Whatever the NCAA lacrosse committee does in forming the 17-team Division I bracket this weekend, its decisions won’t result from a lack of data.
The five-member committee convenes in Indianapolis on Saturday and Sunday to sort through a field that will include nine automatic qualifiers and eight at-large selections. At their disposal will be some fairly well-known figures (raw RPI, strength of schedule, performance against the top 10, top 20, etc.) and some that tend to get overlooked (average RPI of opponents a team has defeated and lost to).
So here’s the question for committee chairman Jack Hayes: What’s the most important data point of all?
“What’s interesting is that people sometimes think the criteria changes from year to year,” Hayes said. “What changes is the circumstances or the situation. What I mean by that is some years there’s a point where you’re looking at five schools for three spots and then in another year there’s two schools for one spot. The criteria’s the same. How you would use it could be very different.”
In that pair of scenarios, for example, a head-to-head result would probably carry more weight when there’s two teams for one slot in the field than when there’s a larger scrum challenging for more spots.
Hayes, the Brown athletic director, is in his fourth consecutive year on the committee and sixth overall. He will be joined by two other athletic directors (Towson’s Tim Leonard and Loyola’s Donna Woodruff) and two coaches (Marquette’s Joe Amplo and Furman’s Richie Meade) in this weekend’s deliberations.
As usual, the committee has some restrictions in how it brackets the field. After seeding the top eight teams, there is a guideline to limit teams traveling more than 400 miles for a first-round game. That’s why no one should be surprised if Notre Dame and Denver get paired together if Denver wins the Big East; that would combine a program and a first-round site that would both require flights.
The final three rounds of the tournament are not subject to such requirements, a good thing in a year when both quarterfinal sites (Hempstead, N.Y., and East Hartford, Conn.) are in the Northeast.
It’s also worth revisiting the most controversial decision from Selection Sunday last year. The opening round game is supposed to pair the two weakest teams, but there was a general consensus Robert Morris had a better resume than Richmond — yet the Colonials were forced to play Canisius because that matchup did not require a flight.
“It is a challenge,” Hayes said. “You want to make sure you can remain true to the bracket and make it as competitive as possible and as it should play out, but at the same time, you have the travel limit. We have to treat that play-in game and who might be in it with the same integrity and thoughtfulness going through this as we would going into any first-round game. It’s going to be very important to make sure we do.”
With all that in mind, here’s the update through Thursday’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 | 9 | 3-1 | 6-1 | 7-1 | — |
| Penn | 5 | 17 | 1-2 | 3-3 | 4-3 | — |
| Towson | 6 | 15 | 2-1 | 3-4 | 4-4 | — |
| Loyola | 7 | 12 | 2-2 | 4-2 | 6-3 | — |
| Denver | 13 | 14 | 1-2 | 4-3 | 5-4 | — |
| High Point | 19 | 48 | 2-0 | 2-0 | 6-0 | Jacksonville (41), St. John's (57) |
| Hobart | 26 | 54 | 0-1 | 0-2 | 0-3 | Saint Joseph's (51) |
| Marist | 30 | 51 | 0-1 | 0-3 | 0-4 | Bucknell (37), Detroit Mercy (49) |
| Vermont | 38 | 55 | 0-1 | 0-1 | 0-4 | Stony Brook (43), UMass Lowell (59) |
Penn State very much looked like the best team in the country Thursday, dismantling Rutgers just five days after struggling to dispatch the Scarlet Knights. The Nittany Lions play Johns Hopkins for the Big Ten title Saturday. … There are some teams at the edge of the field that would love it if Penn could just send Brown packing Friday and remove the bid-snatching potential from the Ivy tournament. …
It was a great night for Towson. The Tigers ripped Delaware, saw Colonial top seed Massachusetts lose to Drexel and had their opening victory over Johns Hopkins elevated to top-10 status. … Loyola begins Patriot League tournament play Friday night against Army. The Greyhounds are 8-1 in Patriot League tournament games, with the lone loss against Army in 2015. …
Denver manhandled Villanova to reach the Big East title game. The Pioneers get Georgetown at home on Saturday to decide what will almost certainly be a one-bid league. … Think High Point might have remembered its 12-10 loss to Jacksonville earlier this season? The Panthers bulldozed the Dolphins 17-3 in the Southern semifinals. A rematch of last weekend’s regular season finale against Richmond is up Saturday. …
With Mount St. Mary’s falling in overtime to Robert Morris, Hobart is top seed left in the Northeast. The Statesmen just faced Robert Morris last week --- another overtime victory for the Colonials. … Marist goes for its first NCAA tournament berth since 2015 on Saturday when it plays host to Quinnipiac in the Metro Atlantic final. … Vermont is seeking its first league tournament title and will face UMBC, which hasn’t won the America East since 2009.
