If there is a chronic complaint fans lob at the NCAA men’s lacrosse committee — which is tasked with, among other things, selecting and seeding the tournament field annually — it is a bias toward ACC teams.
So here’s a reality check: There is no bias toward any team or league. There is a bias toward teams with strong RPI and strength of schedule data points, regardless of whether those numbers actually reflect quality.
Typically, ACC teams have done well in non-conference play, which helps bolster RPI data (50 percent of which is opponents’ winning percentage and 25 percent of which is opponents’ opponents’ winning percentage). Once April arrives and ACC teams are largely playing league games, that mathematical strength builds upon itself.
It’s not going to happen, at least not as demonstrably, in 2022. Only one ACC team (Virginia) begins April in the top 10 of the RPI (data courtesy of Lacrosse Reference), with North Carolina (12th), Duke (13th) and Notre Dame (18th) in the second 10. Syracuse sits at No. 30, and both the Orange (4-5) and Notre Dame (3-4) wouldn’t even be eligible for the tournament if it began now because of sub-.500 records.
Instead of having a chance to claim a top-five victory nearly every time out the rest of the way, ACC teams will have far fewer opportunities to do so. And that’s going to impact seeding and selection when the committee releases its 18-team field next month, something to keep in mind in the coming weeks as the scramble for at-large berths unfolds.
AUTOMATIC QUALIFIERS (10)
|
|
W-L |
RPI |
T5 |
T10 |
T20 |
Notable Losses (25+) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Maryland |
9-0 |
2 |
1-0 |
2-0 |
3-0 |
--- |
|
Georgetown |
8-1 |
3 |
1-1 |
1-1 |
5-1 |
--- |
|
Harvard |
7-1 |
7 |
0-0 |
1-0 |
2-1 |
--- |
|
Boston U |
8-1 |
10 |
0-0 |
0-1 |
1-1 |
--- |
|
UMass |
6-3 |
14 |
0-1 |
0-2 |
1-3 |
--- |
|
Richmond |
6-3 |
15 |
0-1 |
1-1 |
1-3 |
--- |
|
Saint Joseph's |
8-2 |
21 |
0-0 |
0-0 |
0-0 |
at Drexel (47) |
|
Utah |
5-3 |
26 |
0-1 |
0-1 |
0-2 |
at UMBC (57) |
|
St. Bonaventure |
7-2 |
33 |
0-0 |
0-0 |
0-1 |
--- |
|
Binghamton |
4-5 |
43 |
0-1 |
0-1 |
0-1 |
at Bucknell (28), Lehigh (29), Fairfield (40) |
The lone undefeated team left in Division I, Maryland is well-positioned for a No. 1 seed. At the very least, it’s hard to imagine the Terrapins tumbling to a No. 3 seed again with a perfect regular season this year. … Georgetown has done well to scoop up a bunch of victories against the second 10: Denver, Johns Hopkins, Notre Dame and Richmond. …
Harvard is the last team undefeated in Ivy League play, so the Crimson is listed as an automatic qualifier for the moment. … Boston University faces a backloaded April schedule: Yale, at Princeton, at Loyola, at Lehigh, Army. The Terriers’ lone top-20 victory came against UMass. … Speaking of the Minutemen, their defeat of Brown isn’t going to be enough of a non-conference profile to land an at-large berth. The Colonial looks like one-bid territory this season. …
Richmond’s defeat of Virginia gives the Spiders at least a glimmer of at-large hope, but they still have to deal with High Point and Jacksonville — possibly twice apiece — between now and Selection Sunday. … Saint Joseph’s has one high-end nonconference game left, an April 26 trip to Penn.
Both Utah and St. Bonaventure could make their first NCAA tournament appearances with victories in what will surely be a pair of one-bid leagues, the Atlantic Sun and the Metro Atlantic, respectively. … America East teams are a combined 12-37 in nonconference play. Whoever wins the league, whether it’s Binghamton, Albany, Vermont or someone else, is almost certainly going to be ticketed for a play-in game.
AT-LARGE (14 teams/8 slots)
|
|
W-L |
RPI |
T5 |
T10 |
T20 |
Notable Losses (25+) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Princeton |
6-2 |
1 |
2-2 |
3-2 |
4-2 |
--- |
|
Yale |
5-2 |
4 |
2-0 |
2-1 |
4-1 |
at Penn State (32) |
|
Penn |
4-3 |
5 |
0-3 |
1-3 |
2-3 |
--- |
|
Virginia |
7-2 |
6 |
0-1 |
0-1 |
3-2 |
--- |
|
Rutgers |
10-1 |
8 |
0-1 |
0-1 |
3-1 |
--- |
|
Cornell |
8-1 |
9 |
1-1 |
1-1 |
2-1 |
--- |
|
Ohio State |
7-3 |
11 |
0-0 |
1-2 |
3-3 |
--- |
|
North Carolina |
7-3 |
12 |
0-0 |
0-1 |
4-3 |
--- |
|
Duke |
9-4 |
13 |
0-1 |
0-1 |
3-1 |
at Loyola (27), at Syracuse (30) |
|
Denver |
5-5 |
17 |
0-2 |
0-2 |
1-4 |
--- |
|
Brown |
5-4 |
19 |
0-1 |
0-2 |
0-4 |
--- |
|
Army |
8-2 |
20 |
0-0 |
0-1 |
1-1 |
Lehigh (29) |
|
Villanova |
6-3 |
22 |
0-2 |
0-2 |
0-3 |
--- |
|
Jacksonville |
9-2 |
23 |
0-0 |
0-0 |
2-1 |
Utah (26) |
A two-loss Princeton team being ahead of an undefeated Maryland team that it lost to illustrates the considerable constraints of the RPI. Nonetheless, the Tigers do well in other measurements and are well-positioned to end a decade-long postseason drought. … Yale owns victories over Princeton and Penn, and while the loss at Penn State is a head-scratcher, the Bulldogs are off to a fine start in their return from a one-year hiatus.
