Your "Holy Shit Memorial Day Weekend Is Only 3 Weeks Away" NCAA Lacrosse Tournament Preview
I’ve got some good news and then I’ve got some even better news. We’ll start with the good news first.
In just 3 weeks, Memorial Day Weekend is here. Which means that summer is pretty much here which means in just 3 weeks from now, you can pretty much say fuck work for the next few months. It’s great. It’s the most wonderful time of the year. BBQs, beers, beaches, everything you could ever ask for in life.
The better news? Well in just 3 weeks from today, 2 teams will be playing at Gillette Stadium to be crowned the 2017 NCAA DI Lacrosse National Champion. Because Memorial Day Weekend belongs to lacrosse and after the field was set last night, TournySZN is officially underway. Now if you’ve followed along with college lacrosse all season long, you’ll be able to recognize this bracket has a few areas that are… well… problematic to say the least. So we’ll air out all our grievances first before we get into the prediction part of this blog.
Y’all Done Fucked Up
Maryland getting a 1 seed? Good. Syracuse getting a 2 seed? Good. Ohio State getting a 3 seed? Good. Notre Dame getting a 4 seed? Well with all the injuries they’re dealing with plus the fact that haven’t looked truly dominant this season… it’s an okay seeding but not great. Denver getting a 5 seed? They don’t deserve it after losing to Marquette on purpose to make the Big East a 2-bid conference. And then we get to Hopkins as a 6 seed and WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FRIGGIN’ HECK WAS THE COMMITTEE THINKING HERE?
Listen. I like Hopkins. I really do. I’ve said it before that college lacrosse is always better when Hopkins is great. But I didn’t even have Hopkins in my bracket prediction, let alone hosting a 1st round game. You look at their wins and they’ve beat Loyola, North Carolina, Rutgers and Penn State which are all good wins. But then you look at their losses. They got smoked by Princeton. Worked by Towson. Lost to Ohio State twice. Worked by Maryland. This is the most inconsistent team in the country and somehow that gets them a first round home game? And here’s the thing with Hopkins. I wouldn’t be surprised if they lost their 1st round matchup to Duke by 5 goals. I also wouldn’t be surprised if they make a run to Championship Weekend. There’s just no telling what Hopkins team you’re going to get on any given day. I’d have no problem with them being one of the last teams in the tournament to get an at-large. But the fact that they have Duke at home on Saturday needs to be reversed if anything. Bizarre.
And with Hopkins getting a 6-seed, that bumps Albany all the way down to #8. They still get to host a first round home game but think about this for a second. Albany’s only losses on the season have come by 1-goal to the 2nd seed in the tournament and 1-goal to the 1st seed in the tournament. They’ve lost to the top 2 teams in the country by a combined 2 goals. Then they went out and dominated their conference (even though winning the America East isn’t exactly anything to write home about). They beat the Ivy League champions. And they get rewarded for all that by being the 8 seed in the tournament? How the fuck is Hopkins ahead of them? Really, how is Denver ahead of them? And now in order to get over the hump and make a run to Championship Weekend, Albany is going to have to knock off the reigning National Champions in the 1st round and then most likely the team who has lost the previous 2 National Championships in the quarterfinals. Tough draw for the Danes.
Snubs
So the way that everything worked over Conference Championship Week… I don’t really think there were any true snubs this year. Like I’ve said plenty of times before over the past few days, Denver losing to Marquette in the Big East tournament really fucked everything up. There were only supposed to be 1 team from the Big East in the tournament this year and that would have left another at-large bid available for a team like Army of Hofstra. But because Marquette gets the AQ, that takes it away. If a team like Hofstra really wanted to make the NCAA Tournament, well then they should have won their conference. The only team who I think caught a break from the selection committee was Hopkins. But other than that, there wasn’t much left for them to do in terms of getting teams into the tournament. You have to give the 9 conference champions their AQ. Even though the ACC doesn’t get an AQ, you still have to treat winning that conference as an automatic so that puts UNC in the tournament. Then the other teams who got an at-large have had a better resume than those teams who were left home. Except for maybe Hopkins. Even with Army beating Notre Dame in the final week, they had to win the Patriot to get into the tournament. It was theirs for the taking but they started to drop off right as Loyola was getting hot. Not much you can do about that. Does the entire sport of lacrosse hate the troops? That’s yet to be determined. I think they deserved to be in the tournament but there are only 8 at-large bids to work with.
