The seeds are set for a great tournament! Sometimes the need to match teams who are geographically close to their opponents in the first round is not particularly fair, and we’ll talk about the specifics later, but it can give us great matchups, rematches and stories. I’ll point those out as we take a closer look at the first-round games.

THE YEAR OF THE GWLL

Before I give some voice to the grievances of the left-behind, let’s celebrate the Great Western Lacrosse League's accomplishment of getting three teams in the big show. Notre Dame, Ohio State and Denver earned bids this year. It’s a milestone for the geographical growth of the college game or “spread” of the sport, since the Division I game is not actually growing.

Congratulations to coaches Kevin Corrigan, Joe Breschi and Jamie Munro, each not only responsible for this year’s success at their respective schools, but also, in each case, for their programs’ rise to prominence and the emergence of the GWLL as a top lacrosse conference, second only to the ACC. E-Lacrosse will have the GWLL tournament games posted later this week. You can watch Notre Dame take the first ever GWLL tournament crown in Detroit, home of the new GWLL team, University of Detroit, who joins the league in 2009.

READY, SET, COMPLAIN!

Each year somebody has a gripe with the selection committee and this year it's Brown and perhaps Georgetown. Albany, Drexel and Bucknell could complain but they don’t have as much right to beef as the Hoyas or Bears. These three were really on the bubble in my opinion. They had great seasons but fell just shy of the cut in a 16-team field. All three had a chance to win their conference final and failed, with Albany and Drexel losing in spectacular breakdowns.

Georgetown beat Navy and may have a claim to Navy’s spot but Navy did not lose to anyone nearly as bad as Penn State and I think that’s important. How low a team falls in its worst loss means something to me. Loyola lost to Siena. Hofstra lost to UMass. You get the idea. It gives you a parameter on the low end. Georgetown’s low end was far lower than Navy’s and it came at the very end of the season when teams are supposed to be peaking and playing like they belong in the tournament. But Georgetown also reached a high that no other team in the nation achieved when it beat top-seeded and otherwise unbeaten Duke earlier in the season. It seems to defy logic that no teams in the tournament have beaten the top seed, while the one team who has barely missed the cut.

Brown is, in my opinion, a better team at this point in the season than both Navy and Denver. If Princeton had won that last game against Brown, I think everyone was prepared for the Tigers to sneak in even after a season that included a 10-2 loss to unranked Albany. But Brown won the game, shares the 2008 Ivy League title with No. 8 seed Cornell and got left out. I would have agonized over the Denver vs Navy choice, but Brown would have been a sure thing. The Bears were 11-3. They lost to Cornell late in the season but had a nine-game winning streak after losing at Denver and Hofstra early on.

A LOOK AT THE FIRST ROUND

Loyola @ No. 1 Duke

Duke should be fuming. This is the worst/best first-round opponent I have ever seen dealt to a dominant No. 1 team. The Blue Devils deserved Canisius and Canisius deserved them. Only Canisius bumped a legitimate team from the field as an automatic bid. The 2008 MAAC season provides a good argument for some sort of auto-bid qualifying criteria, like one team in the conference has to break the top 25 by the end of the season.

Loyola on the other hand, was truly upset by a much lesser Siena team and that weighed them down in the RPI. The committee knows Loyola is a sleeping giant. If Georgetown could beat Duke, Loyola can too. Duke should not have to play a highly contested game in the first round as long as a team like Canisius is in the field. Lacrosse and sports, generally, are supposed to be merit-based endeavors. What do you get for accomplishing what Duke did this season? Perhaps a first round ousting by a streaky Loyola team with loads of firepower and Collin Finnerty’s karma.

After years of sympathy and support from the lax community, Duke’s lax karma is ebbing as the super-seniors and their 4 ½ seasons’ worth of stats have erased or are about to erase some of the elite records in the game. All of the Duke 2006 individual records need to be erased in order to be fair and preserve the game’s historical integrity. There’s no one selfless enough at Duke to do that voluntarily or man enough at the NCAA to mandate it after cowardly awarding the extra eligibility in the first place. Kismet may at least nip it in the bud Saturday with the help of the Greyhounds.

UMBC @ No. 2 Virginia

Are you kidding me? UMBC is playing where a No. 15 seed should. This team lost two games early and badly to Rutgers and Delaware and dropped a two-goal game to the Hop. Since then they’ve have improved every single game into a mature, confident lacrosse machine. Don Zimmerman is easily the Coach of the Year. If you just watch the video of both of UMBC’s comebacks this past weekend, you will see that they are fearless, relentless, patient, and play like a team. UMBC rolling down to Charlottesville and beating the overconfident and overrated Cavaliers is more than possible.

The Cavs should be very dissatisfied with this opponent in the first round. They deserved to play Denver or Colgate. They could have lost to either of those teams too. I think they are the paper tiger in the tournament. I suppose if Garrett Billings is spectacular and Ben Rubeor plays at his best, they have the pieces to go far. But I just think the whole strategy this year was to sacrifice 2008 as an investment in the future and they got lucky winning anyway. I like them to win it all, NEXT YEAR. This year they lose in the first two rounds.

Canisius @ No. 3 Syracuse

Somebody needs Syracuse to make the Final Four badly. The big northern Syracuse fan base is needed in Foxboro, site of the semifinals and championship game. The Orange play unranked yet overrated Canisius and then face a possible matchup with the Colgate team they just lost to last week. In the 1980s film, The World According to Garp, the main character buys a house after seeing it get hit by a small plane claiming, “What are the chances of another plane ever hitting this house?” The answer is “more than Colgate has of beating Syracuse twice in a season.”

Notre Dame is the only possible stumbling block for the Orange and that would be a great game. Notre Dame is the leading faceoff unit in the nation and has enough superstar sticks to go toe-to-toe with Syracuse.

