The 2024 NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Final Four is almost here and starts with the heavily-favored Notre Dame against No. 5 seed Denver. The defending champs are 4.5-point favorites and the total ranges between 22.5 and 23. Let’s take a look at what my three favorite bets are for the first Final Four matchup.
No. 1 Notre Dame vs. No. 5 Denver
| Notre Dame (-4.5) Odds | -750 |
| Denver (+4.5) Odds | +470 |
| Total | 23 |
| Time | Saturday · 12 p.m. ET |
| TV | ESPN2 |
Odds via DraftKings Sportsbook
Denver’s win over Syracuse was one of the more impressive wins of the tournament, with the underdog Pioneers executing their gameplan to perfection. Syracuse’s offense thrives on ball movement, so Denver’s strategy was to avoid sliding as much as possible, dare the Orange to dodge their defenders and trust its defense and goalie Malcolm Kleban to make stops.
Their plan worked. Syracuse’s offense looked disheveled for three quarters and the Orange as a whole couldn’t match Denver’s physicality. It was also a pretty lackluster day for the Syracuse defense, which consistently lost its matchups, was torched by Denver when playing zone and didn’t get an exceptional game from goalie Will Mark. Pair that with two Denver goals that were close to being overturned and four Syracuse shots that hit the pipe in the fourth quarter and you get a 10-8 Denver win that couldn’t have gone any better.
The Pioneers effectively made Syracuse one-dimensional, but that’s something that could be hard to replicate against Notre Dame.
Denver’s physicality on defense is one of their strengths, but the Irish — particularly the Kavanagh brothers — welcome physicality and have much stronger dodgers than Syracuse does. Denver’s penalty kill has also been elite, which has allowed them to minimize the consequences of their aggressive play. Yet, Notre Dame boasts a power play unit that is converting on 71.1% of their man-up chances! No other team is above 60% this season.
Ultimately, I see Notre Dame winning this game by a margin, and while I like it to cover the 4.5-point spread, I think there’s a better chance it gets off to a hot start and lead at half by three or more goals.
The Irish have had just three slow starts all season — their first game against Georgetown, first game against Virginia and Quarterfinals game against Albany. All three of these teams slowed down the tempo to limit the overall amount of first half possessions Notre Dame saw and the Irish were uncharacteristically inefficient.
While Denver has one of the better defenses in the nation, I expect them to be tested by Notre Dame’s top-ranked offense early and often in the first half. Notre Dame knows that the Pioneers' best chance of winning is by keeping the number of overall possessions low in a slow-paced game and I don’t expect them to oblige.
With the exception of last weekend against Syracuse, the Pioneers have trailed at halftime against top offenses. Duke, Cornell, Yale and Georgetown — all who rank top 6 in offensive efficiency — all led Denver at halftime and Duke (2nd) and Cornell (3rd) in particular led by three goals at half. Notre Dame outranks all of those teams in offensive efficiency and we could see a similar scenario play out.
I trust the Notre Dame offense to get off to a quick lead and their defense to make enough stops against an outmatched Denver offense to cover the 2.5-point spread in the first half.
I’m also betting Notre Dame midfielder Eric Dobson to have a big day against the Pioneers. Dobson is a physical, downhill dodger that Denver will have to respect. If they don’t slide to Dobson, he should be able to find the back of the net. Yet, if they do bring added pressure early, Dobson is an excellent feeder and has thrived at finding Notre Dame’s elite finishers like Jake Taylor and Devon McLane for assists. Dobson has had multi-point performances in 10 of 15 games so even at -160 on DraftKings, the odds are great to bet him to go over 1.5 points on Saturday.
I’m also betting Chris Kavanagh to stay under 4.5 shots on goal. The younger Kavanagh certainly has game-breaking ability, but I don’t think Denver will let him torch them as goal-scorer like the Hoyas did last week. While I expect Kavanagh to certainly get shots off, I don’t think the volume of quality shots will be there to get him to five or more shots on goal. He’s stayed under 4.5 shots on goal in five of 15 games this season so -130 on DraftKings is a great price to bet him to do so again.
Finally, I like Irish goaltender Liam Entenmann to go over his saves prop of 10.5. While I expect Entenmann and the Notre Dame defense to stifle Denver’s offense, I don’t expect the Irish to have as big of a possession disparity as they did against Albany and Georgetown in their past two games. Will Lynch and Alec Stathakis should be fairly evenly matched at the faceoff and both teams are aggressive on groundballs and clears. I think Entenmann will see a high enough volume of shots on goal to easily reach 11 saves. He’s gone over 10.5 saves in nine of 15 games this season making +112 on FanDuel a great price to bet him to clear this mark again.
Picks: Notre Dame -2.5 (1st Half), Eric Dobson Over 1.5 Points, Chris Kavanagh Under 4.5 SOG, Liam Entenmann Over 10.5 Saves
Note: This article was originally published at 11:33 a.m. ET and was updated to include Liam Entenmann's saves prop.
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