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Message: [QUOTE="Abclaxfan, post: 3374879, member: 7164"] I am pretty familiar with Duke's team and I'll add my two cents. 1.) Duke's defense was young this past year, but has a lot of potential. I haven't heard anything regarding JT Giles-Harris. He was considering using his fifth year to play football and I'm uncertain if those plans have changed due to COVID. Kenny Brower was the number two rated player in the 2019 class. He has really good feet and strength. I expect him to be their number one defensemen if Giles-Harris doesn't return. Wilson Stephenson returns from an injury suffered in a playoff game in 2019 against Notre Dame. He was highly touted coming out of high school and was making significant strides before his injury. Tyler Carpenter ran both LSM and close this past spring and was probably the biggest surprise in Durham. He is very strong, athletic, and has playmaking abilities. Finally Will Frisoli is another solid defender who can play either close or up top. He can definitely contribute to a solid defense. While their pole are young and inexperienced I expect them to surprise people. In goal I expect Andrew Bonafede to win the starting job. Uppgren is gone and struggled at times this past year and Bonafede was able to step in and hold his own when called upon. Had the season continued and Uppgren struggled I wouldn't have been surprised to see Bonafede take the starting job. The weakness of the group is no doubt with the SSDM group. Jake Caputo played there this season and may be expected to remain there. He will most likely be joined by a group of converted Omids and defensemen. 2.) In terms of their midfielders, they don't have a definite first group like Syracuse. but they have depth and size. With the addition of Sowers I expect less pressure to be taken off this group. A handful of midfielders have the ability to take over games. We've seen Nakeie do it and Leadmon has had his flashes. Someone will cause serious matchup issues. The problem with this group is the lack of consistency. Many of them have disappeared when needed. I'll add that O'Neil is a match up problem everywhere on the field. He is big and fast and him dodging downfield might be a scary sight for any defense. I could see teams double poling Duke if O'Neil comes out of the box. [/QUOTE]

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