LaxPower Back-Up Stick

Who wins?

I re-watched that Sowers near decapitation.
Sheesh, that was a rough game !

On paper, Duke.

In the real world, Maryland.

DocBarrister

This will be the 2nd game. @2:30 ish

Makar on Sowers.

Grill on O'Neill.

Rahill will have to contain Robertson.

On the other end, Duke is going to have problems on and off ball. They've been struggling off ball lately. Who takes Bernhardt?

Wheels wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 5:42 pm Makar on Sowers.

Grill on O'Neill.

Rahill will have to contain Robertson.

On the other end, Duke is going to have problems on and off ball. They've been struggling off ball lately. Who takes Bernhardt?

Grill v O’Neill would be a lot of fun, lot of muscle in that matchup

pcowlax wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 5:52 pm Grill v O’Neill would be a lot of fun, lot of muscle in that matchup

Grill has taken the muscle match-up in every game this year, except for the ND game!

He took Williams at Hop. He took Leclaire at OSU. He took McConvey last week for UVM.

The Makar-Sowers match-up will be great. Makar has great feet and is physical. Do not be surprised at all if Sowers has a quiet game.

The real match-ups to watch when MD is on defense will be in the midfield.

At the other end, since JTGH no longer takes the top dodger, Brower will probably take Bernhardt. He'll probably float out to Wisnauskas, and based on today and how much ball-watching he did against Loyola, you probably don't want him on Maltz. Who does Duke pole in the MF? Does Carpenter take Long? Will be interesting to see who they think is the bigger threat...or if they double pole the MF and short Maltz.

Adler will see a lot of rubber. He's proven he's up to the task.

Duke plays like today, they'll lose. But i don't think they will...

Matnum PI wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 6:35 pm Duke plays like today, they'll lose. But i don't think they will...

Has that not been how they've played all year in these games? Every game they have vs a Top 20 team is by 1 goal

jrn19 wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 6:40 pmEvery game they have vs a Top 20 team is by 1 goal

it wasn't the 1 goal game that was the problem. It was the sloppy D (which they didn't have all season) and the uninspired O (which they also didn't have all season). Duke's a good team. Arguably the best in D1 Lacrosse. But... Not today.

Matnum PI wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 6:35 pm Duke plays like today, they'll lose. But i don't think they will...

If you mean their off ball defense, yeah, I doubt they'll be as bad next week. Or they'll give up 20 goals.

Quint...and I hate quoting Qunit...made an interesting observation in the Loyola game about Duke. He said they don't have any 2-way midfielders and have to sub everyone on and off. He said it's why they don't ride a lot and why they don't get a ton of transition.

That's something to watch next Saturday. Maryland likes to push in transition. They'll go in early offense. They'll keep defensive midfielders on to play offense. They'll attack in unsettled situations. They'll also ride and cause problems for teams that need to make wholesale subs.

ND's game plan was really solid. Duke also has better offensive players than ND.

Matnum PI wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 6:50 pm

jrn19 wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 6:40 pmEvery game they have vs a Top 20 team is by 1 goal

it wasn't the 1 goal game that was the problem. It was the sloppy D (which they didn't have all season) and the uninspired O (which they also didn't have all season). Duke's a good team. Arguably the best in D1 Lacrosse. But... Not today.

Duke has had plenty of lengthy stretches of uninspired offense all season long. Today wasn’t that unusual IMO.

Matnum PI wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 6:50 pm

jrn19 wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 6:40 pmEvery game they have vs a Top 20 team is by 1 goal

it wasn't the 1 goal game that was the problem. It was the sloppy D (which they didn't have all season) and the uninspired O (which they also didn't have all season). Duke's a good team. Arguably the best in D1 Lacrosse. But... Not today.

They've had uninspired O tons of times all season. Quint mentioned it on the broadcast. There are times where they look disjointed and that they have no bread and butter. The Carolina game, the first ND game, 3 quarters of 2nd ND game. When they get it to Sowers and let him go things are great, but that midfield is a real weakness and they run things through them too much

The Year of Living Dangerously for Duke ends . Maryland by 3 is my pick. Duke has advantages at fogo and goalie but little elsewhere. See Duke as the 4th best team in acc despite the record and rank. Just dont want to enter the last minute or so tied with them since they have the knack that is hard to quantify.

I like the Terps here rather comfortably. Duke has been very blah on offense all year. No chemistry from my birds eye view.

Duke is going to have to do some deep toolbox coaching this week, get under the hood to tune that rough idling Holley 1050 double pumper.

