So it turns out that losing to Michigan by two goals didn't really hurt us and Penn State's overall resume garnered them the #5 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Here's the official bracket: https://www.ncaa.com/brackets/lacrosse-men/d1/2023

The seeded teams are Duke at #1, followed by Virginia (2), Notre Dame (3), Maryland (4), Penn State (5), Johns Hopkins (6), Georgetown (7), and Cornell (8).

Their opponents are matched according to the following rules in order of priority:

1: No conference match ups in the first round

2: Only two games can feature teams that are located more than 400 miles apart. (This is what they consider is the max distance for bus travel)

3: Try to pair higher seeded teams with lower caliber teams.

Thus, Duke will get the winner of the play in game between Delaware and Marist, the two teams with the lowest RPI.

Penn State, the #5 seed, will play Princeton in the first round at home--- 7:30 pm this Sunday, I think on ESPN.

Like Michigan, Princeton won their conference tournament to secure an NCAA bid. They started off the season 2-4, with losses to mostly good teams (e.g., Georgetown and Maryland). They've played relatively well since, and really turned it on in the Ivy Tournament, blowing out Yale in the final. This is a winnable game for Penn State, as they are faster and more talented than Princeton. That said, they need to play disciplined. The defense really broke down against Michigan last Thursday, and they'll have to play much more focused than that.

If they beat Princeton, then they will likely get Maryland in the quarterfinals, who will play Army in the first round.

JHU, the sixth seed, got a very lucky (almost inexplicably good) draw and gets to play Bryant (one of the worst teams to make the tourney) in the first round. Somehow JHU always gets a favor come tournament time. All of the first round pairings make sense based on the rules except this one. As a result, all of the higher seeded teams except Duke got harder draws than JHU. Penn State is seeded higher and is located closer to Bryant, so they should be playing Bryant. Oh well, JHU will get crushed by Notre Dame in the second round.

Michigan, who played their best game of the year against Maryland in the B1G final, dominating them in every phase of the game, gets to travel to #8 Cornell. If they win that, it's on to play #1 Duke. Honestly, if they continue to play like they did on Saturday, they could win both of those games. They just straight up killed the turtles. It really surprised me how well Michigan's D played in that game--- a unit that had sub-par performances in every other game this year.

Let's go Penn State!