The NCAA lacrosse committee issued its first of two in-season rankings over the weekend, and comparing its top eight with our projected seeds last week is instructive in one major way.

First up, a side-by-side comparison of the two:

Seed	NCAA	USLM
1	Syracuse	Syracuse
2	Denver	Denver
3	Maryland	Notre Dame
4	Notre Dame	Maryland
5	Penn State	Penn State
6	Ohio State	Ohio State
7	Duke	Johns Hopkins
8	Johns Hopkins	Hofstra

There’s a lot of common ground there, but the two differences — Maryland over Notre Dame, and Duke popping up in the seeding — suggest there might not be as heavy a reliance on the RPI as in years past.

Notre Dame, despite some recent struggles, checked in at No. 2 in the RPI last week and Maryland was No. 5. Yet even with a head-to-head victory over the Terrapins and a better schedule and comparable high-end victories, the Irish were nudged down.

Who knows if it holds up, but it’s a major part of why Notre Dame checks in at No. 4 in this week’s US Lacrosse Magazine projection.

The Duke scenario is even more interesting. The Blue Devils owned an RPI of 15 entering last week, which made it a leap to think they would land a home game at that stage. Not so, apparently, and it influenced the placement of John Danowski’s team as a No. 6 seed in this week’s crack at the field.

Neither of these are really issues. Maryland is playing better than Notre Dame at this point, and Duke looks like a contender for a deep postseason push. What’s more interesting is whether this week’s release from the committee and its final product next month consistently reflect the choices that went into its first ranking.

The RPI is from LaxPower’s RPI replica through Sunday’s games. Records against the top five, top 10 and top 20 and losses to teams outside the top 25 are based on performance against the current RPI rankings, not human polls). The strength of schedule data comes from the NCAA’s RPI Archive and reflects only a team’s 10 best opponents to date.

Automatic Qualifiers (9)

	RPI	SOS	T5W	T10	T20	26+ L
Maryland	3	6	0-1	3-1	6-2	—
Denver	7	14	1-1	2-2	4-2	—
Albany	8	26	0-2	0-2	1-2	—
Towson	10	17	1-1	1-2	2-2	Loyola (28)
Army	15	47	1-0	1-0	2-1	Navy (38)
Yale	18	34	0-1	0-1	2-1	UMass (29), Bryant (44)
Richmond	23	52	0-0	1-0	2-1	—
Robert Morris	39	61	0-0	0-1	0-1	Georgetown (43)
Monmouth	41	67	0-0	0-0	1-1	Delaware (32), St. Joseph's (54)

Maryland had a big-boy week, winning at Albany and Rutgers. The Terrapins have won five in a row, all against teams currently in the top 20 of the RPI (though Michigan might just be making a cameo appearance this week). … Denver has now absorbed the RPI hits associated with the bottom third of the Big East. The Pioneers finish with Providence and Marquette before entering the conference tournament. …

Albany: Really good, or just good enough to lose to two of the best teams in the country by a goal? Perhaps both are true. It’s doubtful anyone really wants the chance to figure it out for themselves. … Towson takes over the projected Colonial AQ after Hofstra’s loss to Drexel. The Tigers can clinch the league’s regular season title with a victory at Fairfield and a Hofstra loss to Massachusetts. …

Army saw its at-large hopes take a hit with its loss at Navy. But the Black Knights need only a win Friday against Loyola to secure home-field advantage in the Patriot League tournament. … Only three of the Ivy League’s teams are even in the top 30 of the RPI, and just two are in the top 20. That’s not helping any Ancient Eight squad’s at-large chances. Good thing for Yale that it already won the regular season title. …

Richmond is one of several teams all too happy to see UMBC slip into the top 20 of the RPI this week. The Retrievers’ six losses have all come against teams somewhere in the postseason discussion: North Carolina, Johns Hopkins, Richmond, Towson, Michigan and Albany. … Robert Morris still has work to do to earn the Northeast Conference regular-season crown. It faces Bryant and Hobart the next two weekends. …

Monmouth would clinch the Metro Atlantic top seed with a victory over second-place Canisius on Friday.

