FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — The season-long search for the best team in Division I has bounded from candidate to candidate since early February, never settling for long on a single program.

Maybe it’s appropriate, then, the season’s two most consistent teams find themselves as the last ones standing entering Monday’s national title game.

Third-seeded Yale suffered two of its three losses in overtime. Fourth-seeded Duke has led in the fourth quarter in each of its three setbacks.

In a year devoid of dominance, reliability is the next best option — and no one’s been more reliable than the Bulldogs and Blue Devils.

That’s the start of the similarities between a pair of programs without much common history. Monday marks the first meeting between the teams since 2009 and their first postseason encounter ever.

“We’re very similar in how we approach our coaching styles in terms of trying to be fundamental and trying to be process-oriented and worry about ourselves,” Yale coach Andy Shay said. “On the field it looks like they’re an extremely, extremely athletic team. I’d like to think we’re pretty athletic, but they look pretty impressive on film, so that’s a little scary.”

Indeed, the title game is unlikely to be decided by finesse. Throughout Shay’s 15-year run in New Haven, he’s constructed the Bulldogs (16-3) into a program defined by its physicality. It’s helped Yale evolve from an Ivy League afterthought to a postseason regular, even if this is the program’s first trip to the title game.

It’s personified by three-time Tewaaraton finalist Ben Reeves, a 6-foot-2 attackman who has piled up 61 goals and 50 assists in his senior year and owns Yale’s career records for goals and assists.

This year’s Tewaaraton could very well be decided Monday, as Reeves and the Bulldogs look to get the better of Duke (16-3) and senior attackman Justin Guterding, the Blue Devils’ career goals leader who sits just five points behind current assistant Matt Danowski on Duke’s all-time points list. He added to his NCAA-record goal total on Saturday, moving him to 210 for his career.

“Ben is an incredible player,” Guterding said. “He’s incredibly athletic. I certainly think he’s the best attackman in the country. He’s just big, he’s strong and he’s fast. He can play with both hands. He’s certainly something special.”

This should prove the toughest test either team has seen in the postseason. Duke toyed with Villanova in the first round before easing past the Wildcats, then used second-half spurts to finish off Johns Hopkins and Maryland. Yale overwhelmed Massachusetts with its offense, Loyola with its defense and Albany with both on its way to the final.

But as relatively smooth as the teams’ respective paths have appeared, both have committed themselves to a methodical, day-by-day approach that fits the personalities of their respective coaches.

“It’s the little details, it’s the process, so I don’t think that’s really been lost over the last few years,” Yale attackman Matt Gaudet said. “But I think we’ve really been stingy about that this year, and it’s little details like leaving the locker room clean. I think everything translates on to the lacrosse field — like in school, how you carry yourself around school. I think we’ve just really been focused on that this year, and I think it’s correlated to our success.”

Duke’s season-long evolution has meant adapting to emerging personnel rather than remaining static throughout the spring. It helps explains how ably the Blue Devils’ offense has incorporated postseason star Nakeie Montgomery, a freshman who scored six goals in the regular season before an eight-goal burst over the last three games.

“We did a really good job and the coaching staff did of staying critical on us, even through our wins, allowing us to continue to grow as a group,” fifth-year senior goalie Danny Fowler said. “You saw the evolution of a lot of young guys coming along. … We’re still trying to get better from yesterday and improve for Monday.”

That’s arguably the best thread between the teams. Throughout this decade, Yale has rarely been an easy out, especially in the latter stages of a season. Duke has routinely played its best in April and May under coach John Danowski.

Neither reputation would have developed without the most obvious common characteristic between the two programs.

“There’s a toughness, there’s a work ethic mentality that we both share,” Danowski said. “I see that in their play. They’re physical, they’re edgy, and I like to think that we look that way, too.”