Coyne’s Bracket Breakdown: MCLA Division I
by Jac Coyne | Lacrosse Magazine Online Staff | Coyne Archive | Twitter
|
| We can argue about whether Colorado should be in the MCLA Division I tourney, but the Buffs will be in Denver and are going to be a handful for Oregon in the first round. |
The MCLA selection committee released
the teams and pairings for the national championship,
which will be played at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Denver
starting on May 11. Much of the choices were obvious, but the
tournament is not without its surprises.
Here’s my view of the final product.
(Click HERE for a Q&A with selection committee
chair Ken Lovic. Click HERE for the MCLA D-II Bracket Breakdown).
LAST
TEAM IN
Colorado
This is pretty straightforward. The five teams behind the No.
11-seeded Buffaloes are all automatic qualifiers, so CU was the
last pick. Were they the right pick? More on that later.
FIRST
TEAM OUT
UC Santa Barbara
Six of the Gauchos’ 16 games were against teams that made the
field and they posted a 10-6 record, but it wasn’t enough.
The oddity is UCSB had a worse record last year (8-7) at the end of
the regular season but got the nod. This season, however,
we’re through the looking glass in terms of the selection
process.
SNUBBED?
Balance
I think there needs to be a balance between scheduling and
results in the selection process, but the committee is simply
ignoring losses. That creates a systemic imbalance in how teams are
treated when compared to each other - how can Loyola
Marymount receive credit for the win over Colorado when
the committee is just ignoring it for their purposes? To have
balance, the process needs to be a zero-sum game, and it's not
right now. The lack of balance also eliminates the expectation
of excellence, which should be what the tournament is all
about.
BEST FIRST-ROUND
MATCHUP
No. 10 Simon Fraser vs. No. 7 Florida State
This game could be a 17-15 affair with the way these two teams like
to sling it. Fraser’s attack duo of Ben Towner and Adam Foss
will be locked in a duel with the Seminoles’ Tyler Richey and
Jon Yates for most goals on the afternoon. This one is a
toss-up.
UPSET WATCH
Brigham Young
Coming in at as No. 8 seed, it would only be logical that the
Cougars would draw a decent team, and they have in Michigan State.
The Spartans are battle-tesed by their grueling schedule and their
goalie, Dean Hall, is a game-changer when he’s on. Goals will
be at a premium in this contest, so the BYU offense must be willing
to grind out possessions or it’ll be one and done.
EASIEST
TITLE ROUTE
Michigan
It’s the Wolverines again, but this draw isn’t nearly
as soft as the cakewalk they had last spring when the other half of
the bracket was stacked. After the first round, Michigan will see
the winner of the Michigan State-BYU game and then likely Chapman
(which means we won’t have the same championship game
participants as the last two years). So UM’s route is
marginally easier than Colorado State’s.
FIVE
BURNING QUESTIONS
1. What is the committee saying when it admits a sub-.500 team as
an at-large entrant to the tournament?
Schedule well, ignore your losses, and anxiously await your
seed. Results are a tertiary criterion now; the bids are tacitly
handed out in December when the schedules are finalized.
A perhaps unintended side effect of the decision
is the committee has created a de facto “premier
league.” There are only a handful of teams that have the
resources, reputation and geographic location to stack their
schedule in a way that will please the committee. The
inevitable response by the conferences will be the
implementation of the I-AA concept – it is already being
used by the PNCLL and GRLC – which allows conferences to trim
the fat from the league schedules so those dates can be used
against high end opponents. We’ll also start to see the
splintering of large conferences so more teams will have access to
automatic qualifiers. Because the MCLA is really just a sum of its
leagues, there will be nothing the executive board can do to stop
it.
This decision will resonate for years.
2. Can Michigan Three-peat?
It’s tough to say whether the Wolverines have come back to
the pack or the league has caught up, but Michigan is still the
best team in the tournament. The streak is gone and teams have been
playing UM tough all year, so the Wolverines won’t be
complacent, meaning a third title is a probability.
3. Did Simon Fraser’s experiment backfire?
After being seeded lower than expected in last year’s
tournament, the Clan went out and seemingly scheduled every top
team in the country. Considering how this season has transpired,
that sixth seed in 2009 is looking pretty good now that they are
seeded 10th and facing the prospect of starting off with No. 7
Florida State. Even though they lost in the PNCLL championship
game, conventional wisdom would say Fraser will be better off in
the tournament grind after what it went through, but, unlike last
year, the Clansmen may not get a chance to make it to
Wednesday.
4. Can California rebound as the MCLA’s
signature state?
The Golden State used to be ground zero for MCLA lacrosse. Of
the 13 national championship games, there were only four that
didn’t feature at least one California team. In
addition, there have been five different teams from Cali who have
made title game appearances. This year there are just two teams in
total from the state and Cal Poly, the WCLL automatic qualifier, is
seeded No. 14. Why the demise?
On a macro level, the growth of the sport has given rise to teams
all over the country, which is obviously good for the MCLA and the
sport. On a micro level, the California teams are lagging behind in
terms of scheduling and they shouldn’t be. They are leaning
on the notion that their tradition will give them the benefit of
the doubt, but the poll is not driving the selections anymore;
it’s all about scheduling (we saw that with UCSB getting left
out). Once the programs figure this out, we should see a
re-ascendancy of California lacrosse.
5. What is the committee’s grade for their work this
year?
I’d give them a ‘B.’ They receive points for
consistency and there’s nothing bizarre in terms of the
seeding, but the Colorado situation is going to cause headaches in
future years, so they get docked one grade.