Navy @ No. 4 North Carolina

These teams have played some of the most exciting games in recent lacrosse history in a series that regularly featured overtime games and included quite a few multiple overtime games, until this year when they stopped playing. The committee has reunited them in what could be a classic game if tradition is any indicator. If talent prevails, UNC rocks the Mids. But Navy always has unequaled conditioning and some intangibles on its side, like preparing for war on a daily basis.

Hofstra @ No. 5 Johns Hopkins

Hopkins should be visiting Cornell or UMBC in the first-round game. A No. 5 seed is just not reflective of the season the Blue Jays just played. Ironically, the same committee that gifted Hopkins the fifth spot also rewarded them with a Hofstra rematch. Seth Tierney, having worked the Homewood sideline for years, is most qualified to upset the Jays. I see overtime, either way.

Colgate @ No. 6 Notre Dame

Notre Dame, for the first time in the 28-year history of the program, will host an NCAA tournament game. The GWLL champion will be pumped for this one and South Bend will be a great atmosphere. This is an important moment in college lacrosse. I wish, out of all the games, that I could be at this one, partially for the history and the atmosphere, but also because of the matchup.

This will be a great faceoff matchup, too. Colgate and Notre Dame have two of the top faceoff units in the nation. Colgate faceoff specialist Chris Eck has won 193 out of 309 duels for a .625 winning percentage. The Irish have Taylor Clagett, who has claimed 186 out of 289 draws for a .644 winning rate. Colgate (11-5) has won seven straight contests but Notre Dame is on an 18-game home winning streak. This one will be great but I like the firepower of Notre Dame and Joey Kemp in the cage.

Denver @ No. 7 Maryland

I’ve seen Denver play very well and very poorly this year. Maryland has had issues since “Scootergate” but should know that they are good enough to go far this year if they can pull it together. They’d love a rematch with Virginia to avenge the ACC tournament semifinal loss but they can’t look past a Munro team. This Denver squad plays for its coach and for each other with as much intensity as anyone in the nation. They are talented with a Canadian flare but have been inconsistent at times this season. I saw them get drilled by Cornell in a driving rainstorm in Dallas. If they perform similarly Saturday in College Park, the Terps will unleash a scoring flood like a Big Red flashback for the Pioneers.

Ohio State @ No. 8 Cornell

The two most impressive wins I’ve seen this year were Ohio State over North Carolina and Cornell over Denver. In both cases the offense came effortlessly, merging power and finesse. Cornell and Ohio State have great offenses, but both have faltered. Ohio State only scored twice on Notre Dame in the GWLL final and Cornell was listless against Princeton a few weeks back. Both also feature big tough defenses and fast break-minded middies. This should be a fast game, end to end. “Special teams” or hustle play will be the key, with the unsettled situations and groundballs determining the victor.

Posted by John Weaver at 3:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)
                    

You can get in on the big tournament yourself by playing the E-Lacrosse Division I Men's College Tournament Pool! There is no charge or purchase necessary and you can win one of five Rogue shafts from Scorpion Lacrosse! It's the hottest shaft on the market with Exogrid technology like they use on top quality golf clubs. E-Lacrosse Rage 3 Highlight DVDs will be awarded to 10 Consolation winners! The pool closes on Saturday at noon just before the first faceoff.

Click here to enter and for more information.

Posted by John Weaver at 12:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

The good folks over at Lax Power took the RPI, the SOS and the vs. RPI data, assigned a value to each based on importance to the committee’s process and have essentially done the job for them. Here’s the result in a poll format:

1 Duke

2 Virginia

3 Syracuse

4 North Carolina

5 Notre Dame

6 Cornell

7 Johns Hopkins

8 Ohio State

9 Colgate

10 Maryland

11 Denver

12 UMBC

13 Hofstra

14 Navy

15 Drexel

16 Brown

17 Army

18 Bucknell

19 Princeton

20 Georgetown

21 Loyola

22 Albany

The first 8 seeds will look very much like the first eight in the poll:

1 Duke

2 Virginia

3 Syracuse

4 North Carolina

5 Notre Dame

6 Cornell

7 Johns Hopkins

8 Ohio State

But then we have to insert the automatic qualifiers before we figure the rest. Some of the automatic bids go to teams that have already been seeded like Notre Dame and Cornell. Here are the rest of the 16 teams that would be next but for the remaining automatic bids to be awarded. The RPI ranks Hofstra and Colgate in the top 16 so their huge upset conference wins do not burst any bubbles. This makes it easier for the committee.

9 Colgate

10 Maryland

11 Denver

12 UMBC

13 Hofstra

14 Navy

15 Drexel

16 Brown

AND

21 Loyola

36 Canisius

So, with Colgate, Hofstra and UMBC in this next 9-16 group anyway, they don’t bump deserving teams. Only Loyola and Canisius, ranked 21 and 36 according to the NCAA criteria, will take the place of teams in this group. But who will be voted off the island? And is there room for others like Army, Bucknell, Georgetown or even Princeton to sneak their way into this process? I think, using their criteria, that these four teams have played their last games of the season. I think they are joined on the sidelines by Drexel and either Navy or Denver.

In my opinion, Brown should beat out Navy, Drexel and Denver for inclusion. The hard decision for me would be choosing between Drexel, Navy and Denver for the last spot once Brown is welcomed in for the great team it is. Brown has not lost since the beginning of the season. Like UMBC, the RPI ranking for Brown is as bogus as a ranking could be. It accounts for no team improvement, and these are two of the hottest teams in the nation. If team improvement is not important, then why have coaches at all? Good teams get better. Any system where the first game of the season is as valuable as the last is ridiculous. If Brown is left out, the system is broken. The other three are fair game. They each had their chances to lock up a postseason berth.

