2014 Atlantic Coast Conference men's lacrosse season

The 2014 ACC men's and women's lacrosse conferences will include six teams, up from four in 2013. Notre Dame and Syracuse joined the ACC in July 2013. This will be the only year that the ACC men's lacrosse conference will include these six teams as Maryland will leave the ACC for the Big Ten at the end of the 2014 season. The finalists from the 2013 NCAA championship game are in the ACC conference in 2014, Duke and Syracuse. Additionally, all six teams are included in the Top 10 of the Lacrosse Magazine preseason ranking. The 2014 ACC men's lacrosse conference includes teams that have won 23 national championships and have 45 appearances in the title game in the 42-year history of the NCAA Championship.

On May 4, 2014 the NCAA will announce the 18 teams that will play in the Division I men's lacrosse tournament. As part of this selection, the bottom four teams will play two play-in games. The ACC is one of 10 conferences that have automatic qualifiers, meaning the winner of the ACC tournament will appear in the tournament, leaving five ACC teams competing for eight at-large bids. Four of the six teams in the ACC will compete in the conference tournament on April 25, 2014. PPL Park in Philadelphia, Pa., will host the ACC tournament in both 2014 and 2015.

*Inside Lacrosse

Non conference:
Duke (8-2, #3, 2-1 ACC) vs. Harvard (5-3, #18), Sunday, 3/29/14, 12pm
North Carolina (7-2, #5, 1-2 ACC) vs. Johns Hopkins (5-2, #9), Saturday, 3/29/14, 2pm

Conference:
Maryland (7-1, #4, 2-1 ACC) vs. Virginia (7-2, #8, 1-1 ACC), Sunday, 3/30/14, 12pm
Notre Dame (4-2, #7, 2-0 ACC) vs. Syracuse (4-3, #10, 0-3 ACC), 3/29/14, 12pm

In the 2013 season, Duke defeated Syracuse 16-10 to win the NCAA Division I Men's Lacrosse championship. 15 of the 25 players in the 2013 championships game will play again for Duke in 2014. Attackman Jordan Wolf and face-off man Brendan Fowler were named pre-season first team All-Americans. Joining them on the list on the second team is Henry Lobb, senior defenseman. Honorable mentions are Josh Dionne (attack), Myles Jones (midfield), Will Haus (midfield), Luke Duprey (long-stick midfield) and Chris Hipps (defense). Face-off specialist Brendan Fowler was a first team All-American in 2013. In the four games in the NCAA tournament that year, he won 70% of his face-offs and gathered 10 ground balls per game. For the entire season he won 64% of his face-offs.

Duke's coaching staff places a priority on ground ball statistics in their post-game reviews. In comparison, Johns Hopkins has found that the four most important post-game statistical considerations are shooting percentage, your opponent’s shooting percentage, your save percentage and your opponent’s save percentage.

In 2013, Maryland lost to Cornell in the first round of the NCAA Division I Men's Lacrosse Championship tournament.

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