College Lacrosse Weekend Preview: Conference Championship Week

Jordie5/05/2017 5:40 PM

Alright, bitches. Here we go. Last weekend of the regular season. We’ve got the ACC tournament already wrapped up with that fraudulent ass UNC team winning that conference at 8-7. I said it last week. You could just smell they were going to backdoor their way into the NCAA tournament by winning the ACC. It’s not an AQ but taking down Syracuse and Notre Dame back-to-back hast to get them in. Then we Loyola finally cleaning up their shit and winning the Patriot. We have the B1G championship tomorrow. The CAA championship tomorrow. The Big East championship tomorrow. The Ivy League tournament this weekend and then it’s Selection Sunday. All the nonsense that went down during the regular season. All the chaos that took place between February and now. None of it means a damn thing anymore after the teams are picked on Sunday. Which is why we’re just going to completely skip the rankings to start and go right to what the projected tournament looks like right now via US Lacrosse Magazine.

Now clearly there will be a few moving pieces between now and Sunday. If Marquette (who just somehow beat Denver) ends up beating Providence, they’re in and the Friars are out. If anybody can knock Yale off in the Ivy tournament, they’re in and Yale is out. But for the most part, this are likely to be the teams playing for a trip up to Boston for Championship Weekend. Really hoping the bracket ends up looking like this that way this prediction from February has a chance to make me look like Nostra-fucking-damus.

Anyway, let’s get to the rest of the games this weekend and talk about how each team got here.

What’s On Tap?

B1G Championship | Maryland vs Ohio State | Saturday, 7:30 pm

Maryland went into the B1G tournament as the 1-seed and took care of business by knocking off Penn State 8-6 last night. Their only conference loss of the season came 2 weeks ago against Ohio State at OSU 11-10 in overtime. It’s important to note that Colin Heacock didn’t play that game and he’ll be available for tomorrow. But when you look at the way the Buckeyes offense is playing and especially the way Tre LeClaire is shooting, it’s easy to tell that win wasn’t just a fluke.

That, my friends, is a fucking bomb. And it was just one of 6 from Tre LeClaire last night in Ohio State’s 15-13 win over Hopkins last night in the semifinals. That has Ohio State beating Hopkins twice this year and they had that overtime win over Maryland we just talked about. Their conference losses this year came on the road at Penn State and in overtime at Rutgers. Their only out-of-conference loss this year was on the road at Notre Dame. So all 3 losses for Ohio State this season have been road games. Why is that important? Well because they are hosting the B1G tournament and are a perfect 9-0 in Columbus this year. This is where they’re comfortable and this is where their offense puts up the most numbers.

No matter what happens in this game, both teams will still make the tournament. One will get the AQ and the other will get an at-large. But I can’t see Maryland coming out and losing to the same team twice in one season. Like I said, no Heacock in the first matchup between these two definitely hurt the Terps. He had 1 and 1 last night against Penn State and Matt Rambo didn’t even get on the scoresheet at all. So I’m expecting big games out of both of them. The Ohio State shooters are going to do what they do best and that’s murdering the net. If you’re a fan of goals then you’re gonna love this game tomorrow. I don’t see a line on this game yet but my prediction is 13-12 Maryland. Very possibly in overtime.

CAA Championship | Towson vs UMass | Saturday, 1pm

We already talked about how UMass knocked off Hofstra in the semifinals last night with this buzzer beater from midfield. You can read about it here. UMass went into the CAA tournament at 6-7. They were a sub .500 team and now they’re just one win away from playing in the NCAA tournament. Meanwhile–Hofstra, a team that started the season 10-0, is done for the year.

Towson is the 1-seed in the CAA tournament and knocked off Drexel for the 2nd time this year. First game was back in the beginning of April 8-7. Last night was an 8-4 cake walk to the conference championship. Their only conference loss of the year so far was a 9-8 fuck up to Fairfield. Other than that, they have losses to Loyola, Ohio State and Denver on the year. So not a terrible resume for the Tigers. Definitely not enough to get them into the tournament if they don’t win tomorrow, though. So now they get a rematch against UMass. Last time they played was April 8. Towson won 11-8. They are clearly the better team and they should be multi-goal favorites heading into the game. But that UMass buzzer beater doesn’t happen out of nowhere. There’s something going on with that team. They’re playing with some confidence now after smoking Drexel 14-8 and knocking off a top 20 team at the buzzer. All the pressure is on Towson. UMass is just having a good ol’ time playing with house money. A team with nothing to lose is terrifying. I think Towson comes out on top but you’d have to be an idiot not to be pulling for UMass.