So the last eight teams in will be (in no order):

Colgate

Maryland

UMBC

Hofstra

Loyola

Canisius

Brown

Navy, Denver, or Drexel

Remember the placement of the teams is based on criteria other than fairness, like travel (budget) constraints, so we won’t be able to tell you where these final eight teams will play their first games. We’ll have to wait for the committee’s announcement tonight. This should have been a relatively easy year for the committee based on the criteria. They could have finished their work early as today’s game between Ohio State and Notre Dame and should not have changed much regardless of the outcome and the Canisius v. VMI MAAC final winner.

OK, so that’s the way I think it will go down tonight based on the criteria used by the committee. As you might expect, I think that criteria, for the most part, is slanted. So here’s how the RRRR system would seed the teams and my analysis of the RRRR based seedings.

First, here’s our final RRRR Rankings alongside the NCAA criteria:

As you can see, games represented as numbers crunched in a vacuum have a completely different value than those analyzed by our experts. The UMBC team is a great example. Early thrashings by Delaware and Rutgers make this the most improved team in the nation when you see the winning streak since a two-point loss to Hopkins, also very early on. That’s their three losses. Add the two unbelievable comeback wins to take the America East conference title and we stand by them as the No. 4 team in the country, right now. NOW as opposed to the beginning of the season before national Coach of the Year favorite Don Zimmerman worked his magic on them. Who cares about the beginning of the season? The RPI is rife with these misinterpretations of data and the committee's results will likely be too.

That said, it is difficult to make some of the last decisions in any seeding process. We had some difficulty eliminating Bucknell and Albany for our alternative, the RRREACT. The Responsible, Reliable, Reasonable E-Lacrosse Alternative College Tournament seedings is hypothetical, of course, and has no bearing on the actual seedings or the committee's discussion.

The following bracket is NOT REAL. It is based on the RRREACT, taken from the RRRR rankings and placing the teams where they belong, based on merit instead of bus fare.

Posted by John Weaver at 3:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
                    

The E-Lacrosse RRRR Men's Division I Lacrosse Rankings for May 4, 2008

This is the final regular season RRRR rankings for 2008. We will publish one more set of rankings for the men's D1 teams after the NCAA tournament.

1
Duke* 15-1

2
Virginia* 12-3

3
Syracuse 12-2

4
UMBC 12-3

5
Maryland 9-5

6
North Carolina 8-5

7
Notre Dame 12-2

8
Cornell 11-3

9
Johns Hopkins 8-5
Drexel 13-4

11
Ohio State 10-4
Brown 11-3

13
Colgate 11-5
Georgetown 9-3

15
Navy 9-5
Loyola 7-6

17
Hofstra 10-5
Bucknell 10-5
Albany 8-8

20
Denver 10-6
Dartmouth 7-7
Army 9-6

23
Princeton 7-6
Stony Brook 7-7

25
Hobart 8-7
Towson 5-9
Penn 6-7
Quinnipiac 8-5

* Duke players and a Virginia player were given extra eligibility by the NCAA creating an unfair advantage over other contending teams in 2008.
See the full rankings at E-Lacrosse

Posted by John Weaver at 3:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

The America East tournament concludes tonight at 7:30 at UMBC as the Retrievers take on Scott Marr's Albany Great Danes. The semifinals were thrilling and it's definitely a playoff atmosphere.

The national tournament has basically started, as Albany looks to lock up a spot in the next round and UMBC looks to keep an impressive unbeaten streak intact after a poor start to the season.

This game has many repercussions throughout the seedings, too. Navy, Loyola, Army, Brown and Princeton will be rooting for UMBC to keep the automatic bid in the hands of the conference front-runner. If Albany wins, UMBC, which is ranked fifth in some polls, is assured a spot. This would knock a good team out. Personally, I think the polls are way off and Albany has already earned a spot with the semifinal win on Thursday.

Some notes on the semis:

First, thanks to the Albany folks for the invite to the tailgate and the great food. The Danes put out a spread, and I got a chance to visit with an old friend -- and Iroquois National Team regular for decades -- Scott Burnham and his family. Scott has a nephew (Derek Kreuzer) on the Albany team.

Second, thanks to Albany coach Scott Marr and Stony Brook coach Rick Sowell for just being class acts. Throughout the whole game, if one looked up the hill toward the parking lot, you could see the silhouette of a pretty tall guy in a power chair overlooking the game. It was Marr's mentor and Maryland legend Dick Edell, who suffers from Myositis, the swelling and loss of muscle, due to largely unknown causes. Edell watched the whole game from the hill accompanied by Maryland coaches Dave Slafkosky and Dave Cottle. Immediately after the Albany-Stony Brook game and the handshake, both coaches disappeared from the field. I watched them climb the hill together and embrace the ailing coach. I told Marr later that I appreciated the gesture and he just said, "He's the reason I am here today."

Third, Ed Stevenson and Don Zimmerman are easily two of the best coaches in the land. I often say that lacrosse is like backgammon, but some of the coaches think its chess. Well, Thursday night was a chess match between masters. Binghamton was about as prepared for UMBC as I have ever seen a team prepared for an opponent. Ed's only chance was to keep the score very low. The Bearcats almost pulled it off. Zim adjusted at the end of the third quarter and his very talented offense pulled it out. I played high school ball with Ed. He was one of the best defenders to play the game. He has always been a fierce competitor and a gentleman. I spoke to him for just a second after the game and he just said, “Johnny, we could have won that game." I think he said it twice. I just told him he was right, but that it was only because he was a great coach. That semifinal was a very entertaining game because Ed can coach. He will win plenty of America East championships, if he's not snagged up by some huge program first. In my opinion, if you gave Ed Stevenson a top four program, he would consistently beat the current establishment.

