Our #1 Notre Dame Fighting Irish (6-1, 1-0 ACC) visit the #3 Duke Blue Devils (10-2, 0-1 ACC) this Sunday afternoon at noon (ACCN). The Irish look to continue their momentum on the road. 60 degrees, light breeze and sun are forecast for the event.
The Opponent
The will be the 31st meeting between this rivals. The Irish have won the last 4 in this series, including the 2023 National Championship game (13-9). The last Duke win was an overtime heartbreaker in Durham in 2021 where the Blue Devils came back late from 5 goals down. These teams know each other very well having played each other 6 times in the past 3 years.
Duke’s scheduling philosophy is the opposite of that of Notre Dame. They play a lot of games. After their shocking recent 4-10 loss at #4 Syracuse, the Blue Devils beat #10 Denver, 11-7, and Boston U, 11-10.
It’s not a big secret that the Duke’s Brennan O’Neill (#34, 36g, 21a), the reigning Tewaaraton Award recipient, is a special player. Containing him will be critical. This year his attack linemates are especially potent, with Michigan transfer Josh Zawada (#79, 21g, 31a) and finisher Dyson Williams (#51, 36g, 2a). Andrew McAdorey (#2) is a midfielder to watch, having converted from attack.
Jake Naso continues his great form at faceoff (62%), and Kenny Brower (#29) will torment the Irish attack.
Freshman Patrick Jamieson has taken over goalkeeping duties and has saved at a very impressive 60%.
As calculated by lacrossereference.com, Duke is second in adjusted offensive efficiency (37.9%) behind the Irish (41.3%), and third in defensive efficiency (24.1%) ahead of the #12 Irish (26.1%). The Irish and Blue Devils are #1 and #2 in combined efficiency, with only a sliver separating them.
Our Three Questions
These teams know each other well and there shouldn’t be any surprises. The keys are straight-forward:
1. Confronting their offense: Keeping a lid on the O’Neill/Zawada/Williams attack is always easier said than done. The good news is that the bulk of the Irish defense that controlled them last year returns. The challenge, however, is that this is a matchup where the absence of the graduated Fake, Tevlin and McCahon redefines the Notre Dame approach more than most games the Irish have played this year. This being said, freshman Shawn Lyght has proven his All-American standard at this point in the season, and the rope unit is among the nation’s best if not the best.
This game is a lot of fun. So glad lacrosse is on TV and I can find streams of it.
100%
Whelp we’re going to need another national number 3 again.
It’s going to be interesting ranking the teams behind ND and UVa. Not much resume differentiation.
Is there a reason for the variance in schedules being allowed? It seems odd for a sport to have teams with very different schedules.
We’re not sure there is even a rule. ND plays an extremely hard schedule, but it is far enough away from the east coast hotbeds that most teams can’t afford to make the trip, and there isn’t a whole lot of home game scheduling flexibility in the South Bend winter early season. So Notre Dame only schedules team it expects to help its tournament resume, especially in years where there is an ACC tournament like this year. It’s not a risk free philosophy, as the team found out in 2022.
It’s been very nice having the “A” team on the broadcasts the last couple weeks as opposed to what seemed like student volunteer broadcasts earlier in the season. Quint Kessenich has been entertaining, even if dubious Kennedy assassination references during the Syracuse game might have caused a tizzy if delivered during a football broadcast.
Anish Shroff this week with “This Notre Dame defense is built like a labyrinth — and they’ve got a minotaur at the end in Liam Entemann” was a fabulously fun line.