Does College Lacrosse Hate The Troops? Army Is The First Team Out Of The NCAA Lacrosse Tournament
Edward Diller. Getty Images.Lacrosse may have been invented by the Native Americans. But the only reason why college lacrosse exists in the first place is because THE United States of America beat the shit out of the British in the Revolutionary War. If not for the Continental Army, we'd all still be a bunch of British blokes who suck at every sport besides soccer and darts.
Ivy league schools didn't save us from being British. Notre Dame didn't help us out during the American Revolution. Ohio State wasn't even a colony. We exist right now because of Army, and it's just a goddamn shame to see the NCAA Tournament selection committee completely turn their back on the Troops heading into this year's tournament.
The final at-large berth came down to two teams--Harvard and Army. Harvard has one big win on their resume this year, and that was a win back in February against Syracuse. Other than that, the only highlight of their resume is that they play a strong schedule just based on the fact that they're in the Ivy League. They didn't do anything special, they just played who was on their schedule.
Army had a win over North Carolina this year that is equally as impressive to Harvard beating Syracuse. Army spanked a Colgate team in the regular season that beat Harvard earlier in the year. But their strength of schedule stinks because the Patriot League just isn't very good. It's not their fault they have to play Bucknell and Lafayette, that's just the way that conferences work.
The eye test says that Army can play with any team in the country. The eye test said that Army was the 4th ranked team in the country up until this past weekend when they ended up losing to Colgate in the semifinal of the Patriot League tournament. And that's the kicker right there.
You just can't lose in the Patriot League semifinal if you're Army. It's so hard to make an argument that two Patriot League teams would deserve to get into the tournament this year. Maybe, juuuuust maybe, you could have made the case for two teams getting in if Army had lost in the Patriot League championship. Then they get an at-large while the Patriot champion gets the AQ. But losing in the semifinal, at home no less, was the kiss of death for Army.
But if ever there were a team to pick with your eyes and with your heart instead of just relying on computer generated metrics, it's the gosh dang Troops. The guys who will be defending this great nation of ours one day. The college lacrosse national championship game is played on Memorial Day every year. A day which is dedicated to honoring and remembering members of the military who have paid the ultimate sacrifice to this country. You're telling me the selection committee couldn't just sacrifice Harvard in this year's tournaments to put the Troops in there? Harvard doesn't have a chicken dick's chance at actually winning a national championship, so it wouldn't matter to leave them out of the tournament anyway. But an Army run to championship weekend would have been legendary. Now we'll never know because the selection committee committed treason.
P.S. -- Cornell, Notre Dame, Syracuse, Maryland.
