It must feel good to be back on top.
The ACC lacrosse tournament begins on Friday, and unexpectedly, Duke is the No. 1 seed in the four-team bracket. Despite ranking one spot behind rival Maryland in the latest Inside Lacrosse poll, the Blue Devils earned the conference regular season title after amassing a perfect 3-0 ACC record.
So what is reasonable to expect from this team in the postseason?
Last Saturday’s 13-11 win over thenNo. 7 Virginia suggests a second national championship is a realistic goal—even though the Cavaliers were missing Preseason All-America Steele Stanwick—especially when one also considers last month’s 9-8 nail-biter over then-No. 3 Maryland and a 14-9 victory in Chapel Hill on Mar. 3. An early-season win over then-No. 10 Loyola highlights Duke’s performance in nonconference games.
Any prediction of a repeat national championship would be pretty optimistic, though.
The Blue Devils have two major problems that they have to fix quickly to avoid an early playoff letdown: struggles on the road and a sieve-like defense. The team has compiled an abysmal 1-4 record outside of Durham, and that lone victory was just a few miles down Tobacco Road against then-No. 8 North Carolina. Duke also fell to then-unranked Pennsylvania in a major early-season upset.
In fairness, the other three away losses were against top-10 teams Notre Dame, Syracuse and Denver, and the ACC Tournament will be held at Koskinen Stadium. The Blue Devils will be able to improve their NCAA Tournament seeding immensely with a successful weekend, but the team will eventually have to travel to Baltimore, Md., for the national championships. So far, there seems to be little indication that the Blue Devils can beat three ranked opponents in a neutral field setting.
What’s more, defense has been Duke’s Achilles’ heel away from Koskinen all season long. While the Zach Howell-led attack rates third in the nation in scoring offense, the defense gives up an average of 9.07 goals, ranking in the bottom half of Division I.
It all starts with goalie Dan Wigrizer, whose save percentage of 53.8-percent rates 26th in the nation, over six points lower than the rival Terrapin’s Niko Amato. Without a stronger performance in net, the Blue Devils will find their season over faster than CJ Costabile ended Notre Dame’s a year ago in the national championship game.
There is hope for Wiggy, though. He is coming off arguably his best week of the season, earning ACC Defensive Player of the Week honors after racking up 11 saves—eight in the second half—and four ground balls in the win over Virginia. His performance will, more than any other factor, determine the difference between a quick NCAA Tournament exit and a trip back to Baltimore for the national semifinals.
Costabile, who along with Howell was nominated for the 2011 Tewaaraton Trophy as the country’s top collegiate lacrosse player, was a third-team All-American a year ago, and will be largely responsible for picking up any of Wigrizer’s—and the rest of the defensive unit’s—slack throughout the postseason.
Duke will also have to narrow the gap in the turnover battle. The team, on average, creates 10 fewer turnovers than it produces, and ranks outside the top half nationally in both categories. While the offense has shown its ability to capitalize on the opportunities it creates, as evidenced by its 12.87 goals per game, the back unit simply cannot afford to give opposing teams chance after chance to score.
Wigrizer, Constabile and the rest of the defensive unit will have to prove themselves once again in a first round ACC Tournament matchup against the Cavaliers’ top-ranked scoring offense. A win Friday, though, would just be one small step towards an elusive repeat national championship, one that will only make it back to Durham if the Blue Devils can take their hot play on the road.
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