Men's Tewaaraton Stock Watch: O'Neill Masterclass Puts Duke Junior in Front

Padding stat lines is usually not what drives great players in any sport. So to sit here and expect Duke attackman Brennan O’Neill’s 35 goals and 26 assists through 11 games to carry much weight on their own with him or the Blue Devils’ program would be foolhardy.

But numbers can provide a little context, and O’Neill’s production through the end of March would be enviable for most players over an entire schedule.

Take 2022, for instance. For the full season, only 13 Division I players had both 35 goals and 26 assists. That includes four Tewaaraton finalists (winner Logan Wisnauskas of Maryland, plus North Carolina’s Chris Gray, Penn’s Sam Handley and Army’s Brendan Nichtern).

Also in that group are eight others whose teams reached the NCAA tournament: Matt Brandau and Leo Johnson (Yale), Vince D’Alto and Timmy Ley (Boston U), Keegan Khan (Maryland), Ryan Lanchbury (Richmond), Jack Myers (Ohio State) and JP Ward (Delaware). Michigan’s Josh Zawada managed his 43 goals and 34 assists without the benefit of a postseason appearance.

That’s it, and it’s a way of contextualizing just how well O’Neill is playing even before Duke gets to its last four regular season games and whatever postseason opportunities it can earn.

This week’s Tewaaraton Stock Watch top five:

1. Brennan O’Neill, A, Duke (35 G, 26 A)

It’s worth a regular reminder that the Tewaaraton is usually won in late May. Of the award’s 22 all-time winners, 11 played for a national champion and 16 were on teams that reached the NCAA semifinals.

But it sure doesn’t hurt to have a signature regular-season performance or two, and O’Neill delivered one Friday at Virginia. He scored six goals and added three assists — matching his career high in points set last year against Towson — while shrugging off Cavaliers defenseman Cade Saustad as Duke earned a 16-14 victory. It will go down as one of the top individual games of the season.

2. CJ Kirst, A, Cornell (39 G, 8 A)

There’s nothing to quibble with when it comes to Kirst’s five-goal, one-assist outing against Dartmouth on Saturday. He had a hand in three of the Big Red’s first four goals — and did it in a little more than four minutes. Cornell eventually built leads of 6-0 and 10-1 in the first quarter, and Kirst later tacked on three goals in the second half of a 22-11 rout.

The only reason for a swap at the top is O’Neill had a monster day against one of the top defensemen in the country. Both he and Kirst are far from finished, and few would disagree they’re among the two or three best players in the country to this point.

3. Pat Kavanagh, A, Notre Dame (14 G, 29 A)

The senior delivered two goals and three assists as the Fighting Irish teetered a bit in the third quarter at Syracuse before dominating the final 13 minutes of a 20-12 victory in the dome.

Kavanagh had two assists in Notre Dame’s 9-0 run to close out the game. Only four games remain in the Irish’s regular season, including Saturday’s meeting with Duke, an April 30 trip to Virginia and a home-and-home with North Carolina.

4. Conner Shellenberger, A, Virginia (14 G, 34 A)

For the second time in three games, the redshirt junior was quiet in a high-profile matchup against an elite defenseman. Shellenberger managed just three assists in a 16-14 loss to Duke while being marked by Kenny Brower, and two of those helpers occurred in an extra-man situation brought on by a Brower penalty.

Yes, Payton Cormier (six goals) and Xander Dickson (four goals) had fine days with Shellenberger bottled up, and Dickson probably benefited some from the attention Duke paid to taking away the Cavaliers’ offense behind the cage. Not so much for Cormier, who took advantage of a matchup with a short stick and got much of his production off the dodge rather than finishing Shellenberger feeds like he often does.

5. Matt Campbell, M, Villanova (28 G, 21 A)

The graduate student had exactly the sort of day one would anticipate the best midfielder in the country would enjoy against a winless team, posting three goals and five assists in an 18-8 rout of St. John’s.

Campbell has accounted for 26 points (13 goals, 13 assists) over the Wildcats’ last four games, securing at least five points in each of those contests. He’ll certainly draw attention Saturday at Denver, which is likely smarting from a lopsided loss at Georgetown to open Big East play.

Next five: Jacob Angelus, A, Johns Hopkins; Kenny Brower, D, Duke; Payton Cormier, A, Virginia; Tye Kurtz, A, Delaware; Coulter Mackesy, A, Princeton