Saturday didn’t deliver a shakeup at the top of the rankings. It provided (temporarily, anyway) some separation.

Albany crushed an undefeated Vermont team. Duke (at Towson) and Yale (at Cornell) upended feisty unranked teams on the road. Notre Dame held off Virginia thanks in part to long pole John Sexton’s exceptional end-game play. Maryland won at Villanova, and Denver handled Ohio State at home.

That specific group of Saturday winners might have doubled as a short list of national title contenders when the season began early last month. And with only seven weeks of play remaining until the NCAA unveils its tournament field, they remain the best guesses on who will ultimately make it to Foxborough.

It remains an unpredictable scrum beyond that top six (though Loyola shouldn’t be discounted, especially when the brilliant Pat Spencer is capable of uncorking a 12-point game as he did Saturday at Navy). Still, in such a fluid season, it’s somewhat reassuring there are at least a handful of teams providing some stability.

Nike/US Lacrosse
Division I Men’s Top 20

	March 19, 2018	W/L	Prev	Next
1	Albany	6-0	1	3/20 vs. Canisius
2	Duke	8-1	2	3/24 vs. No. 17 Syracuse
3	Maryland	6-1	3	3/24 vs. No. 19 North Carolina
4	Notre Dame	3-1	4	3/21 vs. Michigan
5	Denver	5-2	5	3/24 vs. Towson
6	Yale	5-1	7	3/24 vs. Princeton
7	Loyola	5-2	9	3/21 at No. 16 Georgetown
8	Johns Hopkins	5-2	12	3/24 at No. 10 Virginia
9	Villanova	6-2	6	3/24 vs. Fairfield
10	Virginia	6-2	8	3/20 vs. Dartmouth
11	Rutgers	6-2	18	3/24 vs. Delaware
12	Penn	4-3	NR	3/20 vs. No. 20 Bucknell
13	Hofstra	4-2	16	3/20 vs. No. 14 Lehigh
14	Lehigh	6-2	14	3/20 at No. 13 Hofstra
15	Army	5-2	14	3/24 at Colgate
16	Georgetown	6-1	10	3/21 vs. No. 7 Loyola
17	Syracuse	3-3	13	3/24 at No. 2 Duke
18	Harvard	5-1	NR	3/20 vs. Boston University
19	North Carolina	6-3	11	3/24 vs. No. 3 Maryland
20	Bucknell	5-2	NR	3/20 vs. No. 12 Penn

Also considered (alphabetical order): Cornell, Ohio State, Penn State, Princeton, Robert Morris, Towson, Vermont

Nike/US Lacrosse Rankings

Division I Men | Division I Women
Division II Men | Division II Women
Division III Men | Division III Women

HOT

Rutgers (+7)

It was a good week for the Scarlet Knights, who eked out an 8-7 victory at Lehigh on Wednesday and then turned back Syracuse 14-10 before a program-record crowd of 5,048 as Jules Heningburg provided six goals and two assists.

It was Rutgers’ first defeat of the Orange since 2004, and while it might not be a vintage Syracuse team (more on that in a bit), there’s clearly still some brand-name value in a defeat of John Desko’s team.

Most importantly, the two victories were a fine show of resilience for a team that let a game slip away against Princeton a week earlier. The Scarlet Knights get one last nonconference game (against Delaware, which upset them last season) before diving into Big Ten play.

Johns Hopkins (+4)

The Blue Jays have tightened things up at both ends of the field since their two-game slide against Loyola and North Carolina last month. During a four-game winning streak that includes defeats of UMBC and Delaware in the last week, Hopkins is averaging 15.3 goals while giving up just 7.5 goals a contest.

Hopkins’ jump this week has a little bit to do with inertia, too; it jumped over four teams that lost. One of those is Virginia, which the Blue Jays will visit to begin a stretch of four weekends out of five on the road. Even if the Big Ten doesn’t look like the monster it was a season ago, Hopkins has a lot of work to do away from home over the next month.

NOT

North Carolina (-8)

Here’s a frightening question for the Tar Heels (6-3), who have dropped three in a row after Wednesday’s 11-10 loss at Richmond: Where on their schedule are more wins coming from?

North Carolina meets Maryland in California on Saturday, then plays its four ACC opponents in successive weekends. Here’s guessing the Tar Heels don’t lose out, but there’s a lot of work in front of Joe Breschi’s team to snap out of its March doldrums.

Georgetown (-6)

The Hoyas were one of the season’s pleasant surprises when they took a 6-0 record to Drexel. Then they got drilled 15-10.

Call it a reset of external expectations for Georgetown, which got dominated on faceoffs (21-6) and allowed the Dragons to shoot nearly 50 percent (15-for-32) on Saturday. The Hoyas get a midweek rivalry game against Loyola next before visiting Marquette for their Big East opener on the weekend.

Syracuse (-4)

The last time the Orange were .500 after six games, they was on their way to a 5-8 record in 2007. And considering things are a lot closer to being worse rather than better — Sunday’s 14-10 setback at Rutgers is Syracuse’s closest loss, while victories over Army and Virginia both came by a goal — it’s reasonable to wonder where this season is headed.

Duke and Notre Dame are up next, and even a split would help bolster a team that has issues at both ends of the field. Lose both, and this probably won’t be the last time that ’07 season is invoked this spring.

IN

Penn

The Quakers (4-3) continue to alternate wins and losses, but the victories have certainly been impressive. The defeat of Duke could carry Penn into the NCAA tournament, but Saturday provided a fine start at making the Ivy League semifinals.

Reed Junkin’s 20-save showing helped visiting Penn stymie Princeton 14-7, while Tyler Dunn scored five goals in the victory. The only team to score more than 10 goals on the Quakers this season is Maryland, though it will be curious if either Cornell or Yale can make a run at doing so in the next two weekends.

Harvard

Ever unpredictable, the Crimson bagged easily their most consequential victory of the season with a 10-8 defeat of visiting Brown.

Robert Shaw made 17 stops for Harvard (5-1), which has won four in a row since a puzzling double-overtime loss to Holy Cross. The Crimson gets a pair of games at home this week (Boston University and Dartmouth) before a grueling finish to the regular season of four out of five on the road.

Bucknell

While the Pat Spencer Show was the most sublime outing in the Patriot League this weekend, Bucknell’s Will Sands wasn’t too far behind. He had three goals and seven assists in the Bison’s 16-9 drubbing of Boston University.

Now, can the Bison hold up with a four-game trip to Penn, Loyola, Army and Yale up next?

OUT

Princeton (previously No. 17)

The Tigers were bottled up at home by Penn, scoring a season-low seven goals. Things don’t get any easier with a trip to Yale coming up Saturday.

Vermont (previously No. 19)

The Catamounts, who raced to a 7-0 start against teams with a combined record of 17-35, were flattened 21-5 at Albany. That says more about both the Great Danes and the gap that exists between them and the rest of the America East than it does Vermont, but a slight drop for the Catamounts is justified as well.

Ohio State (previously No. 20)

There’s no shame in losing 12-7 at Denver, as Nick Myers’ team did Saturday. Nonetheless, that’s 28 goals in four games this month for the Buckeyes and a trip to Notre Dame looms on Sunday. Ohio State (5-3) could easily head into Big Ten play on a 1-4 slide.