At-Large Bids (13 teams/8 slots)
|
|
RPI |
SOS |
T5W |
T10 |
T20 |
26+ L |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Virginia | 2 | 8 | 3-2 | 5-3 | 8-3 | — |
| Duke | 3 | 1 | 5-2 | 6-4 | 7-4 | — |
| Yale | 4 | 23 | 1-1 | 3-2 | 5-2 | — |
| Notre Dame | 8 | 4 | 2-2 | 5-4 | 5-5 | — |
| Johns Hopkins | 9 | 3 | 0-5 | 3-6 | 5-6 | — |
| Syracuse | 10 | 7 | 2-2 | 5-3 | 8-3 | Colgate (47) |
| Maryland | 11 | 5 | 1-4 | 4-4 | 7-4 | — |
| Cornell | 12 | 10 | 2-4 | 2-4 | 4-4 | — |
| Ohio State | 14 | 21 | 2-1 | 3-2 | 4-3 | Michigan (33) |
| Villanova | 15 | 14 | 1-2 | 2-5 | 2-5 | Drexel (27), Providence (46) |
| Georgetown | 16 | 35 | 0-2 | 1-3 | 3-4 | Marquette (39) |
| North Carolina | 17 | 2 | 2-5 | 2-7 | 3-7 | — |
| Army | 18 | 31 | 0-2 | 1-2 | 4-3 | Lehigh (35) |
Virginia nosed ahead of Duke in the RPI replica. The Cavaliers will probably stay there with a victory over Notre Dame in the ACC final. … By virtue of its high-end victories, Duke is going to end up as the No. 2 or No. 3 seed. Would the Blue Devils’ head-to-head victory over Virginia be enough to get them the second spot regardless of this weekend’s results? Good question. …
Like Penn, Yale could make life easier for borderline teams (here’s looking at you, Maryland) if it can win its Ivy semifinal. The Bulldogs face Cornell on Friday night. … Notre Dame is playing for a home game in the NCAA tournament when it visits Virginia tomorrow, though it is plausible the Irish get one anyway even with a loss. …
Johns Hopkins did what it needed to, beating Maryland twice in less than a week. However, it managed to devalue its own victories in the process. That’s still better than the alternative. The Blue Jays wouldn’t face that problem if they topple Penn State on Saturday. A victory over the Nittany Lions could vault Hopkins into a first-round home game. … Syracuse is in the clubhouse, but it surely wouldn’t mind seeing some combination of Towson, Loyola, Notre Dame and Johns Hopkins all lose this weekend to keep its chances of a home game alive. …
Maryland couldn’t have possibly figured when it escaped Penn at Franklin Field in February with an overtime victory that it would stand as the Terrapins’ lone top-10 victory. … Cornell can help itself immensely by upending Yale, but the Big Red will probably be fine if the favorites hold serve over the weekend. Towson winning the CAA would boost Cornell’s chances on multiple fronts. …
Ohio State’s hopes took a hit with Johns Hopkins solidifying its status Thursday. A Cornell victory on Friday (or a Loyola loss, for that matter) would probably finish off the Buckeyes. … A victory over Yale isn’t going to get the job done this year for Villanova. … Georgetown will reach Selection Sunday without a top-10 victory, a big part of why the Hoyas need to beat Denver in the Big East final for the second year in a row to make the field. …
North Carolina added a top-30 victory when Marist moved up a couple spots in the RPI, but the Tar Heels aren’t getting in. … Army’s hopes hinge on winning the Patriot League tournament, which means beating a rested Loyola team on Friday.
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 Fairfield 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.
Hempstead, N.Y.
(1) BIG TEN/Penn State vs. METRO ATLANTIC/Marist-AMERICA EAST/Vermont
(8) PATRIOT/Loyola vs. Syracuse
East Hartford, Conn.
(5) Yale vs. Johns Hopkins
(4) IVY/Penn vs. Maryland
Hempstead, N.Y.
(3) Virginia vs. SOUTHERN/High Point
(6) Notre Dame vs. BIG EAST/Denver
East Hartford, Conn.
(7) COLONIAL/Towson vs. Cornell
(2) Duke vs. NORTHEAST/Hobart
Last three in: Johns Hopkins, Maryland, Cornell
First three out: Ohio State, North Carolina, Villanova
Moving in: Hobart, Johns Hopkins, Vermont
Moving out: UMass, Mount St. Mary’s, Stony Brook
Multi-bid conferences: Atlantic Coast (4), Big Ten (3), Ivy (3)