Over the next few weeks, US Lacrosse Magazine will run virtual NCAA tournaments with fans helping to choose the winners of each matchup. Follow @uslacrossemag on Twitter to participate in the daily polling, which begins Monday. You can find the rules here.

Greetings from Earth-37. Through the ability to travel through time, space and alternate universes, I have the chance to communicate with you from the not-too-distant future. Today is May 4, 2020, the day after the annual NCAA lacrosse tournament pairings have been announced.

There are distinct differences between my world and yours, which, for the sake of convenience, I will refer to as Earth Prime. For example, the Cleveland Browns have won three consecutive Super Bowls. Despite his increasing age, Elvis Presley still makes semi-regular appearances in Las Vegas.

Most importantly, despite a brief scare on Earth Prime, there is no global pandemic and Championship Weekend is mere weeks away.

By remarkable coincidence, despite the differences, the sport of lacrosse is virtually identical to that of Earth Prime, at least in 2020. All those results you saw back in February and early March? They happened here, too. Same teams, same players, same sites, same scores. It’s uncanny, if mathematically improbable.

Here’s how the rest of the season played out, setting up the 2020 Virtual NCAA Tournament.

The Matchups

(1) Syracuse vs. Marist/Saint Joseph’s

Syracuse ultimately extended its perfect start into April before falling at Cornell and Virginia. But the Orange turned around and won the ACC tournament, and that puts them at 12-2 heading into the postseason.

Marist turned some heads with its rout of Army but dropped its final two games on Earth Prime to fall to 3-3. But the Red Foxes (11-5) were consistent in Metro Atlantic play, winning eight of their last 10 while claiming their conference tournament for the second year in a row.

It was bound to happen one of these years for Saint Joseph’s, and naturally it came in a season when the Hawks were a bit erratic. You saw Taylor Wray’s team start 5-1 before a one-goal loss to Penn, but Saint Joe’s sputtered early in NEC play with three road losses. But the Hawks regrouped, won five in a row (including two as the No. 3 seed in the conference tournament) and head to Poughkeepsie for a play-in game against Marist with an 11-5 mark.

(8) Maryland vs. North Carolina

No doubt about it, the Big Ten was down this year, and that limited Maryland’s seeding ceiling. The Terrapins split with Virginia and North Carolina, lost to Penn State and then ripped off six wins in a row before falling to the Nittany Lions again in the Big Ten final. Maryland was also forced to make up its postponed game against Navy, winning 6-5 on April 7. The Terps head into the postseason at 12-4 behind likely Tewaaraton finalist Jared Bernhardt.

Things were looking good for North Carolina at 9-0, but a young defense went through some growing pains, and the Tar Heels took some close losses while dropping four of their last six. One of those setbacks was a one-goal loss at Maryland, which is a big reason why Joe Breschi’s 11-4 team is on the road in its rematch with the Terps. 

(5) Princeton vs. UMass

Princeton lost to Cornell (twice) and Yale and beat everyone else it encountered, which puts the Tigers at 11-3 entering their first postseason appearance since 2012. Attackman Michael Sowers cooled from his blistering early scoring pace; he’s averaged “just” eight points a game over his last nine contests, giving him 119 (42 goals, 77 assists) — nine off former Albany star Lyle Thompson’s single-season record.

As usual, weird things happened in the Colonial. Massachusetts (11-5) dropped games to Drexel and Delaware as bookends to its conference schedule, but it dominated the league tournament as its defense and faceoff play took major steps at just the right time. Considering the Minutemen beat Ohio State and Yale, they were correctly viewed all along as a potential first-round opponent for an Ivy League team.

(4) Penn State vs. Richmond

Grant Ament is still playing college ball here on Earth-37, and he and Penn State ironed out some of the team’s erratic early-season troubles in time for the conference schedule. The Nittany Lions (12-3) have fallen just once since their one-goal loss to Cornell on March 8 (at Ohio State on April 5) and head into the NCAA tournament fresh off a Big Ten tournament title.

