DaSilva's Bracket Breakdown: Division I Men
by Matt DaSilva | Lacrosse Magazine Online Staff
The 2009 NCAA Divisions I, II and III men's and women's
lacrosse tournaments were announced Sunday, with the standard fare
of intrigue and drama surrounding the brackets. LMO's Jac Coyne,
Matt DaSilva and Paul Ohanian play Monday morning
midfielders with post-selection analysis.
Bookmark LMO at www.laxmagazine.com for the most widespread coverage
of the NCAA tournaments.
ANNAPOLIS BRACKET
(First round games at higher seed)
No. 1 Virginia (13-2) vs. Villanova (11-5)
No. 8 Johns Hopkins (9-4) vs. Brown (12-3)
No. 3 Duke (13-3) vs. Navy (11-4)
No. 6 North Carolina (11-5) vs. UMBC (12-3)
HEMPSTEAD BRACKET
(First round games at higher seed)
No. 2 Syracuse (12-2) vs. Siena (12-5)
No. 7 Notre Dame (15-0) vs. Maryland (9-6)
No. 4 Princeton (12-2) vs. Massachusetts (9-5)
No. 5 Cornell (10-3) vs. Hofstra (11-3)
* Printable Bracket (PDF)
LAST TEAM IN
Brown
FIRST TEAM OUT
Loyola
SNUBBED?
Hard to call it a snub when Loyola's best win by RPI standards was Penn State, but losing by one goal each to Notre Dame, Syracuse and Johns Hopkins (double OT) -- and by two goals to Duke and UMass -- is nothing to sneeze at. There's sure to be some scuttlebutt about the Greyhounds' exclusion. Speaking of Duke and Notre Dame, both have snub-worthy cases if you look at the seeds. Duke pummeled Virginia twice in head-to-head meetings this season, but wound up with a No. 3 seed, the reward for which is a first-round game against dangerous Patriot League champion Navy. Notre Dame finished as the only undefeated team in Division I this year, but a relatively weak schedule dropped them to the No. 7 seed - warranting a first-round encounter with Maryland. Among the Irish's wins? A 9-7 victory March 8 over North Carolina, the team seeded ahead of them.
BEST FIRST-ROUND MATCHUP
Cornell-Hofstra
The fifth-seeded Big Red and unseeded Pride spent most of this
season ranked in the top 10 of the USILA Division I poll.
Playmakers with flairs for the dramatics abound - from Hofstra's
Jay Card and resurgent Tom Dooley to Cornell's Max Seibald and John
Glynn. Expect fireworks.
UPSET WATCH
North Carolina
UMBC's Don Zimmerman, widely regarded as one of the best coaches
in Division I due to his accomplishments at the relatively small
Baltimore County institution, had an opportunity to leave for North
Carolina, where he used to coach, when the school was hiring a head
coach over the summer. He opted instead to sign a four-year
extension with UMBC. Zimm's a motivational wiz. When the
Retrievers' faceoff unit became a major weakness early in the
season, he posted percentage rankings in the locker room, bumped
do-everything middie Kyle Wimer to the wing, put a freshman (Justin
Radebaugh) at the "X" and took the unit to task. And no one draws
up a better extra-man offense. Said senior midfielder Alex Hopmann:
"The fact that he didn't go down to Carolina really showed that he
had a lot of confidence in this team." That confidence was
unwavering, even after a regular season loss to Hartford and a
double-overtime scare against Binghamton in the America East
semifinals. Add a little execution and the experience of goalie
Drew Blevins -- who has played in an NCAA quarterfinal -- versus
UNC freshman James Petracca, and a first-round upset could be in
the works.
EASIEST TITLE ROUTE
Syracuse
The committee did a good job balancing the brackets. No one's got
a cakewalk. But Siena and either Notre Dame or Maryland are the
most beatable of the bunch.
FIVE BURNING QUESTIONS
How much "human element" factored into the
selections?
The NCAA Division I men's lacrosse committee opened its tournament
selection process to more subjective components, such as regional
advisory rankings, to supplement the numbers. It seems the
so-called "human element" might have factored in choosing Brown
over Loyola for the last at-large berth. Why? Purely based on
numbers, as LMO's Brian Logue noted prior to Sunday's announcement,
Loyola would be your 16th team. The Greyhounds' strength of
schedule far outweighed the Bears'. But Brown beat Cornell. Loyola
had no such signature win. Brown also beat UMass, which beat
Loyola.
Who's your hero between the pipes?
This field is saturated with terrific goalies. UMass' Doc
Schneider, Villanova's Andrew DiLoreto, UMBC's Drew Blevins, Notre
Dame's Scott Rodgers and Siena's Brent Herbst have had remarkable
seasons. Johns Hopkins' Michael Gvozden - vexing as he can be
sometimes - has a penchant for stepping up in meaningful games.
Syracuse's John Galloway has a national championship under his
belt. Surprisingly, the weakest crop of goalies probably comes from
the ACC - how will UNC freshman James Petracca, for one, react to
the bigger stage? Think of goalies who became legends in the NCAA
tournament: Who is this year's Brian Dougherty, Tillman Johnson or
Jesse Schwartzman?
Has Tony Seaman coached his last game at
Towson?
The Tigers, of course, were not even under consideration for an
NCAA bid. They finished 7-10 after a loss to Villanova in the CAA
championship game Saturday. So why mention them here? Seaman hinted
in an interview Friday that he has "been under some
pressure from my bosses" and that "there would be some serious
repercussions" if Towson did not get the CAA's automatic qualifier.
This is big news in the Division I coaching ranks, where a shakeup
appears imminent.
How will Maryland's Will Yeatman play against his former
team?
Contrary to what some might think upon seeing these pairings,
drama and good storylines are not among the criteria considered by
the NCAA committee. It just so happens, however, that Maryland's
man child gets a stab at the university that hung him out to dry
following a couple of alcohol-related incidents last year - the
second stemming from a controversial police raid of a party that
produced no formal charges against him. Notre Dame reportedly
blocked Yeatman's transfer to North Carolina because of scheduling
conflicts with both football and lacrosse. Maryland was one of just
a handful of Division I programs with which there were no conflicts
and that would still allow Yeatman - a 6-foot-6, 260-pound
attackman with NFL aspirations as a football tight end - to play
both sports. Now, as it turns out, Yeatman gets a crack at the
Irish, anyway.
Which host team has a better chance of advancing to the
NCAA quarterfinals in its own house -- Hofstra or
Navy?
Defense almost always prevails in the playoffs. Navy's defense
responded in a big way to Tommy Phelan's return to the cage late in
the regular season. It was also the biggest factor in avenging
regular season losses to Colgate and Bucknell en route to the
Patriot League championship as a third seed. When it came down to
triple overtime against the Raiders, the Midshipmen did not buckle.
They can slow down Duke; whether they can handcuff Ned Crotty's
creativity behind the cage is a different story.
