Late Night with Duke Lax

[burnspbesq]

Duke vs. Denver from Mile High, 10:00 p.m. Eastern on the U, the 3, and the watch espn app.

Important game for Duke. We can grab the one seed for the NCAA tournament with a win and a Hopkins upset of Loyola tomorrow.

Critical game for the Pioneers. They aren't on the bubble, they ARE the bubble. Lose to Duke and their only shot at an NCAA berth is to win the ECAC tournament next weekend.

Should be a good one.

[chrishoke]

Can we avoid the dreaded letdown that seeems so predictable. We will know shortly. Go Devils!

[burnspbesq]

During the Va-Penn broadcast, quint said that Duke will start a number of seniors who don't normally play much. Mentioned Belmont and Shannon by name.

[burnspbesq]

We don't need to go down three.

[Native]

Denver leads 3-0 with 1:40 left in the 1Q. The Pioneers are controlling early — Duke's hit like five pipes. Classic trap game. Ugh.

[chrishoke]

Finally on the board, 4-1.

[Native]

Mark Matthews is too good. That one-handed goal was filthy. I hope he's in the Tewaaraton conversation.

Duke now trailing 4-5 with 3:51 left before halftime. Costabile with a great face-off win and a diving shot reminiscent of the title game. Duke goes on the man-up and Denver calls TO.

[chrishoke]

That was some effort and goal by CJ.

Why did no one slide on that last Denver goal?

[burnspbesq]

Our worst quarter of the season. Have we been behind by five goals this year?

[MCFinARL]

All in all not an impressive outing. Wigrizer not seeing the ball very well and often getting no protection from his defense. No one can stop Matthews. On offense, too many shots right into the goalie's stick.

[MattC09]

When Wigrizer is on, he's amazing. When he's not, we're awful. We've given up it seems. Starting the 2nd team appears to have been a mistake.

[chrishoke]

Embarrassing effort.

[burnspbesq]

Starting the 2nd team appears to have been a mistake.

It was a great thing to do and I'd love to see it become a tradition. But do it at home, and do it against a carefully selected opponent.

[buddy]

Starting the Scout team on the road against a team desperate to make the tournament is a sign of disrespect. Start seniors at home in the final game before their own fans, but no one does this on the road. Or maybe Danowski was doing a favor for an old friend whose team was struggling. Puzzling.

[MCFinARL]

Starting the Scout team on the road against a team desperate to make the tournament is a sign of disrespect. Start seniors at home in the final game before their own fans, but no one does this on the road. Or maybe Danowski was doing a favor for an old friend whose team was struggling. Puzzling.

Kessenich said something about hoping to spark some emotion--maybe Danowski thought the first team looked flat in practice. But it is easy to see how it would spark as much or more emotion in Denver than in Duke--it's a little surprising Danowski, who seems pretty alert to motivation, sportsmanship, etc., would do something that Denver could so easily interpret as disrespect.

[budwom]

Kessenich said something about hoping to spark some emotion--maybe Danowski thought the first team looked flat in practice. But it is easy to see how it would spark as much or more emotion in Denver than in Duke--it's a little surprising Danowski, who seems pretty alert to motivation, sportsmanship, etc., would do something that Denver could so easily interpret as disrespect.

Kessenich was right when he said everything was aligned against us in this game. Exhausting ACC tournament last weekend, end of classes this week, long trip to Denver, high altitude game, and then we
started the seniors who put us in an immediate hole against a team desperate to make the tournament. But the Denver coach is pals with Danowski and knows full well no disrespect was
intended with the starting lineup....there's no way that was an issue. Kind of like senior night in basketball.

[MCFinARL]

Kessenich was right when he said everything was aligned against us in this game. Exhausting ACC tournament last weekend, end of classes this week, long trip to Denver, high altitude game, and then we
started the seniors who put us in an immediate hole against a team desperate to make the tournament. But the Denver coach is pals with Danowski and knows full well no disrespect was
intended with the starting lineup....there's no way that was an issue. Kind of like senior night in basketball.

Agreed, I'm sure Tierney knew Danowski meant no disrespect. But he is a very good coach and might have chosen not to correct his players if they saw it as disrespect, in order to motivate them. Or perhaps they all knew no disrespect was intended but nevertheless saw it as a good opportunity to get a quick start.

And otherwise, I agree that Kessenich's analysis was dead on.

[buddy]

I think I used "disrespect" first, but if not I still want to explain. I was thinking more generally, not just Denver, although it could be taken as disrespect of Denver. The Pioneers are clearly a tournament bubble team. Before last night, they needed to win their conference with the AQ to get in. Still may. But put yourself in Syracuse's place. They are one spot behind Denver in the polls, with a loss to Duke. Duke did not start, or even play, the scout team against Syracuse. While Danowski's job is to coach his team, an action that can be construed as "laying down" for one team, after competing hard against its closest challenger, is out of place. The game was on national TV, another chance to highlight the sport. The doubleheader was intended (I suppose) to promote lacrosse in the Mountain West. And we didn't start the "second" team. Our starting goalie was the 4th string goalie who had played a total of five plus minutes in a wipeout earlier in the season. Most of the rest of the starters have never had to have their uniforms cleaned. I love Coach Danowski and what he has done for lacrosse, but I was very disappointed in his decisions last night. If "tough" road games are too much the week after the ACC Tournament, then don't schedule them.

[budwom]

I see your point, but Danowski is coaching Duke, and he can leave Denver's fate up to Denver.
Look, all he did was what a zillion other coaches do every year: he started a bunch of guys who rarely play, and kept them in the game for several minutes (giving up two goals).
He had NO other opportunity to do this, since it was the last regular season game, and he sure didn't want to do it during the ACC tournament.

Coach K does it for guys at Duke, Goober Roy does it at UNC. It just isn't that big a deal. Frankly, I think the stars were heavily aligned against us anyway.

[burnspbesq]

Just to reiterate what I said above, I think it's great to give the guys who spend four years on the scout team some run in the last regular-season game of their senior year. Let's just be thoughtful about it from now on, and do it at home against Mercer or VMI or Wagner or ... just not in a made-for-TV, "neutral-site" game against a team fighting for its NCAA life.

Hindsight's always 20:20, but if we'd done it against Marist it might have cost us that game, and a lost to Marist would have hurt our RPI and SOS a lot more than a loss to Denver.