HOT
Penn (+8)
The Quakers make a massive leap after toppling Cornell and Yale in consecutive weeks. And truth be told, Penn has played reasonably well in all but one game this season, shrugging off an 0-3 start that included one-goal losses to Maryland and Penn State to rattle off five victories in a row.
Penn has an abundance of scoring options, and midfielders Tyler Dunn and Sam Handley delivered the tying and winning goals against Yale. Goalie Reed Junkin turned in a stellar performance with 22 saves, and by the end of the afternoon, Penn had snapped a seven-game slide against Yale with a triple-overtime thriller. There’s still work to do, but the one-goal triumphs the last two Saturdays are anything but flukes.
Virginia (+3)
Who owns the longest active winning streak? It’s more like Hoo owns it. The Cavaliers have claimed seven in a row after sweeping two games in three days from Richmond and Utah, piling up the victories by a combined 33-13 margin.
Virginia’s jump has something to do with inertia; Denver, Duke, Maryland and Ohio State all lost this week. But Lars Tiffany’s team is playing well, and it can clinch the top seed in the ACC tournament with a victory over visiting North Carolina on Saturday.
Loyola (+3)
The Greyhounds appear to have sorted out some of their defensive issues since absorbing an early March loss at Duke. Loyola has rattled off three victories in a row, giving up a total of 19 goals in that span.
That’s less than what Charley Toomey’s team mustered in 60 minutes against Colgate on Saturday. The Greyhounds shouldn’t be expected to replicate that 21-7 rout against Lehigh, but it bodes well for Loyola that it is playing well heading into a game that could ultimately decide who hosts the Patriot League tournament next month.
Notre Dame (+3)
The Fighting Irish closed out an up-and-down — but never, ever boring — March with perhaps its most complete showing of the season. Well, at minimum, its most complete half. Notre Dame built a nine-goal lead before the break on Syracuse, then hung on to win 13-10 to even its ACC record at 1-1.
The Irish picked off Maryland, Denver and Syracuse in March, but it also ceded games to Virginia (on the road) and Ohio State (in overtime at home). They’ve played seven consecutive games decided by three goals or less, and it’s safe to assume Notre Dame isn’t done with tight contests.
NOT
Syracuse (-4)
The Orange remain a puzzling bunch, and the inability to put together a complete game is a striking trait both in good results (a comeback victory over Duke) and bad (a lousy final 20 minutes against Virginia and then a poor first half Saturday at Notre Dame).
That just leaves the Orange as part of a massive, largely indistinguishable scrum between No. 7 and around No. 16 (give or take a spot or two). No results involving two teams in that range qualify as a surprise. The parity in that area of the top 20 is real.
Duke (-3)
The Blue Devils have dropped consecutive games in a single season for the first time since April 1 and 10, 2016. A week after Syracuse rallied past Duke, North Carolina dealt the Blue Devils a 10-8 defeat.
This is still a team with a fine set of victories, including Denver, Loyola, Towson and (in what suddenly looks like a valuable early rout) Penn. But back-to-back losses have caused Duke’s stock to drop a little for now.