa shot because Rhoa is one of few shooters in the country who is capable of hitting it on a consistent basis. When your entire team is forced to take Rhoa shots, because those are the only shots its offense can find, it’s a horrendous omen for the rest of the game.

Gary Gait’s aware of that. He didn’t need to see the 52-40 shot disparity separating Princeton and his team — or the even more damning 15-5 first quarter shot disparity — to confirm what he already knew.

“Oh, there was,” Gait said postgame, affirming the disparity in quality looks without even needing to hear the full question. “They just played very good team defense.”

That “team defense” Gait refers to may have been a reason for the lack of quality looks Syracuse generated Friday. But it was also the reason that Spallina was nowhere to be found on the scoresheet against the Tigers.

Joey Spallina, with his classic eye black, gets ready for Syracuse’s 11-7 loss to Princeton Friday. Spallina was held without a point for the third time in his SU career. Eli Schwartz | Asst. Photo Editor

Jack Stahl was at James M. Shuart Stadium last year, standing on the same field as Spallina when he eliminated his team and ended the careers of some of his close teammates. The Princeton defender knows Spallina’s an outstanding player. He also knew that the Tigers had to shut him down, and by doing so, they’d shut down the rest of SU’s offense.

“(We) really honed in on making a game plan for him,” Stahl said postgame.

That game plan, whatever it was, was dialed in from the get-go. On Syracuse’s first possession, the ball was funneled to Spallina, and Syracuse’s star attack tried to maneuver his way out of traffic to get his spot.

The Tigers wouldn’t let him. Marked by Stahl, Spallina lost the ball entirely, giving it right back to Princeton and allowing Peter Buonanno to score the first goal of a 6-0 game-opening Tigers run.

At that point, Syracuse fans might as well have turned off the game, because every single offensive possession looked just as labor-intensive as the first. Sloppy passing, shots off the mark from unreasonable distances, lost faceoffs from John Mullen, dodges met by the brick wall known as the Princeton defense. The Orange weren’t getting any extra possessions to begin with. But it’s not like they would’ve maximized them even if they were.

Pat March’s offense simply wasn’t built to defeat the Tigers. Perhaps that shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, Matt Madalon knows his offense better than just about anyone. He hired March to run it for three years at Princeton.

“Coach March and I talk a lot week to week,” Madalon said postgame. “This week, we obviously didn’t talk a lot because we’re playing against each other.”

The Princeton head coach said that familiarity can almost be a burden at times. Occasionally, if he allows it to, the connection hurts his preparation when trying to gameplan for Syracuse’s offense. His familiarity causes him to overthink March’s tendencies.

But if he did, in fact, overthink March’s offense heading into Friday, perhaps he should stick with that approach. Because it certainly seemed to work — especially against Spallina.

“That’s the best player in the country,” Madalon said of Spallina. “That’s a really hard matchup.”

The postgame scene looked a lot different for Spallina than it did the last time these squads faced off. He walked to the bleachers, signed a few autographs — par for the course for collegiate lacrosse’s most famous face — and walked off of Sherrerd Field, his helmet hanging on the head of his stick, scraping against the black turf as he dragged it with him.

No ESPN postgame interview. No Morgan Uber. No chance to shut up those detractors, the same ones that’ll follow him wherever he goes.

They live for another day.

Published on February 27, 2026 at 9:06 pm
Contact Mauricio: mjpalmar@syr.edu | @mpalmarDO