May 8, 2006
Despite two losses and a lower national ranking, Duke was named as the No. 1 seed in the 2006 NCAA women's lacrosse tournament, as per the selection committee's bids announced Monday night on a special College Sports Television (CSTV) broadcast. The Blue Devils will host Holy Cross, the Patriot League champion and winner of an NCAA play-in game last weekend against MAAC champion Le Moyne, in one of eight first-round games Saturday.
Duke was one of a few surprising developments that will likely stir some debate about the objectivity of the committee's selections.
Though the Blue Devils (16-2) conceivably clinched the No. 1 seed Sunday with a 6-4 win over Dartmouth, their rise to the top of the bracket came at the expense of top-ranked Northwestern, the defending NCAA champion. Despite a 16-1 record and ALC championship, the Wildcats' one loss to Duke dropped them to a No. 4 seed, behind Virginia and Georgetown.
CSTV analyst Sheehan Stanwick-Burch, who predicted earlier that Northwestern would win the tournament, was asked during the segment what she thought about the `Cats dropping to a No. 4 seed.
"It's really, I think, an insult," she said.
That news was perhaps overshadowed by that of Northwestern's first-round opponent, Stanford. The Cardinal (12-5) finished the regular season on a seven-game winning streak, including victories over then-No. 10 Cornell and their second consecutive Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) championship, that pushed them into the tournament over fellow bubblers and East Coast powers Hofstra, Johns Hopkins and William & Mary.
Stanford becomes the first West Coast team ever to qualify for a Division I NCAA tournament.
Virginia (15-3) as the No. 2 seed hosts Ivy League champion Princeton (11-5).
"I'm really surprised they only took one team (Princeton) from the Mid-Atlantic Region, and they took three from the Midwest/West," said Hopkins head coach Janine Tucker, a member of the Mid-Atlantic committee, whose team was left out after it failed to defeat Georgetown in the season finale. "We went in as the second team in the Mid-Atlantic Region. We thought that was a huge sign. It's a tough lesson to learn."
Georgetown (13-3), the No. 3 seed, has been sanctioned by the NCAA and will not be allowed to host any NCAA tournament games this year because of what the team was told were "logistical concerns" regarding the Hoyas hosting in the past. CSTV termed the sanction an act of discipline, but head coach Ricky Fried said he was unaware of any previous violations.
"I don't know a whole lot to be honest. We were told a couple of weeks ago as coaches, and we actually notified the team, just so they knew the importance of getting a good seed," Fried said. "It basically has to do with concerns from the committee on some `logistics,' is the word I've been given, from hosting past events. I really don't know a whole lot more than that. I could speculate, but that is not really a fair thing to do."
Georgetown will play at Northeast Conference champion Monmouth (13-6) in New Jersey, which is relatively close. However, should the Hoyas win as expected, they face a potential quarterfinal on the road at either Notre Dame (the No. 6 seed) or Cornell.
"It's funny for us. The last time we went to the final four (in 2004), we were actually on the road for two games (at Duke and Maryland)," Fried said. "You've got to play somebody somewhere to get to the next level. Now, we're just looking forward."
Rounding out the seeded teams are: No. 5 North Carolina (12-5), which will host a familiar opponent in ACC rival Maryland (12-7); No. 6 Notre Dame (13-3), which as mentioned gets a difficult match-up in Ivy League co-champ Cornell (12-3); No. 7 Dartmouth (11-5), which hosts Boston University (15-4), a team it handily defeated two weeks ago; and No. 8 James Madison (14-4), the CAA champion and host to in-state rival and Atlantic-10 champ Richmond (16-3).