Once again, Penn and coach Mike Murphy have navigated a challenging schedule. The Quakers’ defeat of Duke isn’t worth as much as it usually is, though they’re on track for an NCAA appearance with a little more than a month left in the regular season. … By the numbers, Virginia isn’t a top-four seed right now. It’s possible the Cavaliers don’t have a top-10 victory heading into the postseason. Consider this an early warning that the defending champs could be a joker in the deck when it comes to seeding. …
Rutgers’ chances of landing a reasonably high seed probably come down to whether the Scarlet Knights can beat Maryland. The chance to do so comes Sunday in College Park. … If the tournament started now, Cornell would ride its victory over Yale straight to a home game in the first round. The defeat of Ohio State helps, too. …
On the subject of Ohio State, the Buckeyes have victories over Harvard, North Carolina and Notre Dame to highlight their resume. Like Rutgers, a trip to Maryland (on April 16) has the potential to elevate their seeding ceiling. … North Carolina’s top-20 victories came against Brown, Denver, Johns Hopkins and Richmond. Just one of them (Richmond) is in this week’s projected field. The Tar Heels have some work to do in the coming weeks. …
Duke snags the last spot in the field on the strength of its victory at North Carolina, but the Blue Devils are in an unusually vulnerable spot with a little more than a month to go. … With a .500 record and only Big East foes not named Georgetown still to come, Denver might already be in a position where it needs to win a conference tournament to get in. The Pioneers just aren’t going to be able to add much to their triumph at Ohio State, though Saturday’s trip to Villanova could prove somewhat useful.
It doesn’t have a noteworthy profile, but Brown does have opportunities. The Bears play Penn, Yale and Cornell the next three Saturdays. … If a victory over last year’s Syracuse team wasn’t enough to drag Army into the field, a defeat of this year’s Orange definitely won’t do the trick. …
Villanova is an interesting team and a dangerous variable in the Big East, but it doesn’t have enough of an at-large profile at the moment. … It’s clear that year’s lightning rod team (if it doesn’t win its league) is probably going to be Jacksonville. It’s a bit like the 2019 High Point team that beat Duke and Virginia and didn’t come especially close to landing an at-large, except that the Dolphins’ noteworthy victories (Denver and Duke) look like they’ll be even less valuable.
BRACKET
A few notes worth remembering …
-
The NCAA will return to eight campus-site games in the first round this season. First-round conference matchups will be avoided, which can lead to some movement for the unseeded teams.
-
With the return of the Ivy League from last year’s hiatus and the addition of the Atlantic Sun, there are 10 conferences eligible for automatic berths. That means there will be two play-in games, featuring the four lowest-ranked automatic qualifying teams.
-
Limiting air travel remains a priority for the NCAA, so this won’t necessarily be a 1-through-16 bracket. Historically, the NCAA tries to bracket the field so only two teams must travel more than 400 miles for a first-round game, though it isn’t a completely inflexible rule.
-
Quarterfinal hosts are funneled into their home sites. So whichever quadrant of the bracket Ohio State lands in will play a second-weekend game in Columbus.
-
This exercise is an attempt to project what the NCAA committee would do based on its history and on this season’s results to date. It is not an attempt to predict future results or suggest what the committee should do.
Hempstead, N.Y., quarterfinal
(1) BIG TEN/Maryland vs. ATLANTIC SUN/Utah-METRO ATLANTIC/St. Bonaventure
(8) Penn vs. Duke
Columbus, Ohio, quarterfinal
(5) Virginia vs. Ohio State
(4) Yale vs. COLONIAL/Massachusetts
Columbus, Ohio, quarterfinal
(3) BIG EAST/Georgetown vs. SOUTHERN/Richmond
(6) Cornell vs. PATRIOT/Boston University
Hempstead, N.Y., quarterfinal
(7) Rutgers vs. IVY/Harvard
(2) Princeton vs. NORTHEAST/Saint Joseph’s-AMERICA EAST/Binghamton
Last three included: Penn, Ohio State, Duke
First three on the outside: North Carolina, Jacksonville, Denver
Conference call: Ivy (5), Big Ten (3), Atlantic Coast (2)