Editor’s Note: The article, charts and bracket below have been updated to factor the results of the Ivy League and Patriot League championship games Sunday.
Even before Sunday’s games — Penn’s 12-11 defeat of Yale in the Ivy League final, and Army’s 11-7 triumph over Lehigh for the Patriot League championship — there was not much left to sort out in the Division I men’s postseason picture.
The Ivy final featured two teams certain to make the field regardless of the outcome. The Patriot title game was a pairing of two programs playing for one spot.
In short, the NCAA lacrosse committee had the answers it needed to select the at-large field Saturday night. But there are two questions without clear-cut answers that will linger until the 9 p.m. selection show on ESPNU.
1. Who is the last team in the field?
The discussion in the committee room probably centered heavily on Maryland and Cornell, with Denver and Ohio State also possessing cases. Cornell has an extra high-end victory, while Maryland’s overall profile is broader.
Here’s a relatively obscure data point that might get mentioned tonight: average RPI win. The average of RPI of the 11 teams Maryland defeated this season was 27 entering the weekend. For the 10 teams Cornell upended, it was 35.
As a comparison, the rest of the likely at-large field had average RPI wins of 20 (Syracuse), 22 (Notre Dame), 23 (Duke and Johns Hopkins), 27 (Virginia), 28 (Loyola) and 31 (Yale). That’s a differentiator for the Big Red, and not a good one.
2. Who are the last two seeded teams?
It’s some combination of Johns Hopkins, Loyola, Notre Dame and Syracuse. Strictly going by RPI, Hopkins and Loyola would seem to have the advantage. But Hopkins did lose to Loyola and Syracuse and didn’t land a top-10 victory, while Notre Dame has a head-to-head over Syracuse — a comparison of two teams that beat Duke earlier in the season.
It would come as no shock if it turns out some of the most robust discussions revolve around sorting out those four teams.
With all that in mind, here’s the update through Friday’s conference tournaments games, with data courtesy of LaxBytes’ RPI replica. Projected conference winners are the top remaining seeds in each league tournament.
Automatic Qualifiers (9)
|
|
RPI |
SOS |
T5W |
T10 |
T20 |
26+ L |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Penn State | 1 | 6 | 4-1 | 7-1 | 10-1 | — |
| Penn | 3 | 11 | 2-2 | 4-3 | 5-3 | — |
| Towson | 6 | 19 | 2-1 | 3-3 | 4-4 | — |
| Army | 15 | 26 | 1-2 | 1-2 | 5-4 | Boston University (27), Lehigh (30) |
| Georgetown | 16 | 24 | 0-2 | 2-3 | 4-3 | Marquette (38) |
| Richmond | 19 | 20 | 1-2 | 2-4 | 3-5 | Mount St. Mary’s (34) |
| Robert Morris | 24 | 39 | 0-1 | 0-3 | 2-3 | Mount St. Mary’s (34), Marquette (38), Sacred Heart (39), Canisius (54) |
| Marist | 26 | 51 | 0-1 | 0-3 | 0-4 | Bucknell (36), Detroit Mercy (48) |
| UMBC | 51 | 53 | 0-0 | 0-1 | 0-2 | Navy (31), Brown (32), Stony Brook (41), Vermont (42), Albany (49) UMass Lowell (59) |
Two locks for the selection show: Penn State will be the No. 1 seed, and there will be no serious quibbles with that placement. … Penn completed the Ivy League double with a victory over Yale. The Quakers should end up with a top-four seed as a result. …
Towson, which handled Drexel in the Colonial title game Saturday, is in line to host a first-round home game for the first time since 2005. The Tigers had play-in games at home in 2015 and 2016. …
Army is back in the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2010. The Black Knights would be a good fit to visit either Penn or Yale. … Georgetown earned its second consecutive Big East tournament title, defeating Denver 12-9. Look for the Hoyas to get sent to someone seeded between fifth and eighth — Loyola, Notre Dame, Syracuse, Towson and Yale all seem like plausible destinations. ...
Georgetown earned its second consecutive Big East tournament title, defeating Denver 12-9. Look for the Hoyas to get sent to someone seeded between fifth and eighth — Loyola, Notre Dame, Penn, Syracuse and Towson all seem like plausible destinations. …
Richmond blasted High Point to repeat as Southern Conference champs. The Spiders are a good geographic fit to get sent to Duke or Virginia for the first round. … Robert Morris shouldn’t get relegated to the play-in game this time around. The Colonials’ campus in Moon Township, Pa., is less than 400 miles from Charlottesville, Va.; a Robert Morris-Virginia matchup would make sense. …
Marist is back in the tournament for the first time since 2015. The Red Foxes have a better RPI than Lehigh (at least for the moment), but the Mountain Hawks’ overall profile is stronger (and would be even better with a defeat of Army in the Patriot League final). … Speaking of the Patriot League, either Lehigh or Army would be a good geographic fit to pair with the eventual Ivy League champ. …
UMBC needed some help just to make the America East tournament a weekend ago. Now, the Retrievers are off to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2009 after upending Stony Brook and Vermont in a three-day span. The Retrievers will surely be placed in the play-in game.
