The love fest for the Duke guys continues. Team defense wise Duke is excellent but I've seen Solomon, who is not the world's best dodger, get by VanRaphorst and score at least twice over the last two years and I have seen Giles Harris both get beat and clearly miss slides when playing us. To still have both of them above chris fake and that guy from Towson who is killing it, not to mention Mellen, is getting ridiculous.
Go back about four years, and voters were doing this with ND. Kavanagh'd get a first team spot when Berg and Brown and Glesener and King and Donahue were around -- maybe folks figured that 50 points at ND was like 70 or 80 anywhere else because Corrigan didn't run-n-gun. Or maybe they liked the way he rode. Same deal with Perkovic. He was big and bad and scary and seemed to play "up" against SU, but IDK that his results said he was one of the three best mids in D1.
To be fair, we've drawn some benefit of voters liking players from big programs in past years -- no way Salcido AND Mariano both were better than Currier in '17, when he led D1 mids in just about everything, plus took 200 faceoffs and won more than 55 percent. I though Salcido was *slightly* better than Mariano, but that voters probably wrote Mariano in (all those big goals!) then said "but Sergio is such a great story..."
There seems to be a script the voters follow: Pick no more than ONE great under-the-radar guy/school at each position, then fill the team with guys from schools with big reputations. Voters also favor defenders who play loud; Mellen wields a scalpel and makes guys disappear--he doesn't blow them up. To be fair, though, we've seen him miss slides this year (Notre Dame?) too.
I also think the mid-season voting is tough because it's hard to have seen much of the Lehighs and 'Novas or Cornells, and if you see them outside, their offensive guys might be slowed by crappy weather/fields.
On defense this year, they're right to have Surdyk on the first team, but because he's there, Chick gets the shaft (pun intended) despite again being one of the best takeaway guys in D1. I'd probably go Surdyk, Chick, Giles-Harris on the first team. Second would be Mellen, the Cornell kid and Grill (underrated, wicked small, doesn't get much help and plays in a market where the sport gets little attention). Van Raaphorst and Fake are third team; it feels like Fake isn't quite kicking butt like he did as a frosh.
At midfield, I'd love to see Curry on the first team, but Aitken just edges him out. Dox continues to get scoring chances, while Curry's had some consistency issues like one would expect in his first season as a go-to guy. I didn't see the Hobart game, but in the two previous games he was not the best midfielder on his own team, IMO. (Curry-Trimboli-Dordevic could be scary good in 2020, and Buttermore-Lipka-Mangan/Quinn is like a decent second unit.)
Finally (apologies for the length) it's good to see Dearth and Kennedy get noticed. Dearth has brought size and athleticism to an SSM spot that often felt like the speedy guys are too small and the bigger guys are too slow. That group could be quite strong next year with a first pairing of Dearth and Dami (please tell me he's eligible but decided to redshirt), and Helmer and Barlow with some experience under their belts.
