Men’s team ready for NCAA Tournament

Unfortunately this year came and went and one of my favorite sports, lacrosse, was not looked at nearly enough by me. I truly apologize for that, since I love the sport and with a new head coach, Joe Breschi, and a good team, it would have been fun to follow it a lot more than I was able to. This weekend the NCAA Tournament begins and sixth seed North Carolina (11-5) (ranked 6th) is hosting 11th seed UMBC (12-3) (ranked 9th) at Fetzer Field, game time being 2:30 p.m. EST (televised by ESPNU). I know that this year the Tar Heels’ offense has been good, their defense also not bad, and their face offs have been outstanding. That to me almost certainly means a first round win, because if you can win the face offs and get extra possessions you will definitely be in the driver’s seat.

Since I would do injustice to the team if I tried to give you an in depth analysis of this game, I have found a site that seemed to have done a pretty good job with giving the preview of the UNC/UMBC game. There is also another, much smaller article, outlining some of the match ups for this weekend. This should be by all accounts a very good game, as both teams are ranked in the Top 10 in the nation and both know how to play the game well. For UNC going to the tournament isn’t anything new as they have made it 24 times between 1976 and this season. Of those 24 times 22 were as a Top 8 seed in the tournament. Here is the list of all the games from this weekend’s first round action:

NCAA Tournament First Round

Saturday, May 9, 2009

• Brown (12-3) at No. 8 Johns Hopkins (9-4), 12 Noon
• UMBC (12-3) at No. 6 North Carolina (11-5), 2:30 p.m.
• Hofstra (11-3) at No. 5 Cornell (10-3), 5 p.m.
• Navy (11-4) at No. 3 Duke (13-3), 7:30 p.m.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

• Maryland (9-6) at No. 7 Notre Dame (15-0), 12 Noon
• Villanova (11-5) at No. 1 Virginia (13-2), 2:30 p.m.
• Massachusetts (9-5) at No. 4 Princeton (12-2), 5 p.m.
• Siena (12-5) at No. 2 Syracuse (12-2), 7:30 p.m.

Another interesting thing to note, if North Carolina wins their game, as I believe they will, especially if you look at the history, with the Heels having a 13-3 record when hosting a NCAA Tournament game and 10-2 when it’s been a Fetzer Field, they will be facing their arch rivals in all sports (or almost all). Since with a Duke victory of Navy the two schools/programs would meet up next Sunday, May 17th, 2009 at U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. as the second game of a double header. Lastly, something I wanted everyone to note, all four teams from the ACC at this year’s tournament, and with the exception of Maryland, all are in the Top 8. Virginia is the top seed, Duke is third and, as we know already, UNC is sixth.

Good luck to the team as they play today and I am going to definitely do a recap of the game, so check for that either later today or early tomorrow.

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