05/30/2010 - Duke Sports Information

Game 20 l NCAA Tournament Championship

No. 5 Duke (15-4) vs. Notre Dame (10-6)

Monday, May 31 l 3:30 p.m. l ESPN

M&T Bank Stadium l Baltimore, Md.

Game Notes l Live Stats

Duke Takes on Notre Dame in NCAA Final

The fifth-seeded Blue Devils defeated No. 1 seed Virginia, 14-13, to advance to their third NCAA Championship game and second under head coach John Danowski ... Duke will battle unseeded Notre Dame on May 31 at 3:30 p.m., on ESPN at M&T Bank Stadium ... Quint Kessenich and Sean McDonough will be on the call for ESPN ... This will be the second time Duke has played Notre Dame this season.

Duke-Notre Dame Series History

Duke and Notre Dame are squaring off for the eighth time overall and for the second time in 2010 ... The Blue Devils won the first five games, but the Fighting Irish have won the two most recent contests in 2010 and in 1995 ... Notre Dame's first win came in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in 1995 and the second was in Durham on Feb. 20, 2010.

A Win Over Notre Dame Would

• Give Duke its first men's lacrosse national title
• Be Duke's 12th overall NCAA title in its fifth sport (men's soccer, men's basketball, women's golf, women's tennis)
• Be the program's 455th all-time victory
• Be John Danowski's 285th career victory and 66th at Duke
• Give Duke at least 16 wins in a season for the fourth time since 2005
• Push Duke's record in NCAA Tournament games to 20-13 overall and 1-2 in championship games
• Give the seniors their 11th NCAA Tournament victory
• Be Duke's first victory over Notre Dame in the NCAA Tournament
• Push John Danowski's NCAA Tournament record at Duke to 11-3 and to 15-11 overall

Last Time These Two Teams Met

Ninth-ranked Notre Dame outscored Duke 5-2 in the second half to outlast the No. 2 Blue Devils 11-7 in non-conference action on Feb. 20, 2010 ... The Fighting Irish led the entire 60-minute contest ... Duke was led on offense by senior attackman Max Quinzani with three goals ... Fellow attackman Ned Crotty dished out two assists, while junior attackman Zach Howell had one goal and one helper ... Freshman goaltender Dan Wigrizer turned in a strong outing with 15 saves.

Scouting Duke

Duke captured a thrilling 14-13 victory over No. 1 seed Virginia in the NCAA Semifinal on May 29 ... Headlining the offense is the trio of Ned Crotty, Max Quinzani, and Zach Howell ... Crotty leads all scorers with 85 points from 23 goals and a school-record 62 assists ... Quinzani is the top goal scorer with a school-record 68 tallies and 81 points overall ... Howell completes the trio with 67 points (49g, 18a) ... Redshirt sophomore Justin Turri paces the first midfield line with 19 goals and 17 assists for 36 points ... Senior Sam Payton is Duke's leader at faceoffs, winning 132-of-229 restarts for a .576 win percentage ... The Blue Devil defense is led by close defensemen Michael Manley, Parker McKee and Dan Theodoridis ... McKee leads all players with 32 caused turnovers and 101 ground balls ... As a team, Duke is allowing 9.19 goals per game and scoring 13.81 ... In goal, the duo of junior Mike Rock and freshman Dan Wigrizer have shared duties during the NCAA Tournament ... Rock has three starts on the year and owns a 5.79 goals against average and a .444 save percentage ... Wigrizer earned the nod in the semifinal round and has a 9.71 goals against average and a .509 save percentage in 15 starts and 18 games played.