You already saw enough to know Richmond wasn’t going to be a pushover; the Spiders lost in overtime to Duke and Maryland on Earth Prime, and they played Virginia to a two-goal margin on the road in late March here. They also handled their business in the Southern Conference, despite close calls against Air Force in the regular-season finale and High Point in the league title game, and enter the postseason 12-4.

(3) Cornell vs. Loyola

Remember how Cornell kept playing with fire hoping it could just outscore teams as it started 5-0? Well, it dropped back-to-back games to Yale and Penn, then figured things out. The Big Red would rattle off eight consecutive victories (including back-to-back defeats of Princeton) as Jeff Teat made a strong case for a Tewaaraton finalist nod. It remains to be seen if an Ivy League title game loss to Yale, which dropped Cornell to 13-3, cools off the Big Red.

Loyola beat Army, which beat Lehigh, which beat Loyola. So it went at the top of the Patriot League, where each of those three teams also lost to someone else along the way in conference play. No one had quite enough oomph to their out-of-conference profile to land an at-large bid, so Loyola (11-5) is the lone representative from the Patriot League after claiming the conference tournament.

(6) Virginia vs. Ohio State

Virginia’s title defense begins at home. The Cavaliers got into the barn at 10-5, beating Syracuse in the regular season but losing to the Orange in the ACC final. There are no secrets here: A loaded offense led by Dox Aitken, Michael Kraus, Ian Laviano and Matt Moore has continued to light up the scoreboard.

What to say about Ohio State? Those wacky Buckeyes kept us guessing until the end. From a defeat of Denver to a blowout loss at Rutgers to an impressive bounceback performance against Penn State, Ohio State was one of the season’s most unpredictable teams. That defeat of Penn State was a major difference-maker after a Big Ten semifinal loss to Maryland. The Buckeyes enter the tournament at 9-5, and do-everything midfielder Ryan Terefenko is a good bet to make a pivotal play each game.

(7) Duke vs. Denver

Duke missed a chance to improve its seeding with an ACC semifinal loss, but it still finished the regular season with an 11-5 record. Even with two losses in their last four games, the Blue Devils are clearly playing better heading into the postseason — almost like clockwork.

Denver has lost just once since falling at Ohio State in mid-March. That was a misstep against Villanova in early April as the Pioneers were worn down after making their fourth trip to the Eastern time zone in five weeks. There wasn’t a chance to avenge that loss; Georgetown knocked off Villanova in the Big East semis, and Denver then avenged league final losses to the Hoyas the last two years to improve to 11-4.

(2) Yale vs. Stony Brook

There might not be a steadier team than Yale which, aside from a truly random misstep against Harvard to close out the regular season, has chugged along and showed little vulnerability thanks to a stellar attack led by Jackson Morrill and a record-setting faceoff ace in TD Ierlan, who has won 79.3 percent of his attempts. The Bulldogs (13-2) are coming off Ivy League tournament victories over Brown and Cornell.

Maybe the biggest conference tournament surprise was Stony Brook, which had already dropped games at Fairfield and Bryant on Earth Prime and also got decked at UMBC, Princeton and Albany. But the Seawolves figured things out for one weekend in the America East tournament as the No. 3 seed, beating UMBC and Albany to improve to 10-6 and land its first NCAA berth since 2012.

Notably Missing

Notre Dame: The Irish finished 6-6, beating Virginia and its remaining non-conference foes but dropping a string of one- and two-goal games in league play. The head-to-head loss to Ohio State proved especially damaging for the Irish, who missed the postseason for the first time since 2005.

Penn: Also sitting at 6-6 is Penn, which beat Cornell but lost to Brown and missed out on the Ivy League tournament as a result of a head-to-head tiebreaker with the Bears.

Villanova: The Wildcats were one of the tougher teams to figure out, meandering their way to 9-6 (with wins over Maryland and Denver) and ending the season with a Big East semifinal loss to Georgetown.

Georgetown: Speaking of which, Georgetown found itself frustrated on Selection Sunday when its 12-4 record was not rewarded. The Hoyas went 1-3 against opponents in the tournament field, beating Loyola while falling to North Carolina and Denver (twice).