Posted by John Weaver at 12:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

The Division I men's lacrosse NCAA tournament field includes 16 teams. Seven conference champions will receive automatic bids. They are:

1. Colgate - Patriot League - Colgate was the tournament winner; Navy, Army and Bucknell are all viable at-large possibilities.

2. Loyola - Eastern College Athletic Association – No conference tournament; Georgetown is a viable at-large possibility.

3. TBD - American East Conference - Tournament is next week; UMBC won the regular-season title; UMBC and the Albany-Stony Brook winner on May 3 are viable at-large possibilities.

4. TBD - Colonial Athletic Conference - Tournament is next week; Drexel and Hofstra share the regular-season title and both are viable at-large possibilities. Towson or Delaware will need to win the conference tournament for entry.

5. TBD - Great Western Lacrosse League - Tournament is next week; Notre Dame, Ohio State and Denver share the regular-season title. All three are viable at-large possibilities. Quinnipiac could get in if they win the conference tournament.

6. TBD - Ivy League - Cornell will share the title with the Brown-Princeton winner on May 3. There is no tournament. All three are viable at-large possibilities. With a win over Harvard next week, Dartmouth should be also.

7. TBD - Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference - The tournament is next week; Providence and Canisius share the regular-season crown. Manhattan and VMI could gain entry if they win the conference tournament. None are viable at-large possibilities.

The ACC is a conference but, with only four teams, has no automatic bid. The Blue Devils were the tournament and regular-season champions. They, along with Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina are viable at-large possibilities. Syracuse and Johns Hopkins are independent teams that are not in a conference but are viable at-large possibilities.

After the automatic bids are awarded and those teams are set aside, nine more teams are picked as at-large participants based on a few things. They are (in order):

1. Results against ranked teams (according to the RPI rankings). RPI rankings are a median of data including a team's Division I winning percentage, their opponents' records and their opponents' strength of schedule.

2. Strength of schedule rating. The committee takes each team’s 10 highest-ranking opponents (RPI again) and creates an index from the average of those.

3. RPI ratings.

Seem redundant? This data is more inbred than European Royalty. But lacrosse is a small world and if this incestuous input doesn’t give them enough information, they are allowed to finally look at objective data like head-to-head competition and results against common foes. It is at this late point in the process that they employ the first logic not based on the RPI.

No outside polls or data are to be considered. The blaring contradictions to committee-think contained in the outside data like other polls, E-Lacrosse's RRRR rankings or even blogs like this one would slow the selection process or do something worse, I am assuming.

The selection committee is also allowed to use rankings and advice from regional advisory committees. These are people who have, likely, actually seen the teams play – not just the ones being considered, but the ones who perhaps should be. It seems like a good idea but they come in late like Democratic Party super-delegates and hopefully don’t yield that kind of sway over the process.

Once the teams are selected, they need to be seeded. The top eight teams are ordered meritoriously. The rest are not. The second eight are placed, in no order of accomplishment, to make for a cheap and entertaining tournament. Teams are put where they have less distance to travel, and if possible, where the matchups will draw an audience. Should a fair committee be thinking about gate sales and travel requirements? Do I need to answer that?

When the committee is not seeding teams based on merit, we are allowed to ask if the growth of lacrosse might be just as important to consider in the process as the size of a first-round crowd in a given year. But when, and if, the committee starts looking ahead at the potential crowds for quarterfinals and even the Final Four based on the probable outcomes of their seedings, that the system gets corrupt. Not FAA corrupt. Not New Jersey corrupt. Not corrupt enough to pick a champion, but close enough. Just allowing for the subjective placement of the bottom eight “non-seeded” teams provides enough ambiguity to breed suspicion in a sport divided geographically and by postseason haves and have-nots.

Teams must play a minimum of 10 Div. I opponents during the regular season to be selected to the tournament. This is why teams like Mount Saint Mary’s, St. John’s and Presbyterian score games against top ten teams while bubble-possible teams like Denver, Ohio State and Bucknell can’t schedule enough big games to help them reach at-large consideration during most years. In 1996 Bucknell went undefeated and was left at home.

You will notice that most top teams have a schedule formula of 50 percent top ten and 50 percent can’t lose. This ensures a winning record if you just beat one top ten team and don’t lose to Bellarmine or Vermont. Take any top team’s schedule and play out the worst-case-within-reason scenario and you will see it. It is pretty impossible for a Hopkins, Maryland, Duke, Princeton, Virginia, UNC or Syracuse to miss the show. They have to have historically bad seasons to get close, and in the case of the 2008 Johns Hopkins team, that won’t even do it.

The only time the formula does not work is when, like I said, the team loses to much lesser teams after dropping literally all of their games against top ten teams. Teams must have a .500 or better record against all opponents for at-large selection. This is why 5-8 Syracuse did not get in last year while they may have been a better team than some who did. Champions of lesser conferences are always bumping better teams so we are used to the possibility of seeing a lesser team gain entry. It’s a part of offering automatic bids.

The use of this formula is inevitable as long as the teams have the ability to call their own shots on scheduling. You cannot blame someone for playing by the rules. But the rules would be hard to change. Now that television exposure comes with those top ten games, it would be hard to pull big games away from anyone. True growth of the game has always been taboo to the big four and quite a few others who frequent the top ten. Title IX is all that keeps these teams from competing with Michigan, Miami, UCLA and the rest of the real college sports world.

So next week, as the last games are played I will break down the committee’s only real options based on their own criteria. With exception of some more subjective calls we might differ on, it will be easy to pick the top eight. The next eight we can pick with some accuracy but not seed because that is totally subjective. You can get a head start on the math yourself by using a couple of Lax Power tools: results against teams ranked by RPI, the SOS ratings and the RPI ratings. Remember these are the top three factors used by the committee. Have at it and let us know what you think.

