Army men’s and women’s lacrosse teams will be the edge of their seats tonight waiting to see if their names will be called for inclusion in the NCAA postseason tournaments, which start this week.
The selections will be announced on ESPNU tonight. The women’s selections will be announced at 9 p.m. and the men’s pairings will be announced at 9:30 p.m.
Frankly, the Army women’s team, which finished the season with a 13-3 record after losing to Navy in the semifinals of the Patriot League tournament Thursday, has the better chance of making its tournament. The NCAA takes 29 teams for its women’s tournament and Army, ranked 19th, stands a pretty good chance of getting one of the 14 at-large bids.
The women’s team finished second in the Patriot League with an 8-1 record in conference and a key regular-season victory over Navy in April. Army also knocked off highly-ranked Stanford in March. But, the Black Knights lost to Navy 18-9 on Thursday, missing a chance to reach the championship game and gaining the league’s automatic spot in the NCAA tournament.
Navy defeated Loyola, 14-13, on Saturday to win the league’s title. Loyola, which is 13-6, is widely expected to also get an at-large bid.
The men’s situation is much more difficult. Army lost to Colgate, 16-13, in the Patriot League semifinals.
As explained to me by a number of college lacrosse experts, the tournament committee relies on a strength of schedule component to help them determine the at-large bids. Despite a stellar 12-2 record, including a 5-0 out-of-conference record that featured victories over highly-ranked North Carolina as well as Rutgers, UMass and Yale, and a No. 4 ranking in national polls, Army is definitely on the bubble, along with North Carolina and Harvard for the last two at-large spots.
Here’s why. Army plays in the nine-team Patriot League, meaning the Black Knights only have five out-of-conference games per year. Despite playing a team from the three top conferences (Atlantic Coast Conference, Big 10 and Ivy League) every year, the tournament committee seems to feel that Army’s schedule is simply not as good as other bubble teams.
“Harvard has four losses and only one key victory, over Syracuse early this season,” said one college lacrosse expert. “But, the committee seems to pay more attention to who you play than whether you win or lose. For example, this season Harvard might get more credit for losing games to top-rated Princeton and Cornell than Army gets for defeating low-rated Patriot teams like Bucknell and Holy Cross. And, North Carolina, despite losing to Army this season, was 3-1 in the ACC this year before being blown out by Duke in the semis of the ACC tournament.”
Making matters more frustrating for Army fans and the team is the fact that the NCAA mandates that any qualifying conference with a minimum of just six teams gets an automatic spot in their tournament. There are four conferences with just six teams, including the Atlantic Sun conference, where a 7-7 Air Force team defeated a 6-8 Utah squad in the championship game of their tournament today to get the automatic bid.
Finally, there is the Atlantic Coast Conference effect. With just five teams, the ACC does not get an automatic qualifier into the tournament. But with all five teams considered to be among the best in the nation, year-to-year, the ACC normally gets three or four of the eight at-large bids each year.
