This will be part of my lacrosse analysis in Tuesday's paper, but this weekend's final four at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., marks only the third time since the NCAA implemented a season-ending tournament to determine a national champion in 1971 that the state of Maryland will not be represented in the semifinals of the NCAA tournament.

The other years? 1994 when Syracuse, Virginia, Princeton and Brown advanced to the final four and 1988 when the Orange, Cavaliers, Cornell and Penn played on championship weekend.

Another footnote is that the NCAA announced that next year's quarterfinals will take place at Princeton and Stony Brook universities. The Long Island area proved that it could draw fan support when a crowd of 11,259 watched last Saturday's NCAA quarterfinal at Hofstra University -- which was the second-largest crowd to attend. Of course, having Syracuse, Cornell and Princeton playing at Hofstra may have helped.