Duke’s senior class has never played on Memorial Day weekend. After eight consecutive trips to championship weekend, the Blue Devils are 1-3 in the postseason since 2015.

Look for that trend to end in 2018.

Duke is the top-ranked team in the Nike/US Lacrosse Division I Men’s Preseason Top 20. Defending NCAA champion Maryland comes in at No. 2, followed by Denver, Albany and Yale to round out the top five.

It’s a group fortified not only by experience and depth, but also by national player of the year candidates. Duke’s Justin Guterding, Maryland’s Connor Kelly, Denver’s Trevor Baptiste, Albany’s Connor Fields and Yale’s Ben Reeves all likely will factor prominently in the Tewaaraton conversation. Baptiste, Fields and Reeves were Tewaaraton finalists last year, as was Loyola’s Pat Spencer. Baptiste was the only current collegian named Sunday to the 23-man U.S. team that will travel to Israel for the world championship this summer. Kelly and Reeves were on the training team.

The rankings (below) were announced Monday morning. Team-by-team previews will be unveiled on uslaxmagazine.com throughout January and will also appear as part of the magazine’s NCAA preview edition that mails to US Lacrosse members Feb. 1.

Nike/US Lacrosse Division I Men’s
Preseason Top 20

1. Duke
2. Maryland
3. Denver
4. Albany
5. Yale
6. Notre Dame
7. Rutgers
8. Ohio State
9. Penn State
10. North Carolina
11. Syracuse
12. Loyola
13. Johns Hopkins
14. Hofstra
15. Army
16. Virginia
17. Penn
18. Princeton
19. Towson
20. Villanova

Also considered (alphabetical order): Air Force, Boston University, Brown, Fairfield, Hobart, Marquette, Lehigh, Navy, Providence, Richmond