Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Lacrosse Bracketology

We're about a month away from the beginning of the NCAA Men's Lacrosse Tournament, so I thought it would be fun to play Joe Lunardi and try to predict this year's field.

This is not a reflection of where teams stand now, but where I predict them to be at season's end. There are many games remaining and there will certainly be unpredicted upsets. Conference tournament games will also affect AQs and seeding, and those are hard to predict.

But let's take a stab at the field for now and see how it stacks up later on in May.

No. 1 Syracuse vs. Siena (AQ)
No. 8 Hofstra (AQ) vs. Stony Brook (AQ)

No. 5 Virginia vs. Villanova
No. 4 Notre Dame vs. Bucknell

No. 3 Duke vs. Denver (AQ)
No. 6 Maryland vs. North Carolina

No. 7 Cornell (AQ) vs. Army (AQ)
No. 2 Hopkins vs. Mount St. Mary's (AQ)

Last two in: Villanova, Bucknell
First two out: Penn, Delaware

Analysis
There are basically three at-large spots up for grabs, going to North Carolina, Villanova and Bucknell. UNC is likely a lock because the phony ACC and conference tournament will boost the Tar Heels' strength of schedule.

As long as Bucknell takes care of the rest of the Patriot League - except for Army - the Bison should get in with some good quality wins and tough schedule.

Villanova controls its own destiny, with big games coming up against Delaware and Georgetown. But if the Wildcats drop one, their resume is likely not as good as their record suggests.

Penn can sneak in with a strong finish in the Ivy League and a slip up by Bucknell or Villanova. Delware can also get in if it upsets the Wildcats this week and runs the table in the regular season.

It's hard to seed the ACC with a potential for a three-way tie for second in the fake coference. Plus, the committee loves to prop up the teams' artificially inflated RPIs in the seeding. I wouldn't be shocked if UNC got a seed and ND fell to No. 5 or 6 - even with just one loss ... to the No. 1 team in the nation.

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