By Christian Swezey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 5, 2008
Virginia, Maryland and Navy each received a bid to the 16-team NCAA men's lacrosse tournament, the field for which was announced last night.
However, Georgetown (9-4) had its streak of 11 consecutive tournament appearances snapped. The Hoyas defeated No. 1 Duke and Navy in the regular season; both of those teams made the tournament.
But the Hoyas finished 18th in RPI and in the 20s in strength of schedule, largely because of a down year for its conference, the Eastern College Athletic Conference. The Hoyas were not helped by a 12-11 overtime loss to unranked Penn State on Saturday.
The five-member NCAA tournament selection committee was chaired by Bucknell senior associate athletic director Tim Pavlechko. Maryland Coach Dave Cottle was the only coach on the committee.
"It was a very difficult process," Cottle said. "Being on the committee, we tried to get the best teams into the field. I know that I felt Georgetown was one of the top teams in the country. But they were let down by the [relative weakness of] their conference. They had some real quality wins, but their league fell apart a little this year."
The final two at-large teams appeared to be Navy (9-5) and Denver (10-6). The Midshipmen finished No. 15 in RPI. Denver was No. 12.
Georgetown entered with the second-longest active consecutive appearances streak. (Johns Hopkins has made the tournament 37 consecutive years.)
The tournament field was announced on ESPNU. And in a surprisingly insensitive oversight, early in the broadcast ESPNU listed the teams with the most consecutive tournament appearances. Georgetown was not listed; Navy, which entered the day with four appearances, was given credit for having been in five consecutive tournaments.
"I know won-loss record and strength of schedule are still two strong parts of the equation. But when they factor in other components, it tends to get a little fuzzy," Georgetown Coach Dave Urick said. "I think a couple of things that we don't have control over came into play.
"Our league this year had some less-than-usual results. And that certainly affected us. But you still kind of scratch your head a little bit when you see Navy and Denver in. Those are the two we're trying to make sense of."
The Midshipmen will face No. 4 North Carolina (8-5) on Saturday night in Chapel Hill, N.C. The Tar Heels defeated Navy, 12-8, in an NCAA tournament first round game last year.
Navy was greatly helped by results from Saturday. Almost every team vying with it for an at-large spot lost: Georgetown, Army (to Penn), Princeton (to Brown) and Albany (to UMBC).
"It was nerve wracking," Navy Coach Richie Meade said of watching the selection show. "I had a sense after yesterday that we were probably going to get selected. But it's been different not knowing. . . . Despite what people tell you, you never feel comfortable."
Virginia and Maryland each will host a first-round game. The Cavaliers (12-3) will play UMBC (12-2) on Sunday at 5 p.m.; the Terrapins (9-5) will host Denver (10-6) on Saturday at noon.
Virginia earned a No. 2 seed; Maryland is seeded No. 7. "It's an exciting time of year," Virginia Coach Dom Starsia said. "There are always some surprises. . . . We're excited to be going forward."
Duke (16-1) is the top seed. Johns Hopkins (8-5), the defending champion, is the No. 5 seed. The Blue Jays will face Hofstra (10-5) on Sunday at 2:30.
The quarterfinal games will be played in Annapolis on May 17 and Ithaca, N.Y., on May 18.
The Final Four is being held Memorial Day weekend in Foxborough, Mass. And for the first time since 1996, Georgetown will not have a chance to make it.
The players are in exams, Urick said, and he added that a team meeting had been called for this afternoon to discuss the season's abrupt end.
"The bottom line is, we had a chance to play our way in," Urick said. "If we had won our last three games it really would have solidified our chances. We hoped winning two of the last three would be enough.
"We have a lot of questions about how this thing was selected. Hopefully, they will be addressed at some time. And we'll use this to go forward."
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