NCAA Tournament Notes

• Duke is 19-13 all-time in NCAA Tournament play
• The Blue Devils have advanced to the national semifinals six times overall (1997, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, & 2010) and to the championship game three times (2005, 2007 & 2010)
• Duke has won 13 of its past 17 playoff games, with three of the losses coming against Johns Hopkins in the 2005 and 2007 title games and the 2008 semifinals
• Duke and Notre Dame are meeting for the second time in NCAA Tournament history
• Overall, the Blue Devils are 17-6 in NCAA action when reaching double figures in the scoring column and 0-7 when held to nine goals or less
• Duke is one of eight schools with more tournament wins than postseason appearances (Cornell, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Maryland, North Carolina, Princeton, Syracuse & Virginia)
• The Blue Devils have earned the NCAA Tournament's top seed twice - 2007 & 2008 ... The Blue Devils also earned top-eight seeds in 1994 (8), 1995 (5), 1997 (5), 1998 (7), 1999 (4), 2000 (7), 2002 (7), 2005 (2), 2009 (3) and 2010 (5)
• By round, the Blue Devils are 10-3 in first round action, 6-5 in the quarterfinals, 3-3 in the semifinals and 0-2 in national championship games
• By seed, Duke is 5-2 as the No. 1 seed (2007 & 2008), 3-1 as the No. 2 seed (2005), 2-1 as the No. 3 seed (2009), 0-1 as the No. 4 seed (1999), 5-2 as the No. 5 seed (1995 & 1997), 3-3 as the No. 7 seed (1998, 2000 & 2002) and 1-1 as the No. 8 seed (1994) ... The Blue Devils own a ledger of 0-2 as an unseeded squad (1992 & 2001)
• Duke has played seven games at home in NCAA Tournament action, dropping an opening round game to Notre Dame in 1995 (12-10) and earning first round victories over Maryland in 1994 (14-9), Fairfield in 2005 (23-4), Providence in 2007 (18-3), Loyola in 2008 (12-7), Navy in 2009 (14-5) and Johns Hopkins in 2010 (18-5)
• Seven different Blue Devils have earned NCAA All-Tournament Team honors with two players - Matt Danowski & Nick O'Hara - garnering the accolade in both 2005 and 2007 ... One-time honorees include John Fay (1999), Dan Flannery (2005), Matt Zash (2005), Ned Crotty (2007) and Zack Greer (2007)

Duke University Press Conference Quotes - May 30, 2010

Duke coach John Danowski

Opening Statement on Monday's NCAA championship against Notre Dame

"We're just extremely honored to represent Duke University.  This game is a result of a lot of hard work and a lot of ups and downs in the season, which happens to every team.  We are playing an opponent who beat us soundly at home, playing an opponent that has two ACC wins under their belt, Maryland and Duke.  We are extremely aware of the challenge.  We look at it as that we are the major underdogs coming in.  They've earned the right, they're playing great and they have a tremendous resume in our conference.  I think they are the only team in the country to have any win over an ACC team."

On Monday's weather forecast
"For us, we think it's awesome. It's weather that we're used to in Durham, so our guys are accustomed to the weather. We play a lot of people. We played 23 guys yesterday, two offensive midfields, five short stick D middies, two long stick D middies, so we played 14 midfielders during the course of the game. For us, the hotter the better."

On the approach to this year's playoffs against previous years

"That's different every year. The emotion of the first year was umimaginable, looking back - relative to now. I think this team is much freer. They are much more focused on playing lacrosse than the first two groups were. And it's different - it's just a different feel, it is a different focus and I've also been around these guys for four years. I can't tell you that I knew that group the first year. We coached and obviously we showed up every day, but it was hard just to know them. These guys, I've got a better feel for them as people and as a group. We were on the bus yesterday coming back from the tailgate. It's pretty late - about 11 o'clock - and we start talking about Notre Dame, and the discipline that's going to be necessary to be successful and how you can celebrate until 11 o'clock and that was it. It was time to turn it off, and these guys really accept that. They really understand what it's going to take. It's going to take a herculean effort, I think, by all of our guys to be successful on Monday."

Duke senior faceoff specialist Sam Payton

On what has changed about Duke since the first meeting against Notre Dame

"I think a number of things have changed mainly with experience with what we went through in the early part of the season.  We dropped a few games and when we played them we were coming off a high of beating the US National Team.  I don't think we had the experience of have a loss and having to work hard to where we are now.  I think our mindset is just different knowing that we've worked very, very hard to get here where in that point in the season we haven't accomplished much.

Duke junior attacker Zach Howell

On how you attack Notre Dame

"It's going to be a tough matchup because their defense is firing on all cylinders right now.  They want to play us in the box; they want to pack it in and try to put their goalie to see our shots.  It's going to be important for our offense to really work hard for good shots.  Other teams have tried to do so, but haven't been able to accomplish that.  It's going to be a challenge.

On if you should take as many shots as you can or have better shot selection against Scott Rodgers

"I think it's a combination of both.  You want to get on the goalie early.  You want to have high percentage shots and smart shot selection.  From there, you want to generate as many shots as you can.