The RRRR Men's Division I Lacrosse Rankings for April 28, 2008

1
Duke* 15-1

2
Syracuse 12-1

3
Virginia* 12-3

4
Maryland 8-5

5
Georgetown 9-3
North Carolina 8-5

7
UMBC 10-3
Notre Dame 11-2
Cornell 10-3

10
Drexel 12-3
Johns Hopkins 6-5
Ohio State 9-4

13
Denver 10-5

14
Brown 10-3
Colgate 10-5
Navy 9-5

17
Bucknell 10-5
Army 9-5
Loyola 7-5
Albany 7-7
Dartmouth 6-7

22
Princeton 7-5
Stony Brook 7-6

24
Hofstra 8-5
Hobart 8-5
Towson 5-9
Harvard 6-7

See the full rankings at E-Lacrosse

* Duke players and a Virginia player were given extra eligibility by the NCAA, creating "super-seniors." In my opinion, this gives them an unfair advantage over all other contending teams in 2008.

Posted by baltimoresun.com at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

In most cases, in most sports, conference tournament winners receive the automatic NCAA tournament bid, instead of awarding it to the regular-season champion. When these tournaments produce an upset champion, especially one that is unranked and would not otherwise qualify for the NCAAs, often the conference gets an extra team in the big show. The ranked teams and the new upset champion go. But in lacrosse, we have nine at-large spots and too many conferences to offer the same accommodation.

This weekend Colgate won the Patriot League tournament title, rolling past Navy and then Bucknell, who “upset” Army in their semifinal. Colgate was not going to the tournament without the title. Army and Navy were pretty assured of spots having tied for the conference regular-season title. Army holds the upper hand after ending a 13-game drought against their rival. Colgate and Bucknell would not have likely been in consideration for the at-large spots before this weekend. With the two conference tournament victories, Colgate reached out and took an at-large spot from someone. We won’t know the victim until next week, but it could well be Army or Navy.

Even Bucknell could now spell big trouble for both Army and Navy. With a 10-5 record, two wins over Army and a win over Ohio State, they have the victories. Their losses are a 4-3 overtime loss to Navy, twice to conference champion Colgate, No. 1 Duke and Penn State. Only the Penn State loss looks bad now. Otherwise, Bucknell trumps Army and maybe even Navy. I mean, how many bids can we count on being given to the conference after an upset champion shrinks the field for everyone?

Conference tournaments often offer the opportunity for redemption, like the Patriot did for Colgate. But sometimes a team neither needs nor really wants a second chance. Sometimes, perhaps half the time, a team is perfectly happy with the result of the first contest. That’s likely the case of Albany, who played Stony Brook this weekend in their regular-season finale, winning 10-7. Their reward -- they play Stony Brook next week again in the America East tournament. Stony Brook’s redemption could come very rapidly. Beating a team twice is always tough. Beating them twice in a week may prove even harder. But Albany will be fighting for their season, literally. With quality wins, showcasing the 10-2 victory over poll voter-darling Princeton, they might not need the tournament title to gain entry to the NCAAs. But they will need that seventh win in the tournament semifinals to go with the seven losses they have just to qualify for at-large consideration. Stony Brook, at 7-6, in my opinion, needs a win this weekend themselves for consideration.

COME JOIN US AT THE AMERICA EAST TOURNAMENT THIS WEEKEND AT UMBC!

Why wait for the NCAAs to start? Get into playoff lacrosse this weekend. Thursday at 4 p.m., Albany and Stony Brook will be playing for their lives and a chance to face this year’s surprise contender, UMBC. At 7:30, the high-flying Retrievers will have to hold off Ed Stevenson’s Binghamton squad, which specializes in defense and low scores. Come on out Thursday and Saturday for all the action.

America East Tournament at UMBC Stadium: Thursday, May 1

No. 2 Albany (7-7, 4-1) vs. No. 3 Stony Brook (7-6, 3-2) 4 p.m.

No. 1 UMBC (10-3, 5-0) vs. No. 4 Binghamton (4-7, 2-3) 7:30 p.m.

Tickets for the tournament are on sale now and available through the UMBC ticket office. All-session passes for adults are $15, while all-session tickets for youths 14 and under and America East students with a valid ID are $4. Individual tickets can be purchased for $8 for adults and $2 for youths and America East students.

Posted by John Weaver at 2:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                    

I do Philadelphia road trips pretty regularly. I’ll try to cover a high school or college game on the same day as a Wings pro indoor game. This past Saturday, I was able to see a triple header -- Haverford played McDaniel, Drexel played Sacred Heart and then the Wings hosted the New York Titans with Casey Powell, Ryan Boyle and a host of other American box stars.

I had run into Wings coach Dave Huntley at a Calvert Hall game and he mentioned that he thought the game against the Titans on April 19 would draw really well. I marked the date and planned to go. A week earlier, Athan Iannucci, the second-year pro out of Hofstra, scored three goals and broke Gary Gait's National Lacrosse League record of 61 goals in a season. So 62 was the theme for the night and the celebration of Athan’s accomplishment was enjoyed by over 17,000 people. Gait sent a video message and they had a video presentation with darn near all of the 62 goals. I captured a bit for you, which I've posted below.

Iannucci was a first-round draft pick and No. 8 overall by the Wings in the 2007 NLL Entry Draft as well as the first overall pick in the 2007 supplemental draft by the Chicago Machine in the much smaller outdoor pro league, Major League Lacrosse. Iannucci has been on the radar of true box fans for a while, winning the Nieuwendyk Award as the top rookie in the OLA (Ontario Lacrosse Association) Junior A Lacrosse League in 1999 before winning three Minto Cups (Canada’s Jr. A Championship). In 2007 Iannucci was the leading scorer in the Canadian senior league with the New Westminster Salmonbellies and the Wings' leading scorer as a rookie. Box players often play two pro seasons, one in Canada in the summer and the NLL from January until May.