At-Large Bids (15 teams/8 slots)
|
|
RPI |
SOS |
T5W |
T10 |
T20 |
26+ L |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Virginia | 2 | 6 | 4-2 | 7-3 | 10-3 | — |
| Duke | 4 | 4 | 5-2 | 7-4 | 7-4 | — |
| Yale | 5 | 13 | 1-2 | 5-3 | 6-3 | — |
| Loyola | 7 | 12 | 2-2 | 4-3 | 6-4 | Boston University (27) |
| Johns Hopkins | 8 | 1 | 0-6 | 3-7 | 5-7 | — |
| Notre Dame | 9 | 2 | 2-3 | 5-6 | 5-6 | — |
| Syracuse | 10 | 10 | 2-2 | 5-3 | 7-3 | Colgate (47) |
| Maryland | 11 | 5 | 1-4 | 5-4 | 6-4 | — |
| Cornell | 12 | 8 | 2-5 | 2-5 | 5-5 | — |
| Denver | 13 | 14 | 1-2 | 4-4 | 5-5 | — |
| Ohio State | 14 | 25 | 2-1 | 3-1 | 4-3 | Michigan (37) |
| Villanova | 17 | 15 | 1-2 | 2-5 | 2-6 | Drexel (28), Providence (46) |
| North Carolina | 18 | 3 | 2-5 | 2-7 | 3-7 | — |
| High Point | 19 | 36 | 2-0 | 3-1 | 6-1 | Jacksonville (40), St. John's (57) |
Virginia couldn’t have made a much better case for the No. 2 seed than its 10-4 smothering of Notre Dame in the ACC title game. The Cavaliers shouldn’t be any worse than the No. 3 seed. … Yale will land a home game even after its Ivy League tournament loss to Penn. …
Duke will land a top-four seed, and there’s a case to be made for anything in that range other than the top overall slot. … Somebody has to claim the last two seeds in the tournament. Based on overall profile, it’s likely Loyola will get one of them despite its poor offensive showing against Army in the Patriot League semifinals. …
Johns Hopkins, suddenly playing like a top-five team, will be in the field. The absence of a top-10 victory will hurt the Blue Jays’ chances of securing a home game. … The guess here is Notre Dame snags the No. 8 seed, but there’s a case to be made for Syracuse as well. Expect both ACC teams to have competitive first-round games, quite possibly against Baltimore-area schools. …
Maryland got a little extra help Sunday when Penn — a team the Terrapins beat but won at Cornell — claimed the Ivy League tournament. … Cornell owns two high-end victories (Notre Dame and Towson) and little else. The lack of depth to the Big Red’s profile might do them in. …
Denver is lurking even after its Big East final loss. However, the committee is going to look for differentiating factors. Neither Maryland nor Cornell has a loss outside the top-10. Denver fell to No. 25 (in the RPI) Princeton. Not good for the Pioneers. … It’s worth reiterating the season’s great what-if could very well be, “What if weather hadn’t canceled the game between Denver and Ohio State?” …
Army can play its way in Sunday in the Patriot League final. … Villanova and North Carolina are both candidates for bounceback seasons in 2020 after simply not winning enough games this spring. … High Point will get mentioned during the selection show, but its strength of schedule issues and poor losses will keep it out despite the early-season upsets of Duke and Virginia.
PROJECTED BRACKET
A few reminders on piecing together the bracket:
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The committee seeds the top eight teams and then assigns the unseeded teams based on geography in an attempt to limit air travel while trying to maintain bracket integrity.
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Conference matchups are to be avoided in the first round.
-
If applicable, quarterfinal host schools are funneled into their own site. Hofstra and Fairfield are this year’s quarterfinal hosts.
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Of the nine automatic qualifiers, the two with the weakest resumes are assigned to the preliminary round game the Wednesday before the first round. At-large teams are not selected for play-in games.
Hempstead, N.Y.
(1) BIG TEN/Penn State vs. METRO ATLANTIC/Marist-AMERICA EAST/UMBC
(8) Notre Dame vs. Johns Hopkins
East Hartford, Conn.
(5) Yale vs. PATRIOT/Army
(4) IVY/Penn vs. BIG EAST/Georgetown
East Hartford, Conn.
(3) Duke vs. SOUTHERN/Richmond
(6) COLONIAL/Towson vs. Maryland
Hempstead, N.Y.
(7) Loyola vs. Syracuse
(2) Virginia vs. NORTHEAST/Robert Morris
Last three in: Syracuse, Johns Hopkins, Maryland
First three out: Cornell, Denver, Ohio State
Moving in: Army, Georgetown, Richmond, Robert Morris, UMBC
Moving out: Denver, High Point, Hobart, Lehigh, Vermont
Multi-bid conferences: Atlantic Coast (4), Big Ten (3), Ivy (2), Patriot (2)