Predictions
Out of all the teams in the tournament, Denver clearly has the easiest path to Gillette Stadium. Obviously geography played a big role in these matchups down in that quadrant of the bracket. You have all 4 midwest teams playing against each other. Denver vs Air Force playing the winner of Notre Dame vs Marquette. Notre Dame is dealing with a couple of huge injuries right now with Perkovic’s right wrist and Ryder Garnsey in a walking boot. They’re on a 2-game losing streak heading into the tournament. They should get past Marquette on Sunday but I don’t think they’ll be healthy enough to keep up with Denver’s offense in the quarterfinals.
The marquee matchups of the early tournament is going to be in Maryland’s bracket. As long as they take care of Bryant/Monmouth, they’ll either have a rematch against Albany from earlier this year when they won 12-11, or they’ll have a rematch of last year’s National Championship game against UNC. No matter what, that Maryland quarterfinal matchup is going to be a must watch. This is a senior group who has been to the Final Four 3 years in a row now. This is a Maryland Terrapins team who has lost in the National Championship game the last 2 years. It’s clearly not going to get any easier for them this year. If it comes down to Maryland vs UNC in that quarterfinal game, I like the Terps. But if Albany comes out and knocks off the defending champs, give me the Danes making that trip to Championship Weekend. Only thing that scares me about that Albany vs UNC match up is that the game isn’t at Chapel Hill. North Carolina has blown at home this year. But they’ve been great on the road. They’ve got this anti-home field advantage thing going that Albany will have to change.
I think Syracuse has the 2nd easiest path to Gillette but they’re a team who is going to either live by the 1-goal game or die by the 1-goal game. Even against Colgate this weekend they couldn’t just pull away and have a game wrapped up by the end of the 3rd quarter. Every Syracuse game is going to come down to the wire. So Ben Reeves is going to give them plenty of issues in the 1st round. I think Syracuse is better than Yale but I wouldn’t be surprised to see that one go to overtime. Then they’ll either have Penn State or Towson. I think the match up against Penn State is better for ‘Cuse considering Penn State just can’t be a blue blood program. They’ve lost to Hopkins once and Maryland twice this year. Basically if you’ve won a National Title before, you’re beating Penn State. Either way, I think Syracuse comes out on top of either of those games and this Syracuse senior class avoids being the first class to not make it to Championship Weekend.
The top right of this bracket is a cluster fuck and there’s not telling what can happen. Like I said earlier, I think Duke should be hosting Hopkins for this game but that’s neither here nor there. Regardless of where the game is being played, I think Duke is the better team. A season opening loss to Air Force means nothing considering Duke never plays well in the beginning of the season. Same thing goes for their February loss to Denver. Since then, their only losses have been in overtime to Syracuse and a 1-goal loss to Notre Dame. When it comes to Danowski vs Pietramala, I think you have to go with Johnny D.
As for Ohio State vs Loyola, well I don’t think there’s a team right now who is finding their groove more than Pat Spencer and the Greyhounds. They had a huge drop off this season from being a Final Four team last year, but they beat Army twice in their last 3 games. And not only have they beaten Army twice in their last 3, but they’ve smoked them. 14-6 and 13-4. They were a team who without winning the Patriot wouldn’t be in the tournament this year. Now they’re playing their best lacrosse of the season. As for Ohio State, well they’ve earned that 3 seed. They beat Maryland in overtime and then lost by 1 to the Terps in the B1G championship game. They beat Hopkins twice this year. Beat Denver. Beat Towson. Tre LeClaire can shoot the shit out of the ball. They’re a great all around team. But this bracket is stacked with unpredictability so who knows.
Jordie’s Final Four: Albany vs Denver. Duke vs Cuse.