Whether it’s Iannucci, the new coach or just winning that is the cause, the Wings are back, or more importantly, the Wings fans are back. For years, the Wings drew better than any lacrosse crowd and only a few seasons ago, it waned off to a respectable but lower number. The fall in attendance coincided with a drop in quality on the floor. When the team is good, the place is packed. And they are quite good now, even though they lost this past game to the Titans behind a league Player of the Week effort by New York forward Pat Maddalena. Iannucci added four goals to his already best-ever 62 in the losing effort.

The Wings lost that night but it is so obvious that the winning ways in Philadelphia are back. Huntley exudes a quiet calm, Iannucci explodes with some sensational offense a few times a period and they added a fan favorite in Geoff “in-your-face-off” Snider to a cast the crowds already know and love led by Jake Bergey. The fans have been rejuvenated, and the Wings fans, whether a 10,000-person 2005 crowd or Saturday’s 17,000, are easily the best I have ever seen in any sport.

The Philly sports fan is unique. I remember waiting in a line for tickets 10 years ago and speaking with a whole group of Philadelphians who had come down to the arena complex to see the minor league hockey game, which ended up being sold out. Instead of leaving in disappointment, they just walked next door to see their first pro lacrosse game. I have met so many others like them since and I still see that same group all the time at Wings games. They were hooked that very night and now hold season tickets. The Wings have a 70 percent season ticket-owning crowd, I was told by a fan this week. If you watch the video, you will see that they rock the place and are a true 7th man.

A majority of the seats at a Wings home game are filled with people wearing a Wings jersey from years past if not the new number 23 Iannucci jersey that has to be the best-selling shirt in town. And yes, Iannucci was a huge Michael Jordan fan and picked the number 23 accordingly. One guy in front of me had taken his Gary Gait jersey and covered the name on the back with a taped-on piece of paper reading IANNUCCI. The “Nooch” is already loved. So is Snider. These fans love their team and its members. You can’t find anything close in the MLL and in most NLL towns. I will say that Denver seems to be similar in nature but I can’t make that drive four times a year to verify it.

And that brings me to the reason why I'm spending so much time in a baltimoresun.com blog talking about a Philly team. It’s just an hour away! If you’ve never experienced a Wings game you are missing a true lacrosse experience. I still have a physical warmth come over me when the players take the floor and a whole packed arena erupts. I have seen it in Philly, Toronto and Denver and each time I am slightly overcome. It is like the NCAA tournament but it’s just a home game with non-players in attendance. There are few people at the NCAA tournament not connected to lacrosse through their own experience in the game. But most of the people at a Wings game never played a game of lacrosse in their lives. They are just fans. They are, in fact, the most elusive thing in the game of lacrosse. They do not exist in Baltimore or New York. There are some in Canada and must be some in Denver, but otherwise, nada.

Baltimore had a few chances to support a team. When the Baltimore Thunder hosted a championship series game in 1998, the crowd was more than double that of any other home crowd that year. The Philly folks had shown up. It was the best crowd we ever had and the most fun I ever had at a Baltimore pro box game since the 1987 championship in the Eagle League that preceded the MILL, which preceded the NLL. After the 1999 season, box lacrosse gave up on Baltimore, but the move just proved that it’s not a Baltimore deficiency that doomed the Thunder. It was a lacrosse thing.

The Baltimore team, loaded with talent, moved to Pittsburgh and then Washington and finally to Colorado where they found a home. The MLL is suffering from the same dearth of actual lacrosse fans. They’ve actually proven a far worse premise. It is next to impossible to find a fan that did not play the game, or at the very least, has a kid who did. But in the case of Baltimore and New York pro efforts, it’s proven more than difficult to get even lacrosse playing people out to watch pro games.

The failed efforts of the MLL in so many lacrosse hotbeds also disprove the old standard theory held by so many lacrosse pundits and purists. It was always said that the fans did not come because of the box game’s crudities, fights and display of “poor lacrosse habits” for their young kids still learning the game. But those same guys did not buy any tickets for the outdoor pro league when they finally had the chance. Last year the two-time MLL champions failed to draw enough of a crowd to stay in business, in, of all places, Philadelphia. The MLL has repackaged the team as a touring champion with no home in hopes of placing the team somewhere, perhaps in Portland or somewhere else out west.

So what makes a team like the Wings succeed fabulously in the same town where the Barrage did so poorly. It wasn’t wins and losses. The Barrage won two straight titles and dominated the league. They had hometown heroes leading the squad and cooperation from quite a few in the lacrosse community. It is, obviously, the non-lacrosse connected people that make the difference. It’s the NASCAR crowd, or hockey crowd, or whatever you want to call them, but they pack the Wings games and would never even think of attending a Barrage game. Those folks aren’t at any of the college games in Philly either, where the average crowd at a Penn or Drexel game is about what the Barrage drew.

So what is it that either draws these folks to the indoor game or repels them from the outdoor version? Perhaps it’s the same things that keep the purists from the indoor game in Baltimore and New York -- the fights, loud music and rowdy fans. I myself wrote a scathing report from the sideline of a recent college game about the behavior of some lax dads who were jeering the refs. But at a Wings game, jeering the refs, and the other team, is part of the fan experience.

