ACC Preseason Rankings | Syracusefan.com

ACC Preseason Rankings

I'm not as familiar with the ACC as I used to be a number of years ago, but I am not that impressed with Duke's starting group as listed on Lax Magazine:
Duke Dame?
Similarly, I was not so impressed with ND's group.
So I think my preseason ACC predictions will be
1 UVA
2 Syracuse
3 North Carolina
4 Duke
5 Notre Dame
 
I'm not as familiar with the ACC as I used to be a number of years ago, but I am not that impressed with Duke's starting group as listed on Lax Magazine:
Duke Dame?
Similarly, I was not so impressed with ND's group.
So I think my preseason ACC predictions will be
1 UVA
2 Syracuse
3 North Carolina
4 Duke
5 Notre Dame

Duke is an odd team in that no matter what happens or how they fair early in the season when you look up in May there they usually are in the quarters. I thought personally last year they overachieved a bit as they took a decent hit offensively to graduation and were just OK at the X and in goal versus their usually really good to great. Duke again will not have a real X type attackmen for the second year straight. Montgomery broke out toward the end of the season so maybe he will lead the pack from the midfield with an up an coming guy like Leadmon and some veterans as well sprinkled in. Robertson and Manown are a real nice 1-2 punch but will be interesting to see who they go with at that third spot. Give Danowski credit he always has his teams there save for that few year stretch after the back to back titles where I think graduation losses finally caught up with them.

Duke's in a wired spot in that they have these really loaded offensive classes (historic by some accounts especially if you go by the IL 100) coming in the next two years yet the last few years they have been a defensive squad but lost a decent amount of pieces this past year and will loss Giles-Harris, Upgren, Lindsay, and Smyth after this season. Interested to see how they look this year, I think they are a bit overrated as you noted but it's hard to be overly confident in that statement based on Danowki's track record.

ND is going to be fascinating to watch this year with Byrne gone. Costabile is a great player but they lost some real nice pieces on defense and offense so you have to wonder if with Byrne gone and no real "star" presence at attack if they take a bit of a step back. Again ND has been so consistent in the regular season that it may be wishful thinking on my part. Morin and Jackoboice have been good role guys but need to take that next step for them. Cohen and Kielty are two upper level defenders but they lost a lot in Phillips, Crance and Kielty. The midfield is definitely formidable and an all Sr group, that stepback might be next year when they lose the entire midline including Costabile as well as their FOGO, LSM and two more Close Defenders.
 
ACC is loaded with good teams and players. Reminds me of the Big East in hoops many many years ago . In last years NCAAs, Duke took out ND in o/t and UVA took out Duke in o/t on way to chip. Can put these
teams in whatever order after UVA who could be even stronger this year.
 
I guess a big thing for Duke might be whether Dyson Williams is an impact freshman at attack. I think he probably will be, but the question then might be "how much of an impact freshman". If he is more of a 30-40 point attackman, he gives Duke a good attack - but if he is getting more in the 50-60 range, it would make Duke's attack very good. Then you add in Montgomery at the midfield, and you'd be getting a pretty good offense.
Duke also pulls in a highly touted freshman midfielder in Jake Caputo. Hard to know how a freshman midfielder will do. Then you have the 2 five-star defensemen: Brower and Frisoli.

Seems a little peculiar with Notre Dame that they are projecting Entenmann as starter in goal when ND has a two year starter Schmidt returning. Schmidt hasn't been that great, but still 2 years of starting in D1 is a big advantage. Outside of Costabile, most of the rest of the offense doesn't really scare me. Although, in the end, I imagine ND will mostly play a grueling defensive style game as usual.
 

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