There have been various surprises from final night’s unveiling of the NCAA Division I ladies’s lacrosse bracket. A few of these surprises have been harped on in the previous few hours, such because the inclusion of Duke and the exclusion of the Naval Academy.
However for me, the largest shock was the truth that two groups from the Metro Atlantic Athletic Convention are within the event — Fairfield and Niagara. Each of those groups have 16 wins on the season, Nonetheless, these two sides performed a grand complete of three video games towards groups ranked within the High 20.
Yep, three.
Niagara, as MAAC champion, has the AQ from the convention. However by some means, runner-up Fairfield had sufficient bona fides in beating Connecticut, Albany and Drexel to make it in as an at-large group. Fairfield additionally had the 59th-best energy of schedule of the 127 Division I groups.
Now, I perceive that the ladies’s lacrosse committee takes a unique tack from the “black field” method that some tournaments use to decide on event fields. The committee takes into consideration all method of metrics and issues to choose the sector.
Nonetheless, I’m not bought on this discipline. The committee, I believe, is just not taking into the account the shifting of energy of the sport, placing Maryland within the high 4 and placing Michigan, in essence, because the tenth seed. I additionally suppose Loyola was undervalued, being put, in essence, within the 9 slot.
This being mentioned, there are going to be some delectable first-round video games on Friday, with Florida assembly North Carolina and Penn State taking up James Madison.
Get your popcorn out. This ought to be good, however has an opportunity to be a catastrophe.