The whole experience could be very disconcerting to the real purist or puritan. When the opposing team is introduced, after each name is announced, the whole crowd yells “SUCKS," even if it’s Ryan Boyle or Casey Powell, who obviously don’t. The announcement of the opponents’ names is followed by that of the game’s referees and each of their names are also amended with the same requisite cheer from the crowd. After all of the guests have been insulted, the last name to be announced is that of the shot clock operator, a Philly resident and the crowd erupts in approving cheers as if to infer that he’s with them.

Like a hockey game, this is where that behavior is acceptable within lacrosse. The refs feed on it and are part of the show. And it is a show, with a soundtrack constantly playing. The game is real and the refs call the game to the best of their abilities, which are rated and evaluated regularly. But the event is a show and it’s entertaining as hell. I was surrounded by fans during the intro and after inquiring about my camera and finding that I was “press," they made me participate in the shouting of “SUCKS” after a few of the opposing players names (sorry guys) and it was cathartic. You should try it -- at a Wings game, not at your next youth game.

It sounds like a circus, but that was next door, literally. This crowd, while not typical of a lacrosse crowd at Homewood or Charlottesville, knows the indoor game. They are as sophisticated as any fans about the rules. An obvious non-call gets the whole place to their feet, on cue like it were a goal or big hit. They are baseball-like in their attention to the history and the players. Retired players like Kevin Finneran, Dallas Eliuk and Tom Marachek will always be recognized and asked for autographs at a Wings game.

The Wings crowd is clever, too. Many years ago the Wings used to play an actual vinyl record of the national anthem before games. The record become worn and scratched and eventually developed a faint hiss at a very regular interval as the needle passed a particular scratch in the record. The crowd had gotten used to it by the time they replaced the record and the record player with a brand new CD player and a much cleaner copy of the anthem on disc. But the crowd would have none of it and to this day, even when a live performer is singing the anthem before 17,000 fans, the crowd itself adds the slightest of hissing sounds at the same regular intervals where they were used to appear for so many years.

To the outsider, that might seem flippant or even disrespectful to the anthem, but its not. It’s part of the anthem there, like the “O” we shout in Baltimore. Lots of people misunderstand that but we know in Baltimore that the “O” is not intended to be un-American. It’s obvious the Wings crowd is not. The game opens with a live enlistment ceremony right in front of everyone, where new recruits are sworn into the service.

17,000 walking around a close space like an indoor arena is a big crowd but a small world. I always run into the same people, many of them field lacrosse people from all over Pennsylvania. This time I had just come from two college games at Haverford and Drexel and saw quite a few of the people from the stands for those games at the Wings game, too. The Wings games are peppered with local prep school jackets and youth program sweats, unlike a typical MLL game. So, while they attract the non-lacrosse people or NASCAR crowd, they also draw the prep school crowd and local lacrosse community.

Baltimore and Maryland, generally speaking, might find that hard to accomplish, for more social reasons. I’ll be blunt. Many Marylanders hate lacrosse or more aptly they dislike lacrosse players, or at least the ones they know or knew as kids. I was a longtime fan of the Maryland comptroller while I was growing up. Louis “Louie” Goldstein used to deliver his annual state of the Maryland economy address in rhyming humorous verses. He was a jolly soul from Prince Frederick, Maryland. He came up as a young man with later Governor William Donald Schaefer and later Ocean City Mayor Harry Kelly. I had actually played lacrosse with Schaefer’s grandson, but those three great Marylanders all had something in common, I learned from Goldstein. They hated lacrosse.

I had been very curious why the state sport was jousting instead of lacrosse and as the editor of a publication about lacrosse based in Maryland, I decided to ask and report on it. The story called “Surely you joust” was a fun look at the two sports comparatively, but during the research I learned something that I never imagined was true. I called the speaker of the Maryland senate to ask my question and was told that the legislation to make lacrosse the state sport in Maryland had been around for years and was rehashed every so often but that it was always quashed by a group led in spirit by Goldstein.

I knew that had to be wrong. I loved Goldstein and I loved lacrosse. So I called Goldstein's office, figuring I could speak to an aide about what was really going on. Maybe there was always some proverbial “pork” in the "Lacrosse as a State Sport" bill. Somebody may have been trying to sneak some unwise expenditure in along with the obviously unanimously heralded lacrosse measure. I was stunned to not only speak directly to Comptroller Goldstein, but at how polite and frank he was about it. He said that ever since he was a kid, he and the people he knew and liked were bullied or at least condescended to by Maryland lacrosse people.

Goldstein understood as I did, having attended a Virginia military school, Baltimore City College, Boys’ Latin and Dulaney for my four years of high school, that lacrosse people came in all varieties and that generally, the folks at a prep school might be more, well, self-satisfied, then some others. He agreed but apologized that his feelings were strong enough to keep blocking the move until his retirement and then, he said, he expected it to eventually pass. He was charming and we had a great conversation about a few other things. It was obvious he was good people and that he warmed up to good people easily.

When he did retire, finally, from public office, the legislation was passed, much to the credit of my friend and former Bayhawks co-owner/GM Gordon Boone. But the lesson was not lost on me. We in lacrosse love our game and know for a fact that it crushes baseball, for example (in my opinion), but we would be better off teaching our lacrosse-playing kids to treat all of their schoolmates with the same courtesy they show their teammates even if they play lesser games.

This shouldn’t be so much news to anyone really close to the game. Why do we think the overwhelming initial public reaction to the news of the Duke party and possible rape of a dancer was nothing less than contempt for the entitled? Do you remember how battered around the game and our prep school image was for months? People in towns all over America just substituted the most arrogant rich kid in their town or in their memory for those accused lacrosse players and assumed or at least wished they were guilty. Our game has recovered with the discovery of their complete innocence of the alleged offense, but I fear while we all thumped our chests in vindication, we missed an important discussion on how we are perceived by others as a sport.

