Come on down, Cantabene?

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When Dave Cottle was ousted from his post as head coach for Maryland lacrosse, you were probably one of the many fans with dreams of grandeur. Maryland's wishlist was filled with names like Gary Gait, the Michael Jordan of lacrosse, and Jeff Tambroni, who has made Cornell into a powerhouse. The list was lengthy, but most people on it had plenty of star power.

Unfortunately for Maryland, it never really worked out that way, at least to this point. Maryland had plenty of options from Day One, or at least seemed to. But one-by-one, ever so slowly, they've started to disappear.

First came the news that Gary Gait, the greatest lacrosse player ever and coach for Syracuse's women's team, wasn't interested. That wasn't a big problem; Gait was a longshot from the start, so no one should be too surprised that he turned down the Terps.

Then Mike Pressler, former Duke coach and current Bryant HC, was ruled out of the running, too (or ruled himself out). The reasons are vague, but it seems that 1) he wasn't that interested, and 2) the timing didn't work out.

It was at this point that a potential shortlist of Tambroni, Albany coach Scott Marr, Stevenson University coach Paul Cantabene, and Syracuse assistant Lelan Rogers was reported by InsideLacrosse. Which was good, until Tambroni announced that he actually turned Maryland down.

Cantabene, meanwhile, hasn't been contacted, which means he's probably near the bottom of that list. And Marr says he'd love to coach at Maryland, but, as of a few days ago, hasn't been contacted either.

So it's a little puzzling trying to figure out Maryland's potential targets. Cantabene and Marr, from the perspective of a somewhat uneducated observer, remain the most likely, simply because they keep coming up. If either one of those end up as HC, I'll probably be pleased but not blown away.

Cantabene, as you probably know by now, started the Stevenson team from scratch and built them into a top five D-III program, which is more of an accomplishment than it sounds. He's renowned for being tough and having exciting offensive teams, which Cottle never had, and worked at Maryland under Cottle for a few years prior to taking the Stevenson job.

Marr, meanwhile, also was an assistant at Maryland before his current gig, though under Dick Edell and not Cottle. He took over the Albany job in 2001 and has guided them to four America East titles and four NCAA appearances; the school had a grand total of zero for both before his arrival. But he hasn't had a winning season since 2007, and went 5-11 last year.

The name that was mentioned above but was rarely heard otherwise was Lelan Rogers, an assistant at Syracuse that has found head coaching success at the D-III level in the past. He's been lauded for making Syracuse's defense one of the best in the country, and has been mentioned in the past as a potential candidate for a bunch of HC openings.

Other major candidates do exist, of course. One is Kevin Corrigan, Notre Dame's head man. Corrigan's stock skyrocketed after his Fighting Irish's surprising NCAA finals run, but he's not a one-hit wonder; Notre Dame has become a rising power in the lacrosse world because of him, and he's overseen a few great teams in his time. He's been at Notre Dame for a long time (22 years), so it's questionable as to whether or not he'd willingly leave, but his name has been brought up in the past.

The last number I heard attached to the list for the opening was ten. And I don't know about you, but that seems like a lot. I wouldn't be surprised if this didn't have a quick resolution.