Readers and women’s lacrosse supporters, welcome to our annual expert bracket fill now that all 15 automatic qualifiers for the Division I women’s lacrosse tournament have been identified. Now, to fill out what we think are going to be the brackets, and where the games will take place.
The first thing to think about, are the top three overall seeds. That’s because these are the three teams who will have byes into the octofinal round of the tournament, with games taking place (mostly) on Sunday. The other five hosting seeds for this week’s games will have to play games on Friday and Sunday.
Here’s who we think are going to be the top eight:
- NORTHWESTERN
- NORTH CAROLINA
- MARYLAND
- STONY BROOK
- NAVAL ACADEMY
- SYRACUSE
- COLORADO
- FLORIDA
Here’s why we picked these eight. We have to take into account the regional diversity, and the usual “pod” scheduling that is sometimes involved with these tournaments. That’s why we did not pick Maryland, Navy, and Johns Hopkins together because these three schools are in roughly a 15-mile radius.
Too, we also didn’t pick Michigan, Northwestern, and Colorado together because the flight miles for many Eastern schools would have been much more overall had there been two Midwestern sites and a Mountain site.
Now, I recognize that there were years when some very close-in schools like Duke, Virginia, and UNC would have been host tournaments. However, a lot of the teams in the deep South are going to find themselves traveling.
Here’s who we think are going to be in the dance. The team with a number next to it will be hosting three or four teams beginning Friday:
1 NORTHWESTERN
bye
LOYOLA
FAIRFIELD
8 FLORIDA
MERCER
CLEMSON
JACKSONVILLE
4 NAVY
YALE
RICHMOND
JOHNS HOPKINS
5 STONY BROOK
STONEHILL
PRINCETON
MASSACHUSETTS
3 MARYLAND
bye
BOSTON COLLEGE
RUTGERS
6 SYRACUSE
ALBANY
PENN STATE
ARMY WEST POINT
7 COLORADO
MICHIGAN
DENVER
STANFORD
2 NORTH CAROLINA
bye
DAVIDSON
JAMES MADISON
In this scenario, we saw the multibid conferences as such:
BIG TEN: 6 berths
ACC: 5 berths
PATRIOT: 3 berths
IVY: 2 berths
BIG 12: 2 berths
A-10: 2 berths
Now, the last one of these may give you pause. Atlantic 10? Really?
Well, Davidson, the host, is the AQ. But Richmond, our choice for an at-large (and our Last Team In), has put together a good resume including narrow losses to Duke, James Madison, and Penn State, but with a titanic early win over Virginia, a team which doesn’t qualify because it is below .500 on Selection Sunday.
We also tried to follow the tournament committee’s usual logic, which means clustering teams from the same region, and preventing conference rivals from meeting each other in the first round.
One other thing we also had to take into account is how good Clemson is likely to be in this tournament. We moved them around about four times before putting them into the Gainesville regional.
Of course, I would not be surprised at all if the committee created much the same subregional, but put Clemson as host.
Good luck to the teams watching Selection Sunday!