Welcome to the Gameday Guide.

Every weekend during the college lacrosse season, US Lacrosse Magazine staff will riff here on the juiciest matchups, trendiest topics, biggest storylines and hottest takes.

Who needs Ivy League lacrosse when you can watch Duke vs. Denver?

While their former Princeton and Yale teammates suffer the purgatory of not knowing what this spring has in store for them, respectively, Duke’s Michael Sowers and Denver’s Jackson Morrill will take center stage today (3 p.m. Eastern on the ACC Network) in the first top-10 showdown of the 2021 season.

The top-ranked Blue Devils, an overwhelming favorite this year thanks to an offseason haul headlined by the Tewaaraton Award frontrunner in Sowers, have won the last three games in the series.

Duke’s 15-13 win in Denver last year was a coming-out party for a pair of midfielders that would go on to earn Inside Lacrosse All-American laurels for the abbreviated campaign. Blue Devils midfielder Owen Caputo had three goals and three assists, while Pioneers midfielder Jack Hannah scored six goals in the losing effort.

While Duke has not played against another team in 11 months, seventh-ranked Denver showed and perhaps shook off its rust last week in a season-opening 9-8 win over Utah. Morrill had a goal and two assists in his Pioneers debut, but Denver shot just 18 percent (9-for-49) and won just 40 percent of faceoffs (8-of-20) — the latter statistic exposing a weakness that could soon be fortified by another potential Yale transfer in TD Ierlan, the NCAA’s all-time leading faceoff specialist.

GAMES TO WATCH
All times Eastern

GAME OF THE WEEK

No. 7 Denver at No. 6 North Carolina

Either of Denver’s games this weekend would qualify, as the Pioneers do the dangerous double-dip of Tobacco Road. DU-UNC has made for some great theater in recent seasons. The road team has won the last five games in the series, including a 15-13 Tar Heels win last year in Denver. UNC jumped out to a 13-5 lead after three quarters before Hannah sparked a Pioneers rally with four fourth-quarter goals. The game will be the first of the season to air on ESPNU.

UPSET WATCH

Robert Morris at No. 1 Duke

Despite all the preseason hype, it’s unlikely the Blue Devils will go undefeated. Heck, ACC coaches put Syracuse ahead of them in the conference preseason poll. And Duke has a history of head-scratching early-season home losses. Ask Air Force, which has upset the Blue Devils three times in the last five years. High Point (2019) and Penn (2018) also have come away with unexpected wins in Koskinen Stadium.

Enter Bobby Mo, a perennial sleeper now competing as an independent after leaving the Northeast Conference. The Colonials bring back their top five scorers, a fleet of disruptive long poles and all four goalies from last year’s 4-2 team — not to mention the return of seventh-year senior Jimmy Perkins, who played at Robert Morris from 2015-18 before a two-year stint at Utah. Perkins had 31 goals and 30 assists as a redshirt junior in 2018.

BEST GAME NO ONE’S TALKING ABOUT

Towson at No. 5 Virginia

With all eyes on the four games happening this weekend in North Carolina — not to mention the two mega-teams that reside there — the still-reigning NCAA champion Cavaliers have just as much say in the conversation of teams with an embarrassment of riches.

What lineup will UVA trot out on offense? They’re five-deep at attack with Matt Moore (whom coach Lars Tiffany called one of the five best players in the country), Ian Laviano, Charlie Bertrand, Payton Cormier and Connor Shellenberger. Moore, Cormier and Shellenberger all could play midfield if needed, especially as first-team All-American Dox Aitken gets back into lacrosse shape after spending the fall training for a Villanova football season that never materialized.

It will be most interesting to see how Tiffany deploys Shellenberger, the top-ranked recruit in the high school class of 2019 who redshirted last spring. “Once the redshirt tag was put on him a year ago, it took the pressure off,” Tiffany said. “Being the No. 1 recruit in the nation is a wonderful thing. We all would love to have that honor. But you could tell it was liberating when he no longer had that or was trying to be this impact first-year at the University of Virginia. Through the fall, he was one of best offensive players for us.”

UNDER-THE-RADAR STARS

Sammy Cambere, Utah

Zack Johns (16 saves, 64 percent) would be the convenient choice in identifying how the Utes nearly upset Denver in week one. But look out for Cambere, the native Texan and Swiss-army-knife long pole who scored a goal, scooped four ground balls and made this outstanding diving play to block a shot off the stick of Hannah on a man-down possession.

Austin Popovich, Robert Morris

The 6-foot-3 righty from Columbus, Ohio, was averaging three goals per game before the NCAA shut down the 2020 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That included a career-high five goals to go with two assists against Canisius. Projected over the course of a full season, the now fifth-year senior midfielder was in store for 40-plus goals last year.

Alex Rode, Virginia

You remember him, don’t you? Blame the pandemic, but a lot of us seem to have forgotten the immense role Rode played in leading Virginia to the 2019 NCAA championship. He was the MVP, actually. Despite that and the fact that Rode averaged more than 13 saves per game and stopped more than 55 percent of the shots he faced in the shortened 2020 season — including a 19-save gem against Loyola — he did not appear on any preseason All-American lists. Not ours, nor those compiled by Inside Lacrosse or the USILA. Shame on us all.