Myles Jones Named Tawaaraton Finalist

Duke offensive midfielder Myles Jones was named a Tawaaraton Finalist after an impressive ACC tournament despite playing through injury.

Jones barely practiced before the tournament and still managed to take advantage of any short-stick match ups he drew against Notre Dame. Recording a goal on three points, he proved that apparently practice is optional when you're 6-foot-5 and can beat up defenders like a schoolyard bully.

Historically this award has gone to players on teams that make deep runs. The exception, of course, was last year when Albany's Lyle Thompson won the award. If Duke three-peats don't be surprised if Jones wins this award. He will likely be the reason they made it that far.

Rapid Reaction: NCAA Tournament Selection Edition

With Duke and North Carolina learning about what their paths to Championship Weekend look like, I've decided to give a quick and sweet rundown of what these gauntlets look like.

As expected, both teams received favorable first-round match ups at home, but assuming both teams make it to the elite eight, theirs a strong chance each will face a foe they've already failed to defeat once this season.

Duke

First Round: Ohio State, May 9 7:30 p.m.

Duke shouldn't have too many problems with an Ohio State team with only one win it can hang its hat on. Aside from being Johns Hopkins earlier in the season, OSU has come up short against all its highly-touted opponents. The Buckeyes were shut out against Notre Dame and only scored once against Maryland the first time the two teams played. While they beat JHU early in April, they got it handed to them 13-6 in the Big Ten championship game by the Blue Jays. While I imagine they'll bring it for their opportunity to take down the reigning champs, I don't think they have much of a chance.

UNC

First Round: Colgate, May 10 5:15 p.m.

This match up is a little bit more interesting. While Colgate's staple wins are against teams on the back end of the top-20, the Raiders managed to play a competitive game against the top-ranked Orange this past weekend. Colgate managed to make the contest a respectable 7-9 lose despite being absolutely dominated at the face-off X (2-for-20) and losing the ground ball battle (20-29). I haven't seen the film so I'm not going to act like I can explain that result, but I don't think it's replicable. The way you consistently make upsets in May is by controlling possession. In order to do that you need to win ground balls and face-offs. Colgate did neither of those things against Syracuse.

UNC And Duke Tawaaraton Nominee Run Down

The 2015 Tawaaraton Nominees were announced in a press released earlier today. The release detailed three North Carolina players and two Duke players that will be considered for the Tawaaraton Award this year.

Myles Jones and Deemer Class were selected from Duke.

Chad Tutton, Jimmy Bitter and Joey Sankey were selected from UNC.

Among these five, Bitter and Sankey are the likeliest to win the award. Bitter leads UNC with 69 points and more assists than he's ever had (35), but Sankey isn't far behind with 60 points of his own.

Tutton's lack of assists will likely be his downfall. While he has 31 goals, he only has 5 assists, and UNC runs its offense through Bitter and Sankey. The odds of Tutton's assist numbers significantly changing are low.

Myles Jones's 65 points makes him the likelier of the Duke candidates to win the award. Class has 47 points. If Jones can have a strong outing in the ACC tourney and push Duke deep into the NCAA tournament, it will go a long way in assisting his candidacy, but Jones's inconsistent play against top ranked opponents could keep him from being strongly considered.

With the way this award if typically chosen, whatever player on the top team does the best will win. Once the finalists are announced, my expectation is that Tutton and Class will be left out.

ACC Tournament: Round One Preview

This weekend the ACC will cram three highly competitive games in the span of three days at Philadelphia's PPL Park. Here's my attempt at breaking down what will happen.

#4 Duke vs. #1 Notre Dame

Need to Know

The first time these two teams played at Duke's Koskinen Stadium it was clear who was the better team. The Fighting Irish absolutely tore the Duke defense to shreds scoring at an insanely efficient clip to start the game and never letting up on their way to a 15-10 win.

After that game coach John Danowski spent more than 30 minutes in the locker room speaking with players before coming out to address the media. The normally talkative coach who loves talking X's and O's was short with reporters.

When asked if he could comment on what he said to the guys in the locker room all he could say was,"No, I can't."

Needless to say, that game was an emotional one for the Blue Devils. They may be the defending champions, but with a 1-3 record in ACC play, they know their backs are against the ropes.

I'm not going to go out and say that Duke will win this game, but it will most definitely be more competitive than last time. I don't believe Duke has the personnel to handle Matt Kavanagh and the Irish offense, but coach D will most definitely find a way to make Duke in this game. Keep in mind that if Duke doesn't win this game, there's a good chance the team will have to travel to play its first NCAA playoff game.

Prediction

While I truly believe Duke will come out ready to scrap, I don't see them pulling this one out. Notre Dame proved during the regular season that it wasn't just the best team in the conference, it was the best team in the country. I don't see that changing with this game.

Notre Dame 14, Duke 12

#2 North Carolina vs. #3 Syracuse

Need to Know

The crowd at North Carolina was enormous for the senior day of future UNC legends like Joey Sankey, Jimmy Bitter and Chad Tutton. UNC rode that home crowd all the way to a 17-15 victory as Sankey broke Marcus Holman's record for points in a career at Carolina.

