Duke Men's Lax 2025

The good news…clearing was better today. also, Benn Johnston was excellent, McAdorey heroics were a bit late, but he gave a great effort. Charlie Johnson was again very good. The offense has to be a little more selfish.

The bad news…Something isn’t quite right with this team…today it was offense, and a slightly slower, off balance defense…sometimes spectacular, others..standing around…Penn, a recent nemesis is in the wings, licking its wounds.
—Princeton was the better team today.…and…ONeill, Williams and Zawada are no longer at Duke. We are (well, at least I am) spoiled. And…Assertiveness is lacking…we saw some of that from Johnston today, very encouraging.
—second midfield was lifeless…inexperience, tentativeness.
—our passing looks as if some of the guys hadn’t played with each other enough…well, duh…that could be.
—Princeton's passing, on the other hand, was crisp…and their midfielders on a couple of occasions ran right by our defender with no backup.
—Princeton is a high quality opponent… Patient and polished on offense with proven scorers.
— plus…for whatever reason, Princeton looked a step quicker and fresh today. Their goalie was hot at first…and we settled for quicker shots than we perhaps should have. Their zone forced Lots of one and dones and offensive turnovers.Lots of deflected shots.
—Tired legs? the announcers even noticed that our shorties looked gassed in the 3d Q.

As to recruiting …Duke is either #1 or #2 in recruiting according to IL for the 3 years, 2024-6. So Duke gets more than its share of good players…they just have to learn how to play together…sure, O’Neill could do things by himself, but…

Yeah, we lost Million to UVa…where is UVa right now?

Dano has his work cut out for him.
 
Benjonson said:
The good news…clearing was better today. also, Benn Johnston was excellent, McAdorey heroics were a bit late, but he gave a great effort. Charlie Johnson was again very good. The offense has to be a little more selfish.

The bad news…Something isn’t quite right with this team…today it was offense, and a slightly slower, off balance defense…sometimes spectacular, others..standing around…Penn, a recent nemesis is in the wings, licking its wounds.
—Princeton was the better team today.…and…ONeill, Williams and Zawada are no longer at Duke. We are (well, at least I am) spoiled. And…Assertiveness is lacking…we saw some of that from Johnston today, very encouraging.
—second midfield was lifeless…inexperience, tentativeness.
—our passing looks as if some of the guys hadn’t played with each other enough…well, duh…that could be.
—Princeton's passing, on the other hand, was crisp…and their midfielders on a couple of occasions ran right by our defender with no backup.
—Princeton is a high quality opponent… Patient and polished on offense with proven scorers.
— plus…for whatever reason, Princeton looked a step quicker and fresh today. Their goalie was hot at first…and we settled for quicker shots than we perhaps should have. Their zone forced Lots of one and dones and offensive turnovers.Lots of deflected shots.
—Tired legs? the announcers even noticed that our shorties looked gassed in the 3d Q.

As to recruiting …Duke is either #1 or #2 in recruiting according to IL for the 3 years, 2024-6. So Duke gets more than its share of good players…they just have to learn how to play together…sure, O’Neill could do things by himself, but…

Yeah, we lost Million to UVa…where is UVa right now?

Dano has his work cut out for him.
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this was going to be a rebuilding year given the losses on attack. Need defense to carry the load and defense was not good tonight which is concerning. This team is not built to win high scoring games.

And yes we have had strong recruiting classes especially going forward (not so sure about 22-24) but not at attack. Princeton’s attack were all top 10 recruits (their sophomore class was top ranked class). Our top 2 recruits are Mac and Johnston who were best 2 players for Duke tonight. Stars matter so yes losing Million really hurts. Starting him vs Liam Kershis would make a big difference.
 
I kinda had the sense that this would be a different year when the perennial refrain from game to game is that Dano hasn’t had this much fun coaching a team. That’s code for you’re not gonna be very good.
 
I think most observers would agree this is not a Memorial Day weekend caliber team. So be it. No shame in that. I think it will be a grind to get into the tournament, but it is certainly an achievable goal for this team.
 
Dukegrid said:
I think most observers would agree this is not a Memorial Day weekend caliber team. So be it. No shame in that. I think it will be a grind to get into the tournament, but it is certainly an achievable goal for this team.
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I agree. It's not too early to look at this, but the ACC is not going to get 4 bids this year. I'm thinking 2 or 3, meaning Duke needs to win 2/3 of Syracuse (H), UVA (A), and UNC (H) and make the ACCT. Princeton, UNC, and ND are the only chances Duke has for top 10 wins right now. That means Duke really needs to dominate the rest of the schedule and probably finish with 4 or fewer losses to get in.
 
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