The ACC has repeatedly staked its claim as the top conference, but this year might be its most dominant showing yet. Currently, US Lacrosse Magazine projects six ACC squads among the top eight seeds for this year’s NCAA tournament.
That’s because of several factors, the first being that these teams have won nearly every non-conference game available to them. And it’s not even close. The ACC is an astounding 33-3 against non-conference foes. Of the three losses, two are to likely NCAA teams.
So while the ACC teams will beat up on each other, and no other conference is close to challenging them, those teams will be hosting plenty of games in the upcoming tournament (unless the format changes).
The other topic continues to be the roller coaster that is the Big Ten. Northwestern clinched its regular-season title with weeks to play before the conference tournament, but the other six teams are trading wins back and forth. How the committee handles this conference will be the Rubik’s Cube of all decisions because the Big Ten is playing no one else. How good are they? We don’t know, and RPI is useless because the record among all seven teams comes out to .500.
The two main criteria the committee will use to parse these final six teams out will be common opponents (which is obvious) and head-to-head (also obvious). They could take out the Northwestern results and do a six-team matrix.
In that scenario, Maryland is the top team (6-2), followed by Johns Hopkins (4-2) and Penn State (4-4). It gets murky with the final three teams — Michigan (3-4), Rutgers (3-5) and Ohio State (3-6). Separating these teams will be difficult, and comparing them to other squads is impossible. It’s very well possible we see something similar to men’s hockey, in which four of seven conference squads were taken. This week we have six because all seven teams have victories over anticipated NCAA teams.
Just missing out this week are Vanderbilt (11-2), Ohio State (3-8), Colorado (5-5), Hofstra (4-4), UConn (8-4) and Richmond (6-0). Vanderbilt is on the outside right now because its only win over a projected NCAA team is High Point, an automatic qualifier. OSU has two wins over Penn State and a victory over Michigan, but a 3-8 record is too far of a stretch.
Colorado has wins over Denver and Arizona State, but if those teams don’t win automatic bids, they’re probably not in the tournament. Same goes for Hofstra (wins over UConn and JMU), UConn (a win over UMass) and Richmond (which has been on pause for a couple weeks). We also project UMass in this week as the A-10 automatic bid on the strength of a superior RPI (14 vs. 41).
Note: First-place teams are listed as automatic qualifiers. In the event of a tie, the AQ goes to the highest rated team in the RPI. There are a total of 15 automatic qualifiers and 14 at-large teams to comprise a 29-team field. All records are through April 11.
Automatic Qualifiers (15)
|
W-L
|
League
|
Road
|
Notable Wins
|
Notable Losses
|
North Carolina |
12-0 |
6-0 |
3-0 |
Syracuse, Boston College, Notre Dame, Duke, Stony Brook, Louisville |
--- |
Northwestern |
10-0 |
10-0 |
5-0 |
Maryland, Maryland, Penn State, Penn State, Johns Hopkins, Johns Hopkins, Rutgers, Rutgers |
--- |
Stony Brook |
9-2 |
5-0 |
4-2 |
Towson |
--- |
Jacksonville |
6-0 |
1-0 |
4-0 |
Florida |
--- |
Florida |
9-2 |
6-0 |
5-2 |
Louisville |
--- |
Loyola |
7-2 |
4-0 |
3-1 |
Drexel |
--- |
Drexel |
10-1 |
3-0 |
7-1 |
Towson, Temple |
--- |
Stanford |
6-0 |
4-0 |
3-0 |
Colorado |
--- |
Denver |
8-1 |
6-0 |
2-1 |
--- |
--- |
UMass |
9-2 |
4-0 |
4-2 |
--- |
--- |
Fairfield |
6-1 |
6-1 |
2-0 |
--- |
Siena |
Robert Morris |
9-2 |
5-0 |
3-2 |
--- |
--- |
Mount St. Mary's |
9-2 |
8-0 |
3-2 |
--- |
--- |
High Point |
4-6 |
2-0 |
1-4 |
--- |
Davidson |
Furman |
8-3 |
2-0 |
4-3 |
--- |
East Carolina, Davidson |
North Carolina escaped Notre Dame to hold on to No. 1 … Northwestern cruised again in Big Ten play. Just one game remains in league play, and that’s against a Michigan team desperate for a resume-building win on April 18 … Stony Brook has won its America East games by an average of 11.8 goals …
Jacksonville has played just one game since March 21, a 21-7 win over Stetson in its only league outing … Florida rushed by Old Dominion and set up a crucial two-game set against Vanderbilt this weekend … Loyola closes Patriot League play with Bucknell (Saturday) and Navy (April 24) …
Drexel easily handled Navy by nine, and Tuesday’s romp over Towson cements the Dragons’ place atop the CAA ... Stanford hasn’t played since March 31, a 23-8 win at Fresno State, and the Cardinal are slated for games at Arizona State and USC this weekend ... Denver earned a mighty sweep at UConn by narrow margins (in overtime and by four goals) to all-but-effectively sew up the Big East’s top seed …
UMass is the Atlantic 10’s representative with a commanding 21-12 win over Saint Joseph’s … Fairfield stumbled at home to Siena to open up the MAAC race. The Stags are still in first, but the league has inched closer …Robert Morris continued its perfect 5-0 record in MAC play and has five games to go in a league that won’t play a conference tournament …
Mount St. Mary’s is leaps ahead of its NEC competition. The closest game The Mount has played is a five-goal win at Wagner. The two meet again this weekend … High Point took out Campbell to claim the Big South’s top spot. The Panthers have one-goal losses to Jacksonville, James Madison and Davidson, while also playing North Carolina, Vanderbilt and Duke … Furman is now 2-0 in the SoCon and has a big-time matchup with Jacksonville on Friday.