UNC's offense was simply too prolific to stop. They have too many weapons that are too good, and if a team tries to take them on in a shoot out, they will lose 10 out of 10 times.

This time around Syracuse will have to tighten up defensively limit UNC's opportunities. They won't be able to completely shut down the Tar Heel offense that oozes depth and veteran leadership. In order to win, they'll need a strong performance out of the goalkeeping tandem of Bobby Wardwell and Warren Hill who combined for 10 saves in these teams' last contest.

But it's not that simple. It all starts with the Orange defense forcing UNC's risk-taking gunslingers into poor shot attempts.

Prediction

The Tar Heels don't have the home crowd to keep hype this time around, but they don't need it. It's the ACC playoffs. Guys like Sankey and Bitter don't need anything more to get them hype for a big game like this one. I think they'll take this one, but it'll be a good one for sure.

North Carolina 16, Syracuse 15

Will The Real Myles Jones Please Stand Up

He's a monster of a man. 

Standing at 6-foot-4 and 235 pounds, Duke midfielder Myles Jones is every coach's dream physically and athletically. Leading the nation in points by a midfielder, he's far and above the best attacking middie in the nation, with about 4 goals a game. The next closest midfielder is averaging almost a point less.

But in the past month, Jones has been streaky to say the least.

The towering gunslinger was not only kept relatively silent against Notre Dame, but he didn't score in the first half against North Carolina a week ago and didn't score at all against Syracuse the week before that.

Between the Blue Devils contests against Georgetown and North Carolina, Jones encountered a scoring drought that lasted more than 100 minutes—not what you want from your leading offensive threat.

While Jones's sheer athleticism allowed him to dominate early in the season, as Duke has played tougher competition and better defense, Jones has begun to struggle.

Since accumulating eight points against Georgetown in the middle of march, Jones has only been able to muster up six points in the past three games. In those three games, he's only scored three goals—the same total he had in one game against the Hoyas.

To give Jones his credit, he's been playing against higher caliber defenses. Notre Dame came into Koskinen Stadium Saturday with the top-ranked defense in the ACC and the 12th ranked defense in the nation. UNC held Virginia to six goals and held one of the other top middies in the game, Ryan Tucker, scoreless. Syracuse was no slouch of an opponent either—they're ranked in the top 20 in terms of points against too.

But that's no excuse for a player poised to become the most prolific offensive midfielder in Duke history. Jones only needs 11 points to pass Jim Gonnella as the all-time leading Blue Devil point getter from the midfield.

There's no reason for the junior to not be dominant.

When Jones is at his best, he uses his physical gifts to beat his opponents with one powerful dodge up top and quickly rip a shot or find the open man.

Lately that has not been the case. Instead of playing patiently, Jones has tried to make extra moves to force himself into the heart of defenses, and good opponents have made him pay with turnovers.

In the past three games, Jones has lead his team in turnovers in every single game and piled up a total of 12. 

Jones's stick work has never been his strong suit. He's a great player because of his whale of a shot and his ability to bully defenders to draw double teams.

But we haven't seen that Myles Jones as of late.

If Duke wants to get over this three game skid and mold itself back into the championship contender everyone thought they were early this season, it's going to start with finding that Myles Jones again—the man they hope to be the real Myles Jones.

North Carolina's Pontrello Getting Back Into The Mix

It's a scene North Carolina men's lacrosse fans are used to seeing. Steve Pontrello receives the ball up top with a short-stick defender guarding him. The Jersey kid licks his chops, splits his defender, steamrolls by him and pings the upper left corner on a rifle of a running shot.

It's what we're all used to seeing, but what we haven't seen nearly enough of this year.

When Pontrello scored his lone goal against Duke in UNC's 15-14 win Saturday, it wasn't just another mark on the scoresheet. Pontrello's goal represented a turning point in the Tar Heels season.

"We made adjustments at halftime with Tutton, Pontrello and Simpson on the first midfield line," coach Joe Breschi said. "We need (Pontrello) at this point in the season."

For the first 11 games of the season, Pontrello was used sparingly, only playing in six games as he started the season with an injury. Now that UNC has hit the toughest portion of its schedule—ACC play—the Tar Heels need Pontrello.

While Peyton Klawsinki and Patrick Kelly have performed better than expected with Pontrello and Shane Simpson's absences, there's no way the Tar Heels can replace Pontrello's strong right-handed shot and dodging ability.

With a physical presence that forces defenses to account for his driving and extend themselves to prevent his shot, Pontrello's abilities go beyond just scoring goals. He opens up space for other middies like Chad Tutton to find openings and improve the offense’s efficiency on the whole.

"It's been a gradual progression," Breschi said. "We were a little conservative, heading (toward starting Pontrello). Finally it was time to open up."

As a two-year starter coming into his junior year, Pontrello was expected to improve upon being the fourth leading scorer on the team from 2014. With 17 points, Tutton was the only midfielder to best the 5-foot-8, 195-pound corner-ripping specimen.

He might not reach those numbers this season, but if the Tar Heels are going to make a deep run all the way to memorial weekend, they'll need to see a lot more of the Pontrello we all got a glimpse of against Duke.

"Pontrello is getting to 100 percent," Breschi said. "But he's still lethal at 80 percent."