Men's Lacrosse Discussion Thread

[4decadedukie]

To initiate our 2011 Lacrosse threads, this is a respectful reminder: Our reigning National Championship team and Ohio State play an exhibition game at 1000 this morning at Duke.

[House G]

Can someone tell me about our team this year with regard to strengths, weaknesses, etc? I am also curious about our chances for winning the ACC and perhaps another NC. Who are some of the teams to beat--is it the usual customers?

[4decadedukie]

Early predictions are notoriously inaccurate, however, Lax Power has the following pre-season (4 February) top-ten poll ratings (clearly, these are fundamentally the "usual suspects"):
#1 UVa
#2 Syracuse
#3 UNC-CH
#4 Maryland
#5 DUKE
#6 Stony Brook
#7 Notre Dame
#8 Cornell
#9 Hofstra
#10 Princeton

It is noteworthy that four of the top five clubs are the ACC's entire men's lacrosse contingent. In addition, Duke will play all of the top seven (except SUNY Stony Brook) during the regular season -- if nothing else, our strength-of-schedule should be excellent.

Duke lost several long-proven players -- and leaders -- last year, and I have not seen their replacements in much action, nor our freshmen recruits. Obviously, we shall be a work-in-progress during the first months; however, I believe our program and coaching staff has an excellent, demonstrated capability to enhance rapid growth in teams (witness, for example, last season's evolution from three losses -- UNC, UMd and Notre Dame -- in the first five games to the National Championship). Therefore, I have faith that we shall again be in the Final Four come Memorial Day.

[WSW77]

Losing Crotty and Quinzani will hurt us on attack and we will be young on that side of the field. Fortunately we did keep a seasoned midfield and we will probably have to rely on them to do a tad more scoring this season. Go Devils!

[SmartDevil]

How did we do recruiting-wise for this year last spring in terms of both star potential and depth for the imminent season?

[loran16]

Early predictions are notoriously inaccurate, however, Lax Power has the following pre-season (4 February) top-ten poll ratings (clearly, these are fundamentally the "usual suspects"):
#1 UVa
#2 Syracuse
#3 UNC-CH
#4 Maryland
#5 DUKE
#6 Stony Brook
#7 Notre Dame
#8 Cornell
#9 Hofstra
#10 Princeton

It is noteworthy that four of the top five clubs are the ACC's entire men's lacrosse contingent. In addition, Duke will play all of the top seven (except SUNY Stony Brook) during the regular season -- if nothing else, our strength-of-schedule should be excellent.

Duke lost several long-proven players -- and leaders -- last year, and I have not seen their replacements in much action, nor our freshmen recruits. Obviously, we shall be a work-in-progress during the first months; however, I believe our program and coaching staff has an excellent, demonstrated capability to enhance rapid growth in teams (witness, for example, last season's evolution from three losses -- UNC, UMd and Notre Dame -- in the first five games to the National Championship). Therefore, I have faith that we shall again be in the Final Four come Memorial Day.

No Hopkins? Also, UNC that high? I can't recall them being a serious threat to Duke or UVA in Men's LaX recently, though they did face us in the tournament.

[MCFinARL]

No Hopkins? Also, UNC that high? I can't recall them being a serious threat to Duke or UVA in Men's LaX recently, though they did face us in the tournament.

Although we beat UNC in the tournament last year, they beat us handily in the regular season game, before Billy Bitter was hurt. UNC is a team with great talent that so far hasn't quite put it all together but is always a threat to.

Hopkins had a very poor season overall last year and thus are not ranked in the pre-season top 10 this year. We'll have to see how that pans out.

One concern for Duke this year, I would think, is that our excellent returning defenseman Mike Manley is out for the season with an injury. We have a highly regarded freshman coming in on defense, Luke DuPrey (sp?), but since he is a freshman we have lost some significant experience there.

[4decadedukie]

No Hopkins? Also, UNC that high? I can't recall them being a serious threat to Duke or UVA in Men's LaX recently, though they did face us in the tournament.

I suppose it all depends on your definition of "recently" and "serious." I suspect you may recall that Hopkins knocked Duke out of the Final Four in 2005 (one goal, National Championship Game), in 2007 (also one goal, National Championship game), and 2008 (again one goal, National Semifinal game). It is my opinion that Hopkins' Final Four record during the last five years make them plenty threatening to Duke.

[MCFinARL]

I suppose it all depends on your definition of "recently" and "serious." I suspect you may recall that Hopkins knocked Duke out of the Final Four in 2005 (one goal, National Championship Game), in 2007 (also one goal, National Championship game), and 2008 (again one goal, National Semifinal game). It is my opinion that Hopkins' Final Four record during the last five years make them plenty threatening to Duke.

I think the OP was only referring to UNC in the part about not being a threat to Duke and was asking why Hopkins was not in the posted top 10. Forgive me if I have misinterpreted.

[burnspbesq]

On the season's first ESPNU podcast, Quint interviewed Duke's Tom Montelli.

Tom said that as a result of Mike Manley being out for the year with an ACL, he is moving from LSM to close defense. He also mentioned freshman Ds Luke Duprey and Henry Lobb as having impressed him with their athleticism and hard work in practice, so that may be the starting close defense on opening day.

David Lawson may be the second LSM.

FWIW, my prediction of the opening day lineup:

GK: Wigrizer
D: Montelli, Connors, Duprey
First MF: Turri, Rotanz, Tripucka
Second MF: Molinari, DeLuca, Coyle
A: Howell, Offit, Fehr
LSM: Costabile, Lawson
FO: Costabile, Molinari

[MCFinARL]

On the season's first ESPNU podcast, Quint interviewed Duke's Tom Montelli.

Tom said that as a result of Mike Manley being out for the year with an ACL, he is moving from LSM to close defense. He also mentioned freshman Ds Luke Duprey and Henry Lobb as having impressed him with their athleticism and hard work in practice, so that may be the starting close defense on opening day.

David Lawson may be the second LSM.

FWIW, my prediction of the opening day lineup:

GK: Wigrizer
D: Montelli, Connors, Duprey
First MF: Turri, Rotanz, Tripucka
Second MF: Molinari, DeLuca, Coyle
A: Howell, Offit, Fehr
LSM: Costabile, Lawson
FO: Costabile, Molinari

sounds like a pretty decent guess--but I don't know much about Fehr. is he in grad school at Duke? did he look promising in the scrimmages?

[burnspbesq]

I haven't seen him play, but he put up decent numbers at Harvard in 2008 and 2009 before missing the 2010 season due to injury.

[77devil]

The upcoming lacrosse season is the subject of the current edition of ESPN The Experts show. Interesting factoid was made about the top ranked UVA seniors. Of the 9 games they've lost in their college career to date, 6 were to Duke. Nice.

The semi final win against UVA last year was one for the ages.

[4decadedukie]

Also opined by "The Experts," Duke 2011 is overrated . . . we shall see, and I will enjoy basking in their errors.

[burnspbesq]

According to the box score, Tripucka and DeLuca were DNP. Anyone attend the game? Are they injured?

[Les Grossman]

Is there a schedule available we can upload to iphones etc?

[Native]

After a terrific 2010 season that culminated in their first ever NCAA championship, the Blue Devils entered fall practices with a lot of question marks facing them as the team graduated a senior class as good as any in the country...


For more, check out Inside Lacrosse's link here: http://insidelacrosse.com/news/2010/10/19/fallball-check-duke-blue-devils

[MCFinARL]

Just posted this morning is Inside Lacrosse's season preview for Duke:

http://insidelacrosse.com/news/2011/02/14/ncaa-2011-preview-no-5-duke-0