NCAA Tournament Field Set – DI Men’s Rundown Week 13

We’ve made it! It’s crazy to think back to January when this season even existing was full of question marks. Some teams didn’t even have a fall, a preseason, or a season at all in a few cases. Two teams canceled their seasons before their scheduled end, and in total, nearly 40 games were canceled. But we’re here at the end of a complete regular season of college lacrosse. Next up: The NCAA Tournament and the battle for Championship Weekend.

Now, onto the rundown!

The NCAA Tournament Field Is Set – DI Men’s Rundown Week 13

Scoreboard

Tuesday

Colgate 11 v Boston U 8 (Patriot First Round – North)

Navy 9 v Loyola 16 (Patriot First Round – South)

Wednesday

Canisius 5 v Manhattan 10 (MAAC First Round)

St. Bonaventure 5 v Monmouth 12 (MAAC First Round)

Saint Joseph’s 19 v LIU 11 (NEC Semifinals)

Hobart 12 v Bryant 14 (NEC Semifinals)

Richmond 11 v Air Force 6 (SoCon Semifinals)

High Point 11 v Jacksonville 9 (SoCon Semifinals)

Thursday

Johns Hopkins 12 v Rutgers 10 (Big Ten Semifinals)

Michigan 8 v Maryland 16 (Big Ten Semifinals)

UMBC 12 v Albany 14 (America East Semifinals)

Vermont 10 v Stony Brook 7 (America East Semifinals)

Delaware 9 v Hofstra 10 (CAA Semifinals)

Drexel 13 v UMass 8 (CAA Semifinals)

Denver 14 v Providence 5 (Big East Semifinals)

Georgetown 14 v Villanova 12 (Big East Semifinals)

Friday

Wagner 6 v Mount St. Mary’s 20 (Postponed Game)

Syracuse 21 v Robert Morris 14

Colgate 9 v Lehigh 13 (Patriot Semifinals – North)

Loyola 11 v Army 10 (Patriot Semifinals – South)

High Point 11 v Richmond 8 (SoCon Final)

Saturday

Maryland 12 v Johns Hopkins 10 (Big Ten Final)

Bryant 16 v Saint Joseph’s 10 (NEC Final)

Vermont 15 v Albany 10 (America East Final)

Drexel 15 v Hofstra 11 (CAA Final)

Georgetown 10 v Denver 9 (Big East Final)

Sunday

Patriot Final – Lehigh via Forfeit

Conference Comparison

This is the section of the rundown to keep track of how conferences are doing against each other. Intra-conference games are not part of the records below.

*2021 Independents: Utah, Robert Morris, Cleveland State, Hampton (2021 season is suspended)

Only one non-conference game took place this week: Syracuse over Robert Morris. In normal years, you have a few ACC/Patriot games like BU v Duke, because those leagues typically have their conference tournaments a week ahead of everyone else. But the big note here is that with Syracuse’s win, the ACC will finish the season with a gaudy 32-1 record. Obviously, this year is an exception with no Ivy League or Big Ten games, but no matter what, this is a out-of-conference record we’ll probably never see again.

Conference Tournaments

Following a slew of surprises in the conference tournaments, here’s who wound up winning each of the conferences:

ACC: Duke/UNC

America East: Vermont

Big East: Georgetown

Big Ten: Maryland

CAA: Drexel

MAAC: Monmouth

Northeast: Bryant

Patriot: Lehigh

SoCon: High Point

The big surprise when you go through that list of winners is that of the eight conferences having a tournament, the only No. 1 seeds to win were Maryland and Lehigh. But even with the NCAA Tournament being as small as it is, these did not turn into may bid thieves. Denver and Georgetown were both always going to the tournament, as were Rutgers and Maryland.

But the one-bid leagues were all hinging on the results of these games. The CAA, MAAC, NEC, SoCon, and America East all sent just a single team to the NCAA Tournament. If you want to talk about who was snubbed the most in the selection process, it would be from these conferences. Hofstra, Saint Joseph’s, Delaware, Richmond, Albany, and UMBC all had real chances at winning their leagues’ AQs. The team with the very bitter pill to swallow is Army, who spent the entire season ranked and has the lone win over an ACC school (Syracuse). But its late losses hurt, most notably to Loyola in the Patriot League Tournament, which ultimately decided the second Patriot team to make it in.

