The spring of 2025 is the first women’s lacrosse season of a 12-team Atlantic Coast Conference, with teams spread from the San Francisco Bay to Boston Harbor. But as good as teams are individually, is this going to translate to an overall sense of superiority in the lacrosse world?
We’ve seen what has happened with an expanded league in a revenue sport in the last few days. In men’s basketball, the Southeastern Conference has a 16-team league. Of that roster, 12 made the 68-team single-elimination bracket for the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament.
Two SEC teams, Auburn and Florida, confirmed their tickets to the national semifinals over the weekend.
Are we going to see that kind of dominance by the ACC women’s lacrosse league this year? In truth, I’m not so sure. A lot of that is because each team, especially those in mid-pack, are not only fighting each other for the kinds of key victories that the tournament selection committee will use in factoring in who gets in, but out-of-conference teams are viewing their ACC foes with the kind of intensity reserved for a rivalry game.
This has made some of the ACC teams’ overall records suffer, and with that, their Ratings Percentage Index, that fungible formula which takes into account their own records, opposing records, and the records of their opponents’ opponents.
One other factor figuring into teams’ calculations for the end of the season is that only eight teams make the ACC Tournament. Right now, if the season was to end to day, the four teams that would not make the ACC bracket are Cal, Louisville, Pittsburgh, and Notre Dame. Each of these four teams are either at .500 or only a couple of wins off that mark.
Here’s the thing, though. I would not be surprised to see a team finishing in the bottom third of the ACC put together a good-enough resume to make the NCAA Tournament. I remember a few years ago when Georgetown, who had a good regular-season record, placed fifth in the Big East and did not make the four-team postseason tournament despite having a number of quality wins on its resume. That cost the Hoyas one more chance to show their bona fides to the NCAA Tournament Committee.
Of course, I’ll be interested to see how deep the ACC goes in the 2025 tournament. Thing is, it might be as low as five teams unless some of the mid-pack teams win a couple of matches in the ACC Tournament.
But I’ve been wrong before.