NCAA Rewind: Was Duke the Sport's Biggest Enigma?

Before USA Lacrosse Magazine looks ahead to what’s to come in 2025 — look out for our NCAA Way-Too-Early Top 25 rankings later this summer — our team of staff and contributors decided it was worth taking a last look at the 2024 college lacrosse season.

To do that, we’re taking a journey through 30 of the top teams in men’s and women’s lacrosse to see what went right, what went wrong and how we should feel about the season.

DUKE

USA Lacrosse preseason/final ranking: No. 2/No. 6
2024 record: 13-6 (1-3 ACC)

What went right: Even if it wasn’t another Tewaaraton-winning season, Brennan O’Neill (54 goals, 27 assists) was an All-American attackman. Michigan transfer Josh Zawada (33 G, 45 A) was an excellent table-setter for an attack that also featured Dyson Williams (61 G). 

Andrew McAdorey (28 G, 9 A) shot 35.9 percent from the midfield. Veterans Kenny Brower and Tyler Carpenter had standout seasons on defense. Freshman Patrick Jameison got off to a fine start and closed the year with a .531 save percentage, providing stability at goalie. 

Duke earned six victories over NCAA tournament teams (Saint Joseph’s, Princeton, Denver, Virginia and Syracuse, plus Utah in the first round of the postseason) and landed the No. 2 seed in May.

What went wrong: There were a lot of versions of the Blue Devils. The one that tended to breathe fire after losses hammered Princeton, Virginia and Syracuse and bottled up Denver. But while Duke was 6-0 coming off a loss (including its opener, its first game since losing on Memorial Day in 2023), it struggled to play with the same sort of precision after victories. 

The Blue Devils didn’t win back-to-back games after the end of March, and it paid dearly for not being able to put Maryland away in the quarterfinals when it clearly had the better of play in the first half.

Season highlight: Tempting though it is to pick Duke’s annual regular-season defeat of Virginia (this time by an 18-12 margin on April 14), the nod goes to the first quarter of the Blue Devils’ 18-13 clobbering of Syracuse in the ACC semifinals. Duke was up 9-2 after 15 minutes and eventually led by as many as 10 less than a week after a lackluster loss at North Carolina to close the regular season. It was a perfect example of how well the Blue Devils could play at their crankiest.

Verdict: Inconsistent, and maybe the sport’s biggest enigma. Fairly or not, the 14-11 loss to Maryland in the quarterfinals is what these Blue Devils will be remembered for the most. But zoom out for a minute and ask a simpler question: Should this team (armed with eight USILA All-America picks, including five on the first three teams) have lost six games? It’s hard to square that with a team that looked so good when it was at its best.