Big East Championship | Providence vs Marquette | Saturday, 4:45pm

So… did… did Denver lose to Marquette last night on purpose for tournament seeding purposes? Did they lose on purpose to weaken the tournament? Or do they just suck ass against Marquette in the Big East tournament? They did the same thing last year in the Big East Championship. Before last night, Denver was going to win the Big East and the conference would only get 1 team in the NCAA tournament. They beat Marquette 16-8 on April 29. And then they come right back out and lose 10-8 to the same Marquette team just a week later? I don’t think so. Something is up here. Now either Providence or Marquette get the AQ and Denver makes the tournament with an at-large. That’s an at-large that should have either went to Rutgers or Hofstra or Army. But now it goes to Denver and Marquette could potentially be yet another 8-7 team heading to the tournament.

Honestly I don’t think it really matters one way or another how this game goes. Providence won the regular season match up 9-7 back in April. That was in the middle of a 4-game losing streak for Marquette. I guess I’d rather have Marquette in there just because they made a little noise last year when they were just 1-goal away from knocking off the eventual champs UNC, and could see them pulling off something similar this year. Plus Tommy Boy went to Marquette so let’s go Golden Eagles.

Ivy League Semi-final #1 | Princeton vs Brown | Today, 3:30pm

Last time Princeton played Brown, Freshman stud and Philly product Michael Sowers had 5 goals and 4 assists in Princeton’s 21-11 win. 9 points for the freshman. Kid has 77 points on the year as a freshman. The only two guys ahead of him in the nation are Tewaaraton favorites Pat Spencer (82 pts) and Connor Fields (97 pts). Sowers is the only freshman on the Tewaaraton finalist list. He already put up 9 against Brown’s defense before. Even if they do the best to “contain” him, I don’t see how he doesn’t have at least 5 unless Brown goons it up and injures him.

Both teams are 9-5. Both teams lost to Yale in the regular season. Princeton ended up dropping one to Cornell which hurts but Brown’s defense just isn’t good enough to stop this Princeton team from putting up 13-15. Dylan Molloy will have a little extra time to rest up for the MLL Draft after this weekend. Princeton by 2.

Ivy League Semi-final #2 | Yale vs Penn | Tonight, 6pm

Yale is coming off of back-to-back losses right now after dropping a 1-goal game to Albany and then another 1-goal game to Harvard. They were playing lights out lacrosse before these games. Granted they didn’t have the hardest schedule in the world but they were taking care of teams they needed to take care of. Something we didn’t see from them when they dropped 3 in a row to Maryland, Bryant and UMass. Now the loss to Albany isn’t a bad loss at all. And maybe they knew they already had the #1 seed in the Ivy tournament before playing Harvard so they decided to rest up a little bit that game. But Penn could be catching a sleeping Yale team. They lost the regular season match up 14-12 but the NCAA tournament is always better when a Philly team is involved. Who knows.

I still think Yale squeaks out of this one and ends up winning the Ivy championship against Princeton. But I’m down for chaos.

The Other Guys

Notre Dame @ Army | Saturday @ 1pm | Line: Notre Dame -3.5

Boston U vs Duke (neutral site) | Sunday @ 1pm | Line: Duke -4.5

Syracuse @ Colgate | Saturday @ 12pm | Line: Cuse -6

Jordie’s Picks (3-0-1 last week, 27-9-2 overall)

Last week’s picks were Loyola -3.5 over Holy Cross, they won 13.3. Duke +1 against Notre Dame, they lost 7-6. UNC +2 against Syracuse, they won 16-15. And Denver -4 over Marquette, they won 16-8. Heading into the final week before the NCAA tournament and still single digit losses. Not a big deal. For this week we have…