There's one week to go in the college lacrosse season, and we're really starting to see the bracket take form. Most of the at-large selections are locked down now, and a lot of the seeding is pretty set in stone as well. Let's take a look.
As always, these rankings are based on where teams are projected to finish, not necessarily where they stand now.
No. 1 Syracuse vs. Siena (AQ)
No. 8 Virginia vs. Villanova
No. 5 Maryland vs. Hofstra
No. 4 Johns Hopkins vs. Penn
No. 3 Cornell (AQ) vs. Stony Brook (AQ)
No. 6 Denver (AQ) vs. Massachusetts (AQ)
No. 7 Duke vs. North Carolina
No. 2 Notre Dame vs. Bucknell (AQ)
Last two in: Penn, North Carolina
First two out: Army, Loyola
Analysis
Guess what? Mount St. Mary's is out. Not because of anything they did wrong, but because the Mount moved to the NEC this season and I failed to realize that conference does not have an automatic bid. That opens up a new at-large spot, which Penn or North Carolina is happy to accept.
I stuck by Yale for much of this season, arguing the Bulldogs deserved to have a spot. But Yale lost to Penn head to head and its crushing loss to Harvard to end the regular season all but puts them out of contention. Their best win this year is against Georgetown, who is below .500. Not good enough.
Penn's loss to a Bratton-less UVA hurts as well, but the Quakers have huge wins over Duke and Bucknell, and finish second in the Ivy League for the regular season. They might need to make the Ivy Tournament finals to clinch it, but the Quakers should get into the dance.
The final at-large spot is literally up for grabs. If Army beats Hopkins this week, the Black Knights will almost certainly get into the field. If Yale, UMass, Loyola or Penn State advance to their conference tournament championship games, they will all have a strong argument. The guess here - and it really is nothing more than a guess at this point - is that UMass actually makes a run and takes the Colonial title. Hofstra would wrap up an at-large spot and there will be one less spot on the table.
Oh, and UNC gets in even after it loses to Notre Dame this week. The bottom of the field is too weak, and UNC does have a better resume than anyone on the outside, as sad as that may seem.
