For the first time in nine years, the two-time defending champion Blue Devils will not be traveling to championship weekend. This time around, they did not even make it past the first round.
Ohio State used a 6-0 second-quarter run to grab a 7-3 halftime lead Saturday night at Koskinen Stadium and did not let up after halftime, upsetting fifth-seeded Duke 16-11 on the Blue Devils' home turf in the first round of the NCAA tournament. The loss marks the first time since 2001 that Duke has not advanced past the first round and the program's first home defeat in the NCAA tournament since 1995.
“Everybody comes after you when you’re on top,” Duke head coach John Danowski said. “We lost our hunger a little bit. Maybe somewhere along the way we thought it was going to be easier than it really was and there is no way of knowing that until you experience it—until you live it. The hope is that this will be a stepping stone for next year’s group.”
Although the Blue Devils (12-6) jumped out to a 3-1 lead, a sloppy second quarter put the home team in a deep hole. Duke failed to convert two clears, turned over the ball five times and only shot the ball four times in the period. A singular goal by sophomore attackman Jack Bruckner—assisted by freshman phenom Justin Guterding—was not enough to keep the squad in the action.
As the Blue Devils struggled to get into a groove, Ohio State (12-6) capitalized on all of its first half opportunities, taking 17 shots and finishing the half with six unanswered goals—including the two within 15 seconds of one another in the final 30 seconds—to take a four-goal lead into the locker room.
The Buckeyes easily created space with the Blue Devil defense struggling to stop ball movement across the field. Of the seven goals first-half goals they allowed, only one was assisted—an indication that Duke’s defense failed to make the proper slides to prevent offensive penetration.
“I kind of sensed [it wasn’t our night] in the second quarter,” Danowski said. “Defensively it was the same problems that were plaguing us all year. We don’t slide. We slide [and] we don’t get a two-slide. We don’t recognize situations…. We really don’t communicate well and it’s not anything that we haven’t seen all year."
As the Blue Devils struggled to find their identity following the tough second quarter, Ohio State continued to find and convert opportunities into goals. Although senior midfielder Jesse King and junior attackman Carter Brown were the biggest sources of firepower for a Buckeye offense that takes a Big Ten-low 32.8 shots per game coming into the game, it was senior midfielder David Planning who made the difference to propel his team into the quarterfinals.
After capping off a hat trick at the start of the third quarter, Planning found the back of the net three more times in the second half, finishing with a career-high six goals and adding a fourth-quarter assist for a career-high seven points.
King finished the night with two goals and two assists and Brown added four goals to reach 35 for the season. With the Ohio State clicking on all cylinders offensively, the team on the field did not look like the same team that had scored fewer than 10 goals in nine games this season.
“Team offense is what we’ve been preaching all year and no matter who has the ball in their stick, they’re going to do their job,” Planning said. “Whether it’s putting the ball in the back of the net or moving it to the next guy who’s going to do that is what we pride ourselves on…. We just found open spots today and guys worked really hard off-ball to open up those lanes.”
Duke will face a long offseason but will bring many offensive weapons back to Durham next season, including its trio of attackmen—Bruckner, Guterding and junior Case Matheis. Despite Matheis’ injury problems at the beginning of the season and Bruckner’s integration into the attack for the first time for the Blue Devils, the group combined to average 9.4 points per game.
After being named ACC Rookie of the Year, Guterding tallied 52 goals and 18 assists for the season—including his two goals and one assist in the loss—passing assistant coach Matt Danowski and former attackman Zach Howell for ninth all-time on the Duke single-season goals list.
For Danowski, the missed opportunities that derailed the Blue Devils' bid for a three-peat Saturday night were the same ones that plagued the team all season.
“I’m not sure that I didn’t see anything tonight that I haven’t seen all year,” he said. “There was something missing tonight, whether it was that one guy that everyone looks to in terms of the leadership piece or being a bit older…. I said to the guys afterwards, ‘You just got beat. It was one game and they beat you.’”
The Buckeyes will move on to the quarterfinals to play either fourth-seeded Denver or unseeded Brown at Sports Authority Field at Mile High Stadium in Denver May 16.
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