Duke women’s lacrosse is getting beaten badly by a strong Syracuse team today down 9 goals in the first half. Seems we are likely to experience another mediocre ACC season (and season overall). For a program with so many assets, hard to fathom why it isn’t doing better. The team is 28-34 in ACC play over the past 10 years (with only 3 winning seasons), has missed the NCAA tournament, and has slid down the recruiting rankings. Coach Kimel is beloved and has inspired so many with her fight against cancer. But the results on the field seem subpar relative to the bar she set early in her career and what Duke should be able to achieve. For a team that is usually in the top 20, this may seem harsh but they can and should be better.
I know there probably aren’t that many women’s lax fan outs there, but I have a question for you all.
I am curious how others think about situations like this. Kimel is a credit to the school, her players graduate and represent us well, and we have a solid team year in and year out.
However, the program is clearly stuck in neutral and is in fact losing ground to our conference mates, we aren’t threatening to win the ACC, recruiting is down, and missing the tournament from time to time isn’t inexcusable given our schedule but seems like it should cause deep reflection given the resources.
If you were AD would stay the course or look to make a change?