In the “City of Brotherly Love” they don’t have that issue in lacrosse. Or at least it’s far less evident. The mixed crowd jams to the music, cheers the Wings and jeers the officials. There’s polo shirts and biker tattoos, varsity jackets and trucker hats, all under one roof, all loving the Wings and lacrosse. You never hear the standard Baltimore lacrosse question -- “Where did you play?" -- because the MOST important factor in the success of the Wings is that most of them didn’t.

Posted by John Weaver at 12:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

The upset of the weekend was Princeton over Cornell, at least in the way it impacts the Tigers' season. It may get the Tigers into the show if the polls indicate anything. The coaches' and IL polls now have Princeton at 10 and 11 respectively, while a team that pounded them 10-2 remains unranked. We don’t think Albany should be ranked either, by the way. But we put Princeton legitimately in a 14-17 range and just out of the postseason at-large scenario for now. I say for now because I think a Cornell loss to Brown this weekend and Princeton win over Brown next week would lift Princeton legitimately even with the Albany loss. But Princeton could lose to Dartmouth this weekend and that would not surprise me. It would help both Princeton and the pollsters if Albany won the CAA. :)

Most surprising this week, Bucknell may have played its way out of NCAA at-large consideration by posting two bad losses to Penn State and Colgate. Towson put emphasis on a pretty bad season with a 7-4 loss to Villanova. The true redemption for Towson would be a season-spoiling win over Hopkins, but I can't see it. 0-12 Marist beat Providence. Providence only lost to UNC by two.

Maryland and Cornell must have been scratching their heads this week. The Terps started the week 12th and the Big Red were 6th in the coaches' poll. Cornell lost to Princeton and Maryland beat Penn. The two are tied for 8th this week. Beating Penn moves a team up four places? Remember, if the Terps moved four spots, some coaches may have had them moving six spots, while some moved them only two, for example. We see the final result -- the average of the voting. Either way, that’s some big shuffling of some major teams, which indicates either serious rethinking or indecision generally.

I am not criticizing the voters themselves. Polls are, for the most part, terrible instruments. A great example was on display this weekend. ESPNU covered the Manhasset-Chaminade high school matchup as a part of the Jimmy Regan Tribute which included Duke against Army. Regan, who died in service to our country, played at Chaminade and Duke and was from Manhasset. The game was between the nationally second-ranked Manhasset and the 20th-ranked Chaminade and No. 20 just ripped No. 2. It was obvious that the barometer was WAY off.

High school polls are sillier than college polls and just play with the emotions of many younger kids and parents who don’t deserve it. Calling a team one of the best in the nation would suffice, unless we can really play it out, which I would prefer, but that can't happen.

I get e-mails all the time asking why this region or that state are so lame that they won’t participate in a national high school tournament or even games between the big Maryland and New York teams at the end of the season. The truth is that the high school year in Maryland ends a month before New York. A Long Island team is just finding out the state playoff schedule when the Maryland kids are at Beach Week "down the ocean."

The RRRR Men's Division I Lacrosse Rankings for April 21, 2008

1
Duke* 13-1

2
Syracuse 11-1

3
Virginia* 11-2
Maryland 8-4

5
Georgetown 8-3
North Carolina 8-4

7
UMBC 9-3
Ohio State 9-3
Johns Hopkins 5-5

10
Drexel 11-3
Notre Dame 9-2

11
Cornell 9-3
Loyola 7-4
Navy 9-4

14
Brown 10-2
Army 9-4
Princeton 7-4
Denver 9-6

18
Bucknell 9-4
Albany 6-7

20
Dartmouth 6-6
Hofstra 6-5
Stony Brook 7-4
Colgate 8-5
Penn 5-6

25
Harvard 5-7
Delaware 9-6
Massachusetts 5-6
Towson 4-8
Fairfield 4-8
Rutgers 5-6
Villanova 5-8
Hobart 6-5

See the full rankings at E-Lacrosse

* Duke players and a Virginia player were given extra eligibility by the NCAA, creating "super-seniors." In my opinion, this gives them an unfair advantage over all other contending teams in 2008.

Posted by John Weaver at 3:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
                    

Metro Lacrosse has been providing underserved Boston kids with a lacrosse experience for years now. It's a great organization. They teach transferable skills and lessons through lax.

This spring, with the NCAA lacrosse final four heading its way, Metro Lacrosse is integrating a fundraiser with a really neat event emulating the torch run for the Olympics. Check that -- it's like the torch run sans protesters. Here's the event information from a recent (unedited) release:

METROLACROSSE’S 34-MILE ‘CHAMPIONS FOR COMMUNITY RELAY’ GIVES TO THE GAME

Relay Carries Official Game Ball for NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Championships from Massachusetts State House to Gillette Stadium

With each mile, metrolacrosse aims to raise $5k; Total fundraising goal is $100k

MetroLacrosse, a Boston-based non-profit that teaches urban youth and teens life lessons through the team sport of lacrosse, calls on lacrosse enthusiasts to join its Champions for Community Relay. The Relay is a 34-mile, Olympic-torch style event focused on raising funds to directly impact the academic, athletic and personal growth of MetroLacrosse’s youth and teens.

The Relay will kick off Friday, May 23rd at the Massachusetts State House where the first pass with the official game ball for the NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Championships will be made to a MetroLacrosse participant. The ball will travel through greater Boston neighborhoods culminating at Gillette Stadium on Saturday, May 24th where it will be delivered to the field for the semi-final face off.

With a fundraising goal of $100K, MetroLacrosse calls on players of all levels, weekend warriors or simply sideline enthusiasts to join in the Relay by sponsoring any of the Relay miles. To find out more about the Champions for Community Relay and how to get involved, please visit www.metrolacrosse.com.

Posted by John Weaver at 5:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)