Data and projections updated after Friday’s Ivy League semifinals

The NCAA lacrosse tournament is selected in a highly data-driven process — hence all the charts and numbers below.

Some things matter in selection, like strength of schedule and performance against high-end opponents. Some things don’t, like conference affiliation (beyond each eligible league earning one automatic bid).

And while there’s a tendency to imagine various axes to grind, Richmond athletic director and committee chair John Hardt believes going through the process has a way of brushing most concerns aside.

“When you’re in the room [for the first time], you have suspicions and all these preconceived notions of biases or advocacies, and that state of suspicion goes right out the window after the first 10-15 minutes of your first selection meeting,” Hardt said. “Once you start looking at the criteria and applying it, things sort out pretty quickly. Then you think, ‘This is pretty straight forward,’ until you get to that lost spot and realize you’ve been there for three or four hours.”

Hardt leads a committee that will convene Saturday in Indianapolis. Two other athletic directors (Brown’s Jack Hayes and Towson’s Tim Leonard) and two head coaches (Marquette’s Joe Amplo and Furman’s Richie Meade) will join him in determining seeding, matchups and the eight at-large teams.

The NCAA utilizes the RPI in lacrosse, as it does in other sports. Virtually no one would suggest it is a perfect formula, and seasons of about 15 games make it even easier to manipulate with shrewd scheduling.

Hardt acknowledges the RPI isn’t a laser-focused instrument, and the committee uses it more as a sorting tool than anything else.

So what matters? Everything and anything.

“The thing that confounds coaches is they want a crisp answer to, ‘What’s the difference-maker — is it head-to-head, strength of schedule, the last 10 games, wins on the road?’” Hardt said. “The answer is all of those things and it all depends. They hate that. The last three years, it has been a different set of criteria that has ultimately differentiated the last team in from last team out.”

The task of sorting out the last few spots in the field didn’t get any easier on Thursday. Ohio State, Rutgers and Villanova — all teams vying for the last few at-large berths — fell in their respective conference semifinals.

But 13 games still remain between now and Sunday afternoon, including eight conference title games. The committee’s puzzle is far from solved.

“There are always surprises this time of the year,” Hardt said. “You begin to pencil in certain teams as AQs, and they get upset. Now, a team you weren’t thinking about could get a bid. Yet the team that was favored and got upset is still deserving. There goes that many opportunities the bubble teams were vying for. Sometimes it’s one upset. Sometimes it’s three upsets. There’s probably more sifts that will occur based on the competitive results [this weekend].”

Records against the top five, top 10 and top 20 and losses to teams outside the top 25 are based on performance against the current RPI rankings, not human polls). RPI replica courtesy of LaxPower. Strength of schedule numbers, which are also used by the selection committee, are the ranking of the average RPI of each team’s 10 best opponents.

Automatic Qualifiers (9)
Updated Saturday 5/5/18 at 11:00 a.m. ET

Maryland will likely end up at No. 1 in strength of schedule by the end of the weekend. It’s more clear than ever a victory over Johns Hopkins gets the Terrapins the top seed. … It took Albany more than three quarters to pull away from UMass Lowell in the America East semifinals. Plenty of borderline teams will be rooting for the Great Danes to have an easier time of it Saturday against Vermont. …

Book a game off Cold Spring Lane for Loyola next weekend. Last night did nothing to imperil the Greyhounds’ chances of earning a first-round home game. … Yale trucked Penn in the Ivy League semifinals. The Bulldogs have outscored opponents 109-46 on their six-game winning streak and are a victory away from a sixth Ivy League tournament title in seven years. …

Denver is playing for a first-round home game against Georgetown in Saturday’s Big East final. … UMass hosts Towson in the Colonial final. The Minutemen won the first game 8-4, so declaring it a first-to-five-wins sort of game isn’t much of an exaggeration. …

The Northeast Conference is guaranteed of sending a team to its first NCAA tournament appearance. Finalists Saint Joseph’s and Robert Morris have never been. … Richmond had to like seeing its Southern Conference title game opponent Jacksonville need overtime to dispatch High Point. The Spiders had little trouble handling Furman in the first semifinal. … Detroit Mercy enters the projected field after Metro Atlantic top seed Quinnipiac lost to Canisius in the semifinals. Whoever wins is a near-lock to go on the road in the play-in game.

At-Large Bids (15 teams/8 spots)

Notre Dame is looking at something in the 4-6 range in terms of seeding so long as it beats Army on Saturday. … Duke’s likely seed range is 2-4 if it can handle Boston University on Sunday. … Johns Hopkins probably sewed up a home game in the NCAA tournament with its victory over Ohio State. The Blue Jays could end up in the 4-6 seeding range with a victory over Maryland, perhaps higher with some help. …

It turns out there was basically no RPI penalty for Virginia tied to a midweek game against VMI. It helped that none of the borderline teams actually won Thursday. The Cavaliers will be a tournament team in coach Lars Tiffany’s second season. … Thursday’s results were also great for Penn, but it needs to beat Yale on Friday to avoid a losing record and retain any chance at an at-large.

Looking at the last two or three spots, it’s increasingly difficult to see Villanova left out despite its loss to Georgetown in the Big East semifinals. Nonetheless, the Wildcats are definitely rooting for Albany, Denver and Yale over the next few days. … Syracuse probably gets in even with a loss to Colgate, but the Orange would be wise not to chance it. …

Rutgers needed a victory over Maryland to get something especially notable on the board. It didn’t happen. … Thursday’s biggest winner might have been Bucknell. Those two high-end road victories (Yale and Loyola) look better and better. … Cornell remained in the hunt for a bid after silencing Brown 7-4 behind Christian Knight’s 19 saves. The Big Red gets Yale in Sunday’s Ivy final — a game it probably needs to squeeze into the field. ... Penn is no longer listed. At 7-8 after Friday’s ugly 21-6 loss to Yale, the Quakers are ineligible for selection.

The notorious “eye test” is not in the selection criteria, which is a shame for Ohio State. The Buckeyes are probably the most dangerous team of the bunch vying for the last few spots. … Georgetown’s bounceback season continued with a second victory over Villanova, but the Hoyas still need to win the Big East to get in. … Ditto with Vermont in the America East. … It’s not happening for Penn State or North Carolina, though both would have had interesting cases with one more notable victory.

PROJECTED BRACKET

A few reminders on piecing together the bracket:

• 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.

• Conference matchups are to be avoided in the first round.

• If applicable, quarterfinal host schools are funneled into their own site. Hofstra and Navy are this year’s quarterfinal hosts.

• 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.

Annapolis, Md.

(1) BIG TEN/Maryland vs. SOUTHERN/Richmond-METRO ATLANTIC/Detroit Mercy
(8) BIG EAST/Denver vs. Syracuse

Hempstead, N.Y.

(5) AMERICA EAST/Albany vs. Bucknell
(4) Notre Dame vs. Ohio State

Hempstead, N.Y.

(3) IVY/Yale vs. COLONIAL/UMass
(6) PATRIOT/Loyola vs. Villanova

Annapolis, Md.

(7) Johns Hopkins vs. Virginia
(2) Duke vs. NORTHEAST/Saint Joseph’s

Last four in: Virginia, Villanova, Ohio State, Bucknell
First four out: Cornell, Rutgers, Penn State, Navy

Multi-bid conferences: Atlantic Coast (4), Big Ten (3), Big East (2), Patriot (2)

Moving in: Bucknell
Moving out: Penn