The Luck of the Draw?

Thursday, May 07 2009 by Tim

I spent all day Sunday pondering which school the Virginia Men’s Lacrosse team would face in the first round of the 2009 NCAA Championships. It was a foregone conclusion that the Cavaliers would be a top eight seed and would thus host the first round. The question of where they would fit in those eight seeds and who they would host was anything but a foregone conclusion.

A Navy fan in my office was convinced that Virginia would end up hosting Navy, a matchup he felt quite comfortable with. Virginia Head Coach Dom Starsia had said on the radio the previous week that he thought Loyola was a team that we might face in the first round.

When the news popped up that Virginia had received the #1 seed and would host Villanova on Sunday at 2:30pm, I was floored. The #1 seed? After losing twice in the last 3 weeks?

The explanation that I’ve heard about why Virginia managed the #1 seed is this: The NCAA selection committee looked at who you beat and to whom you lost. Let’s take a look at the top four seeds (rankings in parentheses are LaxPower’s RPI rankings):

  • Virginia (#3) lost to Duke (#5) twice but beat Johns Hopkins (#1), Syracuse (#4), North Carolina (#8) and Cornell (#9).
  • Syracuse (#4) lost to Virginia (#3) and Princeton (#2) but beat Johns Hopkins (#1), Cornell (#9) and Loyola (#10).
  • Duke (#5) lost to Cornell (#9), Maryland (#14) and Harvard (#23) but beat Virginia (#3) twice, North Carolina (#8) twice and Loyola (#10).
  • Princeton (#4)  lost to Hofstra (#7) and Cornell (#9) but beat Johns Hopkins (#1) and Syracuse (#4).

While this isn’t exactly a clear cut situation, based on this criteria alone I think you can at least see the argument that the selection committee made when choosing these four teams in this particular order.

I’d like to just take a moment to note that Johns Hopkins had the #1 RPI, but was beaten by three of the four teams on this list (they didn’t play Duke) and just barely made a seed, taking the #8 slot.

So, Virginia unexpectedly got the #1 seed and we can kind of see why. What does the rest of the bracket look like. Well, you can go take a look at the bracket in full bracket-like glory if you’d like, but I’ll go ahead and put the first-round matchups here:

  • Villanova @ #1 Virginia
  • Brown @ #8 Johns Hopkins
  • Hofstra @ #5 Cornell
  • UMass @ #4 Princeton
  • Navy @ #3 Duke
  • UMBC @ #6 North Carolina
  • Maryland @ #7 Notre Dame
  • Siena @ #2 Syracuse

Alright,what does this tell us. Well, first some bullet points:

  • The earliest Virginia could face its recent nemesis Duke is in the championship game.
  • The earliest Virginia could face any ACC team is in the championship game.
  • Of the four schools Virginia earned 1-point victories over this season, only Johns Hopkins could face them before the championship game.

In other words, I like this bracket a lot.

Does that mean its an easy bracket? Certainly not.

Virginia should skate through the first round game against Villanova and head up to Annapolis to take on (likely) Johns Hopkins in the second round. That match-up will be very tough. It came down to one goal during the regular season, though for a while it seemed like Virginia was simply toying with Hopkins. That game might simply depend on which Virginia team shows up. The Virginia team from the first half of the first Hopkins game? Or the Virginia team from either Duke game.

The final four would likely be against Princeton, one of only two seeded teams that Virginia has not faced this season (the other being #7 undefeated Notre Dame). I’m not sure what to make of that potential match-up. Princeton had several quality wins this season, but they were mostly against the 7 through 11 kind of teams with the one major exception being when they knocked off then #1 Syracuse. If the Virginia offense shows up in this game, I like Virginia’s chances.

And then of course the championship game would feature one of the aforementioned schools that Virginia fans are glad are on the other side of the bracket. If it’s Syracuse? Should be a fun game and will probably be a one-point margin. If it’s Duke? … I don’t even want to think about it.

So there’s my preview of the 2009 NCAA Lacrosse Championships from a Virginia perspective. I’ll be there on Sunday when Virginia hosts Villanova and if we make it past the Wildcats, I’ll be up in Annapolis to see us face either Hopkins or Brown (and hopefully i’ll catch the Navy/Duke/North Carolina/UMBC game as well).

Go Hoos!