Duke, Yale Qualify for NCAA Tournament; Princeton the Top Seed

Left for dead after four straight losses, Duke got the signature win it needed and the rest of the field broke its way, nudging the Blue Devils into the NCAA Division I men’s lacrosse tournament as an at-large selection. The bracket was revealed Sunday night during a selection show on ESPNU.

“In all those four losses, they had a lead at halftime,” ESPN analyst Quint Kessenich said. “Yeah, the strength of schedule (18th) is low. But at the end of the day, they’re a dangerous team in this tournament.”

Duke’s breakthrough win came April 26 against North Carolina. The Blue Devils did not qualify for this week’s ACC tournament, but it was enough to get them into the NCAA tournament. They’ll visit fourth-seeded Richmond.

“They’re playing with house money,” ESPN analyst Paul Carcaterra said. “What do they have to lose? They have the talent to make a run for the national championship.”

Duke and Yale made the dance at the expense of Harvard and, notably, Maryland. The Terps will miss the tournament for the first time since 2002 and just the eighth time overall since the NCAA started sanctioning lacrosse championships in 1971.

Yale’s head-to-head win over Harvard was a point of differentiation. The Bulldogs are one of three NCAA tournament teams who had losing records a year ago. The others are ACC champion Virginia and Big Ten runner-up Johns Hopkins.

Ivy League champion Princeton earned the top seed by virtue of its No. 1 RPI, No. 4 strength of schedule, three top-10 wins and an 8-2 record against the RPI top 20. The last time the Tigers were the No. 1 seed was in 1997, when they won the second of three straight NCAA championships and fourth of six overall under Hall of Fame coach Bill Tierney.

“This is the most complete team,” Carcaterra said. “I’m not convinced it’s the best. But it’s the most complete.”

All five ACC teams and three Ivy League teams qualified for the tournament. The Big Ten was the only other multi-bid conference. It was a down year by Big Ten standards. Penn State throttled Hopkins in the conference championship game, but the Nittany Lions’ three losses to teams ranked outside the RPI top 20 relegated them to the No. 8 seed.

As such they’ll face an Army team that surged to the Patriot League championship and will no doubt prove eager to erase the memory of its 2023 NCAA quarterfinal loss to Penn State.

The Blue Jays are on the road for an intriguing first-round game at defending NCAA champion Cornell. Hopkins coach Peter Milliman was previously the head coach of the Big Red, whose current head coach, Connor Buczek, was his top assistant there.

Teams seeded were, in order, Princeton, Notre Dame, North Carolina, Richmond, Virginia, Syracuse, Cornell and Penn State. All will host first-round games.

As the top two seeds, Princeton and Notre Dame will draw the winners of the Marist/Stony Brook and Robert Morris/Jacksonville play-in games, respectively.

The other matchups will pit North Carolina against UAlbany, Virginia against Georgetown and Syracuse against Yale.

PLAY-IN GAMES

Marist at Stony Brook
Robert Morris at Jacksonville

FIRST ROUND

Marist/Stony Brook at (1) Princeton
Army at (8) Penn State
Georgetown at (5) Virginia
Duke at (4) Richmond
UAlbany at (3) North Carolina
Yale at (6) Syracuse
Johns Hopkins at (7) Cornell
Robert Morris/Jacksonville at (2) Notre Dame

🔗 Official Bracket