Speaking of the Patriot League, the biggest shock of the weekend was Loyola getting on a roll by beating both service academies on route to a spot in the league finals. Then on Monday morning, the school sent out a release notifying us that the game would be a forfeit as there was a positive Covid test on the team. Lehigh was therefore awarded the league championship.

2021 NCAA Tournament Bracket

(1) UNC v Monmouth (May 15 | 12 p.m. EST | ESPNU)

(8) Lehigh v Rutgers (May 15 | 2:30 p.m. | ESPNU)

(5) Georgetown v Syracuse (May 15 | 7:30 p.m. | ESPNU)

(4) Virginia v Bryant (May 16 | 12 p.m. | ESPNU)

(3) Maryland v Vermont (May 16 | 2:30 p.m. | ESPNU)

(6) Notre Dame v Drexel (May 15 | 5 p.m. | ESPNU)

(7) Denver v Loyola (May 16 | 7:30 p.m. | ESPNU)

(2) Duke v High Point (May 16 | 5 p.m. | ESPNU)

Reschedule Tracker

I’ll be using this section to keep track of which games are postponed or canceled as the season goes on as that information will easily get lost in the shuffle. Every season always has a few games postponed or canceled due to weather or travel issues, but as you’ll see below, this season is already going to be quite a bit different.

Also note: the “Games Scheduled” will include new games added, which may make the percentages look different compared to the missed games listed below. For example: Colgate and Robert Morris both had games canceled, so they played each other, meaning there are two games cancelled but one game played as scheduled.

Games scheduled: 405

Games played: 369 (91.1%)

Games played as scheduled: 337 (83.2%)

With the final tallies now known for the division as a whole, let’s take a look at which team were most affected by postponements and cancelations:

Team – Cancelations – Reschedules – Total Games Affected

*Indicates NCAA Tournament Bid

Marist – 5 – 1 – 6

Bucknell – 4 – 2 – 6

Umass – 4 – 2 – 6

Army – 2 – 3 – 5

Wagner – 1 – 4 – 5

Holy Cross – 3 – 1 – 4

Albany – 2 – 2 – 4

Colgate – 2 – 2 – 4

Navy – 2 – 2 – 4

Bellarmine – 1 – 3 – 4

Mount St. Mary’s – 1 – 3 – 4

Canisius – 2 – 1 – 3

Marquette – 2 – 1 – 3

Siena – 2 – 1 – 3

Hofstra – 1 – 2 – 3

Quinnipiac – 1 – 2 – 3

Sacred Heart – 1 – 2 – 3

Saint Joseph’s – 1 – 2 – 3

VMI – 1 – 2 – 3

Boston U – 2 – 0 – 2

Delaware – 2 – 0 – 2

Detroit – 2 – 0 – 2

Hartford – 2 – 0 – 2

*Lehigh – 2 – 0 – 2

*Syracuse – 2 – 0 – 2

UMass-Lowell – 2 – 0 – 2

*Bryant – 1 – 1 – 2

Lafayette – 1 – 1 – 2

*Loyola – 1 – 1 – 2

Robert Morris – 1 – 1 – 2

St. Bonaventure – 1 – 1 – 2

St. John’s – 1 – 1 – 2

UMBC – 1 – 1 – 2

*Vermont – 1 – 1 – 2

Villanova – 1 – 1 – 2

*Virginia – 1 – 1 – 2

*Denver – 0 – 2 – 2

Hobart – 0 – 2 – 2

Richmond – 0 – 2 – 2

Cleveland St. – 1 – 0 – 1

*Monmouth – 1 – 0 – 1

*North Carolina – 1 – 0 – 1

Utah – 1 – 0 – 1

Binghamton – 0 – 1 – 1

*Georgetown – 0 – 1 – 1

*High Point – 0 – 1 – 1

LIU – 0 – 1 – 1

Mercer – 0 – 1 – 1

Towson – 0 – 1 – 1

What jumps out to me when compiling things in this way is that most teams had their schedules affected in some way with a delay or cancelation. In particular, 11 teams of the final 16 teams to be playing did. The only ones that did not were Duke, Maryland, Rutgers, Notre Dame, and Drexel. And while correlation does not equal causation, it is worth noting that no teams with three games or more rescheduled or canceled made the tournament.

Catch Up on the DI Rundown

This is the 14th DI Rundown of the season. If you want to see what you missed earlier in the campaign, you’ve come to the right place.

Week 0 | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8

Week 9 | Week 10 | Week 11 | Week 12