The Sunday Slide: Nobody's Perfect

The ACC and Big Ten tournaments begin this week. And while North Carolina and Northwestern made good on preseason expectations by winning their respective regular-season titles, their conference tournaments feel unpredictable.

Because if this season has proven anything, it’s that nobody’s perfect. Always expect the unexpected.

We’ll enter the postseason without an undefeated team. North Carolina is the nation’s No. 1, and its one loss was a one-goal setback in overtime to Northwestern. The Wildcats look every bit like a national title contender, and their three losses — Colorado, Syracuse and Ohio State — seem like they came eons ago. They have won eight straight entering the Big Ten tournament.

Northwestern could be vulnerable, though. Michigan nearly beat the Wildcats on Saturday, and Maryland has spent time at No. 1 this spring. Johns Hopkins is gritty, Rutgers is always game for an upset, Penn State has a strong offense, and Ohio State has literally already beaten the Wildcats.

In the ACC, seemingly everyone has beaten everybody else. Stanford, Boston College and Syracuse all played each other close. Duke can step up and clip a top team, as can Virginia — which has extra motivation to win enough games to be eligible for an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. Then there’s Notre Dame and Clemson, two teams supremely capable of giving the top teams a challenge.

There doesn’t appear to be a “perfect” team as May inches closer. North Carolina looked like that this time last year. But the field is wide open in 2026.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS

What are we to make of Michigan’s 15-4 win over Maryland? Michigan, clearly, is capable of making noise in the coming weeks. But what does this mean for Maryland? An offense that’s impressed this year only mustered four goals — and only put 12 shots on cage.

The Wolverines’ defense is elite. It has been for years. But that score is jarring. It’ll be interesting to see how the Terps bounce back this week.

As impressive as Syracuse has been, its Achilles’ Heel could be its offense. The Orange entered the weekend ranked 98th nationally in scoring offense (9.69 goals per game). Some of that could be by design. With a defense like that, there’s plenty of merit in running down the shot clock and putting even more pressure on the opponent.

But if Syracuse finds itself down by a few goals, like it did against Boston College in a 7-4 loss, it might not have the firepower to climb back in. Part of why it took four overtimes to dispatch Notre Dame last week was because of a very passive offense. That could come back to bite the Orange.

Navy has been on an absolute tear since dropping its only game of the season, 19-14 to Loyola. The Mids are 4-0 since with goals totals of 16, 14, 24 and 23. Their goal differential is 77-21, including a notable 14-8 win over Army.

The Patriot League tournament also begins next week, though we have to wait until Sunday for the quarterfinals. That tournament might be as up in the air as the ACC and Big Ten. You could make a strong case for any of its three top teams — Army, Loyola or Navy.

FUN WITH NUMBERS

0 • Undefeated teams heading into the beginnings of postseason play this week.

1 • Ranked win by Holy Cross, which secured its biggest-ever win by beating Loyola 14-9. Tory Rider and Hadley Cepiel each scored four goals, and Kate Avitabile posted two goals and five assists.

8 • Goals scored by Vermont Jane Trauger against UAlbany, tying a single-game program record.

10 • Goals scored by Navy in the first quarter against Lafayette — and also the total goals scored in Colorado’s 6-4 win over Denver.

25 • Players nominated for the Tewaaraton Award. The list will be narrowed to five finalists on May 7.

79 • Goals scored in 14 games by Chloe Humphrey, who produced 90 goals in 22 games last year. Is Madison Taylor’s record of 109, set last year, within reach?