Georgetown (Big East), Army (Patriot League), Robert Morris (Northeast), Marist (MAAC), UMBC (America East) and Richmond (Southern) all punched their tickets by winning their conference titles and automatic qualifiers.
When questioned on the broadcast, NCAA men’s lacrosse committee chair Jack Hayes said it came down to four schools for the last three at-large spots, which went to Syracuse, Johns Hopkins and Maryland.
The Terps, who presumably made the field over Cornell despite the Big Red’s two top-10 RPI wins (Towson and Notre Dame) compared to Maryland’s one (Penn), will visit Towson in one of the more highly-anticipated first-round matchups. The in-state foes played each other every year from 1981-2011, but the Terps dropped the Tigers from their schedule starting in 2012.
Maryland, a perennial final four contender, is unseeded for the first time since 2012. The Terps backed into the tournament after ending thei season with back-to-back losses to Johns Hopkins.
Also as expected, Hayes was ready to field questions about High Point, which owned top-five RPI wins over Duke and Virginia but stumbled against St. John’s, Jacksonville, and ultimately Richmond in the Southern Conference final.
“High Point’s case was very interesting, given the wins that they had,” Hayes admitted on the selection show, saying the Panthers came up in conversations with the regional advisory committee in recent weeks. “We discussed with other coaches how to balance their wins versus their strength of schedule versus their RPI. There were other teams in the group that took those at-large bids that also had quality wins, they just didn’t have some of the losses that High Point had, and they had a stronger strength of schedule.”
Check back to uslaxmagazine.com for more bracket analysis Monday morning.
Le Moyne and Limestone earned the No. 1 seeds in the North and South regions, respectively, in the newly expanded 12-team NCAA Division II men’s lacrosse tournament. First-round games will be played Wednesday.
North Region
(1) Le Moyne (15-2) (Bye)
(4) Mercy (17-1) vs. (5) Seton Hill (12-4)
(2) Adelphi (16-2) (Bye)
(3) Meryhurst (13-3) vs. (6) Merrimack (13-3)
South Region
(1) Limestone (18-0) (Bye)
(4) Tampa (14-5) vs. (5) Wingate (13-3)
(2) Belmont Abbey (14-3) (Bye)
(3) UIndy (14-2) vs. (6) Queens (13-4)
Twenty-seven teams punched their ticket to the NCAA Division III men’s lacrosse tournament by winning their conference titles and automatic qualifiers, leaving the selection committee to parse out eight at-large bids in Pool C (teams from AQ conferences) and one in Pool B (independent).
Five of the eight Pool C bids went to teams from the NESCAC (Amherst, Wesleyan and Williams) and Centennial (Franklin & Marshall and Gettysburg). Lynchburg, Union and York soaked up the remaining spots.
Cabrini earned the lone Pool B bid.
CAC foes Salisbury and York anchor the South region of the bracket, opposite Tufts and RIT in the North, respectively.