Thanks to CN8 for putting its live programming on the Web so I could watch the Drexel-Virginia game from my laptop. The Cavs got solid play from freshman Adam Ghitelman (nine-plus saves) and Garrett Billings stepped up to have a huge game (three goals, four assists). I guess Stony Brook and Vermont will be installing the zone in their systems TODAY. They will need it as they line up for Virginia next. Neither is as strong as Drexel.

Virginia may still get to their fourth game without a loss now. Game 4 is Syracuse and while the event at M&T Bank Stadium is supposed to be a replication of a final four scenario, this will be as close as either team gets to that pinnacle in 2008. The tournament seeding committee will do what they can to give Syracuse the easiest path to Foxboro, or they lose 10,000+ fans that weekend, but it won’t be enough. Virginia won’t likely be given any favors and are bound to face another CAA team, maybe even Drexel again in the first round. Look for the March 1 Syracuse-U.Va. game to be close but not representative of the best lacrosse in the land.

Wanna see a great game? Watch Syracuse-U.Va. two and three years from now. And maybe it will be at one of their home fields, Klockner or the Dome, which are far more authentic and better venues if you want to feel like you're part of the game. Remember the packed but quaint Princeton-Hopkins openers at the Hop? Lacrosse is missing that now, for better or worse. I think its worse but we must become football as fast as we can, right?

Lacrosse is never quite good enough for some of the new guard and the M&T event -- the Face-Off Classic -- emblemizes that. I won’t go off on a full rant here but I loved those two huge 10,000-plus attended openers as they were. I also loved the lacrosse championships going back before even the NCAA reign. It needs no replication, thank you. Count me on the side of fans who hope we can get back to the great home-and-home series between these great programs.