Loyola exposed Dukes defensive weakness inside. I’d expect Benson already has a game plan.

Quint must not know 11 on Duke. Kid can run forever like Forrest Gump, and can shoot on the run like the best of them. Still crazy he has been locked as a SSDM his entire time and comes off so soon after a clear.

DocBarrister wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 5:35 pm On paper, Duke.

In the real world, Maryland.

DocBarrister

Doc nails it.

Unless Dano can find some post season magic (he seems to have a good supplier) and changes his player's heads - UMD wins this one.

Last weekend: the ND team was dang good; the Loyola team was inspired.

Offense: Adv Maryland. They just can attack you in more ways. Bernhardt toasted Kielty in the first half and dominated and then ND decided they weren’t going to let him beat them in the 2H and Maryland’s last 6 goals came from Wisnauskas, Long, DeMaio, Maltz. Also had 2 from Griffin Brown in the 1H. In total: 9 A goals, 5 M goals. For Duke against Loyola? O’Neill, Sowers, Robertson, Smyth, Danenza. 8 A goals, 2 M goals. 1 MF goal was wing off a FO. 0 goals from 1st midfield. That Duke midfield just won’t threaten the way Maryland’s will and the attack units are probably a wash; albeit I think Bernhardt is on a different level to everyone else this year

Defense: Wash. I think Maryland plays better defense than Duke but Duke has the better goalie and Adler makes tons of saves that should be goals. Maryland’s shorties are very good but they are down one with Higgins and against really athletic midfielders they can struggle some. However I don’t think Duke has the athleticism at the midfield to exploit that. Both close D’s are very good. Duke slight edge at long pole with Carpenter. Duke off ball D was not great against Loyola, Maryland’s is usually very very good albeit sometimes they’ll have 1 or 2 slide rotations go awry.

Faceoff: Adv Duke. Naso is elite, Maryland’s 2 are fine and inconsistent. However I don’t think it’ll be as pronounced as ND-Maryland was. I think ND having 2 elite guys gave Maryland some trouble whereas Duke will only really use Naso. I expect Duke will win the majority of faceoffs but maybe closer to 60/40 than 67/33 like ND had.

Clearing/Ride: Adv Maryland. Duke not a great clearing team and they don’t ride. Maryland isn’t elite at clearing but generally very solid and they also are much better in transition whereas Duke wants it to be settled 6-on-6 as much as possible.

All in all, think it’s a good matchup for Maryland with having the better offense and especially one Duke isn’t really accustomed too and duke’s offense not having the pieces that likely could exploit Maryland’s weakness but obviously in a F4 game it can go either way

I'm rooting for the team with the coach who did NOT call timeout immediately after winning the OT face-off.

In 2018, Duke went after Maryland's rope unit. That was Montgomery's coming out party with 3 goals. MD didn't have anyone that could stay in front of him.

I suspect Dano will watch the ND tape and see that the best way to attack Maryland's defense is at their midfield. UVM abandoned its pairs offense and just carried the ball from up top to below GLE. Notre Dame didn't invert but dodged down the alleys and swept to the middle of the field from the wings.

Maryland will be very physical with Sowers, and Sowers hasn't responded well to that throughout the season. Perhaps they invert him the entire game like they seem to do in the 4th quarter of close games. I'd expect Grill to take O'Neill because Grill always takes the big guys. That leaves Rahill on Robertson.

The other end will be really interesting. JTGH hasn't taken the top attack in a while. Seems that Brower will do that. In most of Duke's big games, they were really slow to slide to support defensemen when attackmen dodged. Maybe after seeing Bernhardt glide past Kielty, Duke will slide early and often. If JTGH is playing off ball, does he float to Wisnauskas or stay in the crease against Maltz? It seemed against Loyola that he spent a lot of time in the crease...but he also lost track of his man several times (Loyola missed a bunch of open men).

The real question to me is whether or not Duke double poles Maryland's midfield. JTGH would definitely feel comfortable playing on the perimeter and be able to slough in to knock down skip passes. Kyle Long has an extra gear, and Bubba is super athletic; but it seems like DeMaio draws the pole a lot.

If Maryland gets anywhere near 50% at the FOGO and gets 50% out of McNaney, they're going to be really hard to beat.

With the weather expected to be in the mid-60s on Saturday, both teams will be fresh. I think the winner of the whole thing comes from this side of the bracket. UNC and UVA are going to beat the tar out of each other. Whoever survives that game is going to be beat up. I don't think the MD-Duke game will be nearly as physical as the UVA-UNC game.