Today, starting at 10 a.m., the last five NCAA Division I conference tournaments get underway to fill out which 15 women’s lacrosse teams are going automatically to The Big Dance.
The ten teams winning their AQ bids are as follows:
ACC — Boston College
AAC — James Madison
ASun — Coastal Carolina
Big East — Denver
Big Ten — Northwestern
Colonial — Stony Brook
Mid-American — Robert Morris
Northeast — Long Island
Pac-12 — Stanford
Patriot — Loyola
Today, these five conference tournaments finals will take place. And here’s what we think will happen:
America East — Only one team, Binghamton or Albany, will make it
Atlantic 10 — Only one team, Richmond or Massachusetts, will make it
Big South — Only one team, Mercer or High Point, will make it
Mid-American — Only one team, Fairfield or Niagara, will make it
Ivy — Both Penn and Yale will make it, and the winner could very well be a hosting team in the first and second rounds next weekend
This leaves the question of the 14 At-Large teams. If you go straight chalk from the Ratings Percentage Index rankings as calculated after last night’s games (thanks to Lacrosse Reference), you see a very interesting situation brewing just outside the Top 20 (where we think the bubble is):
These four teams, rated from No. 20 to 23 in RPI, are within 12/1000th of a point of each other in the formula that is determined by a team’s won-loss record, the records of their opponents, and the records of their opponents’ opponents. None of these four teams are playing today, so I don’t think there will be much movement.
Remember: there are 29 teams in the tournament, and seven of the AQs are, or will be, rated lower than 23rd in RPI rankings. If the tournament committee weighs RPI more than the other factors they often use, such as significant wins/losses, record against the RPI Top 10, and how a team has done in its last six games, I think one or maybe two of these four sides won’t make it in.
Should make for interesting doings this evening on the Selection Show.