Local teams could go 6-for-6
How fitting it would be. In a year when the NCAA men's lacrosse championship weekend returns to Baltimore, a year when attendance could, for the first time, elipse the 60,000 mark at the Division I semifinals and championship games that will anchor the Memorial Day weekend event at M&T Bank Stadium, the extended metropolitan area could be fully represented in the NCAA tournament.
With the tournament's 16-team bracket to be unveiled Sunday night, there is a chance that, for the first time in the 37-year history of the Division I tournament, six local schools could be invited to the party.
Navy already has automatically qualified as the champion of the Patriot League. Johns Hopkins, Maryland and Loyola are locks to make it, with Loyola coming back after missing the postseason for five consecutive years. And Towson and UMBC stand strong chances of getting in, either as automatic qualifiers or at-large entries.
Both schools could make it easy on themselves by winning their respective conference title games tomorrow. Towson, which just missed the cut in 2006 after going to the NCAAs for three straight years, needs to beat visiting Delaware in the Colonial Athletic Association tournament final. But the Tigers, by virtue of their season-opening win over Loyola, will be part of the at-large discussion should they fail to get the AQ.
UMBC also could gain an at-large bid, but the Retrievers, seeking their second straight NCAA tournament appearance and fourth overall since moving to Division I in 1981, would earn an automatic pass by defeating host Albany in the America East tournament title game.
If all six teams make it, look for some attractive, local, first-round matchups. The most likely would appear to be Towson at Hopkins and Loyola at Maryland. Towson has never beaten Hopkins under Tigers nine-year coach Tony Seaman, who is dying to defeat the school that fired him in 1998. And Maryland coach Dave Cottle has never faced the program he built from scratch. He left Loyola for Maryland in 2001, after guiding the Greyhounds to 14 straight NCAA tournaments.
With the tournament's 16-team bracket to be unveiled Sunday night, there is a chance that, for the first time in the 37-year history of the Division I tournament, six local schools could be invited to the party.
Navy already has automatically qualified as the champion of the Patriot League. Johns Hopkins, Maryland and Loyola are locks to make it, with Loyola coming back after missing the postseason for five consecutive years. And Towson and UMBC stand strong chances of getting in, either as automatic qualifiers or at-large entries.
Both schools could make it easy on themselves by winning their respective conference title games tomorrow. Towson, which just missed the cut in 2006 after going to the NCAAs for three straight years, needs to beat visiting Delaware in the Colonial Athletic Association tournament final. But the Tigers, by virtue of their season-opening win over Loyola, will be part of the at-large discussion should they fail to get the AQ.
UMBC also could gain an at-large bid, but the Retrievers, seeking their second straight NCAA tournament appearance and fourth overall since moving to Division I in 1981, would earn an automatic pass by defeating host Albany in the America East tournament title game.
If all six teams make it, look for some attractive, local, first-round matchups. The most likely would appear to be Towson at Hopkins and Loyola at Maryland. Towson has never beaten Hopkins under Tigers nine-year coach Tony Seaman, who is dying to defeat the school that fired him in 1998. And Maryland coach Dave Cottle has never faced the program he built from scratch. He left Loyola for Maryland in 2001, after guiding the Greyhounds to 14 straight NCAA tournaments.
