PHOTO CREDIT: IAN NEADLE
Parity is alive in college lacrosse. This past weekend, the second, third, fourth and eighth-seeded teams all fell defeat in the NCAA Tournament.
After taking a deep look, I ask, how surprising is this?
The Atlantic Coast Conference is undoubtedly the best conference in college lacrosse. All six of its teams advanced to the 18-team NCAA Tournament field with five receiving top-eight seeds. The next highest conference was the Ivy League, which sent three to the tournament. But when looking at the first weekend of the NCAA Tourney, the ACC went just 3-3 and the Ivy League was 0-3. Compare that to the NEC, Big East, CAA and America East which has gone a combined 5-0. The ACC is the pinnacle conference of the sport, but the rest of the country can play pretty darn good lacrosse too.
How surprising is it to see Bryant beat Syracuse, Albany beat Loyola or Drexel beat Penn? Not as big as you think.
Take a look at the nation’s best players at each position. The Thompson brothers of Albany are the best attackmen in the country, plain and simple. They have both eclipsed the 100-point plateau this season and stand 1-2 in NCAA single-season history with 122 and 115 points, respectively. Widely considered the nation’s best defenseman, Joe Fletcher plays for Loyola, a school with a lacrosse-rich tradition but not the ACC. Princeton’s Tom Schreiber is considered by most as the best midfielder in the country. Bryant features arguably the best faceoff specialist in Kevin Massa and one of the best goalies in Gunnar Waldt, who owns a stellar 61.0 save percentage this season.
What’s the common denominator between the players I just mentioned? They are not from the ACC. There is certainly room for debate and discretion about best players. People could make a case for Mike Chanenchuk of Maryland as the best midfielder in the country. Jordan Wolf of Duke would likely be the best attackman if not for the superhuman performances by Lyle and Miles Thompson. It’s not a knock against the ACC and its players, just proof that the sport of lacrosse is growing beyond the traditional powers.
Remember the days when Championship Weekend would only feature some combination of Duke, Maryland, Syracuse, Johns Hopkins, Virginia, etc.? Those days have passed. A team like Notre Dame has emerged as perennial national championship contenders. Yale was minutes away from a Final Four appearance last year. Denver has made four straight national quarterfinals and is vying for a third championship weekend appearance in the last four years.
New to Division I, Bryant is one win away from getting to a level (the Final Four) that only 13 other teams have ever reached (Syracuse, Johns Hopkins, Princeton, Virginia, North Carolina, Cornell, Duke, Maryland, Loyola, Navy, UMass, Towson, Notre Dame). Sunday’s win over No. 2 Syracuse is not as big of an upset as people have made it seem. Bryant is 16-4, impressive at any level and in any conference. The Bulldogs are nationally-ranked (19th) and own a win over fellow quarterfinalist Albany. It absolutely is an upset to beat a team like Syracuse, but saying it’s a historic or improbable upset may be doing a disservice to how good Bryant is.
Drexel and Albany also look to reach their first-ever championship weekends. Meanwhile, many were questioning Denver’s five-seed. You could argue that the Tar Heels deserved a home game instead. The Pioneers were 14-2 in a Big East conference that lost Syracuse and Notre Dame. Denver made a statement on the field, though, ending North Carolina’s season for the third time in as many years.
This year’s NCAA Tournament featured a first-year lacrosse program in Richmond that took the Virginia Cavaliers to the brink in its first-ever game. Air Force won an ECAC that featured a strong Fairfield team. Programs like Lehigh, Yale and Harvard have emerged over the past few years to become perennial national contenders.
The ACC should be praised, but there are talented players and coaches across all different parts of the country, and all different conferences. The ACC has three of the nation’s eight quarterfinals, which is still impressive, but fewer than most had predicted. The conference has a chance to send three to the Final Four—No. 1 seed Duke, No. 6 Notre Dame and No. 7 Maryland—but regardless of how the quarterfinals play out, the rest of the country has made a statement with the opening weekend upsets.
Lacrosse is growing. The powers of lacrosse are still national contenders, but now more than ever, the gap has closed between them and everyone else. It’s not as much of a foregone conclusion as in the past, which makes the NCAA Tournament games edge-of-your-seat entertainment.
As Bryant head coach Mike Pressler told his team after the Syracuse victory “It’s not about the best team, it’s the best team on that given day.”