At-Large Bids (15 teams/8 slots)

	RPI	SOS	T5W	T10	T20	26+ L
Notre Dame	1	3	2-1	2-2	3-3	—
Syracuse	2	9	2-0	4-0	5-1	—
Johns Hopkins	4	1	0-2	2-3	4-4	—
Ohio State	5	7	1-1	3-2	4-2	—
Penn State	6	16	1-2	2-2	2-2	—
North Carolina	9	2	0-3	1-3	2-5	—
Hofstra	11	40	0-0	1-0	2-0	Drexel (30)
Duke	12	12	1-1	2-2	2-2	Air Force (35)
Rutgers	13	18	0-2	0-2	3-2	Delaware (32)
Villanova	14	15	1-0	1-2	1-3	Delaware (32), Monmouth (41)
Boston U.	16	51	0-0	0-0	0-1	Lehigh (45), Bucknell (47)
Princeton	17	24	1-0	1-0	1-3	Lehigh (45)
Michigan	19	21	0-3	0-3	1-4	—
Virginia	21	4	0-3	0-4	0-5	Penn (26)
Providence	22	49	0-0	0-0	0-2	Sacred Heart (33)

Notre Dame has played one sub-.500 team and one team ranked outside the top 25 in the RPI (Georgetown, in both cases). Regardless of sport, not playing bad teams is the way to game the RPI’s relatively simple formula. … There’s no column for one-goal victories, and no caveats for Syracuse. It has the best profile in the country at this point. …

Johns Hopkins’ three worst opponents, by record: Navy (6-7), North Carolina (6-6) and UMBC (5-6). The Blue Jays are another team receiving a boost from the RPI formula, and they probably wouldn’t be a No. 4 seed today. But they’d get a home game. …

Ohio State might have reached the point that it could lose out and still make the NCAA tournament, not that it is likely to do so. Victories over Denver, Johns Hopkins and Towson should hold up well for a few more weeks. … Life comes at you fast. Two weeks ago, Penn State was undefeated. Now, it might require two consecutive victories to reach the Big Ten tournament. Its NCAA hopes, though, remain strong. …

North Carolina needs either a victory at Notre Dame or an ACC tournament title to secure a winning season. Otherwise, there will be no title defense in May. … Hofstra falls into the at-large pool for the first time this year. Losing to Drexel doesn’t hurt nearly as much as that gaudy strength of schedule number. …

The numbers don’t show it, but Duke is probably playing as well as anyone right now. If the Blue Devils win out (Marquette, ACC tournament, Boston University), the metrics will improve accordingly. … If Rutgers doesn’t make the NCAA tournament, it could have Maryland goalie Dan Morris to blame. The Scarlet Knights had plenty of great chances to beat the Terrapins in overtime but were stymied by Morris. …

Villanova wasn’t going to help its profile by blasting Georgetown, and it won’t help its NCAA chances by handling St. John’s this weekend. Those two games are merely a matter of avoiding landmines. … Boston University impressed with an overtime defeat of Loyola, but this is still a team without a top-20 win and a middling strength of schedule. The Terriers’ path to the tournament is a Patriot title. …

Losing in the middle of last week to Lehigh probably means Princeton will have to win the Ivy tournament to get in. The Tigers aren’t getting a boost from facing Harvard and Cornell the next two weeks. … Michigan still has opportunities to improve its stock (Johns Hopkins and Penn State), but it was overwhelmed at the defensive end for the third time in as many weeks against Ohio State. …

Virginia, which fell at long-running nemesis Duke on Saturday, closes out its season with a rematch against Penn in two weeks in Durham, N.C. If the Cavaliers win that game, they’ll have beaten two other schools at Duke’s Koskinen Stadium (Maryland in the 2007 ACC tournament and Penn) since the last time they beat the Blue Devils there. … It’s time to learn about Providence’s capabilities. It finishes the regular season against Denver and Villanova.

PROJECTED BRACKET

A few reminders on bracket construction:

• The committee seeds the top eight teams and then divvies up the unseeded teams based on geography in an attempt to limit air travel.

• Conference rematches are to be avoided in the first round.

• Quarterfinal host schools (in this year’s case, Hofstra) are funneled into their own site.

• Of the nine automatic qualifiers, the two with the weakest profiles 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) Syracuse vs. NORTHEAST/Robert Morris-MAAC/Monmouth

(8) Penn State vs. Hofstra

Hempstead, N.Y.

(5) Ohio State vs. PATRIOT/Army

(4) Notre Dame vs. Rutgers

Newark, Del.

(3) BIG EAST/Denver vs. IVY/Yale

(6) Duke vs. CAA/Towson

Newark, Del.

(7) Johns Hopkins vs. AMERICA EAST/Albany

(2) BIG TEN/Maryland vs. SOUTHERN/Richmond

Last three in: Penn State, Hofstra, Rutgers

First three out: North Carolina, Villanova, Princeton

Multi-bid conferences: Big Ten (5), ACC (3), CAA (2)