The Utah Lacrosse team solidified our goal to earn the top seed…

[PhiladelphiaUte]

…in next month’s conference tournament, with a 22-12 rout at Home, vs the Mercer Bears.
The conference tournament will only include the top four teams in our ten team league. At 7-0 in league play, Utah holds a firm grasp on the #1 seed. 14th-ranked Jacksonville, at 6-1, is #2, and would need Utah to lose twice to overtake us, as we’d already won the head-to-head tie-breaker 2-wks ago. Air Force is in 3rd-place at 5-2, and the winner of tomorrow’s game vs. Bellarmine and Cleveland St will be #4. The loser will be tied with Mercer at #5, but #5 doesn’t get a bid to play in the league tourney.
Mercer came out strong today, as unlike Utah, they were playing for a tournament seed. A loss pretty much eliminates them, whereas Utah is already guaranteed a bid. And that guarantee might have explained why we’d played so sloppy today. Bad passes. Clears atypically clumsy. Got beat at the F/O. And we gave up 12 goals. But at least we still won.
Next week will conclude our Home schedule, so for you locals out there who hadn’t yet taken advantage of attending a Utah Lacrosse game, next Saturday will be your last chance in 2023, where we’ll face the Cleveland St Vikings.
Like Mercer today, Cleveland St will be fighting to earn that last seeding in next month’s tournament, as there’s a bit of a logjam between them, Bellarmine, Mercer, and Robert Morris all vying for it.
GO UTES!!!

[Ute2]

Is the location predetermined?

 

[PhiladelphiaUte]

Our next game, vs Cleveland St, will be Saturday, Apr. 22nd, at 7pm MDT, in SLC, at Ute Field.

Our regular season finale will be on the road at last-place Queens College in Charlotte, NC.

Utah only needs to win one of those two games to win the #1 seed in the conference tournament — which in 2023 will be at Robert Morris University, in Moon Township, PA.  The 4-team tournament will start on Tuesday, May 2nd, and conclude on Sunday, May 7th.

Utah has no shot at earning an “at-large” bid in the national tournament, so if we’re going to be there, we’re going to need to win it all on May 7th.

GO UTES!!!

[Ute2]

So asun is an aq the ?
How is that determined?

[PhiladelphiaUte]

ASUN is an AQ conference for the national tournament that concludes — per tradition — on Memorial Day weekend.  The winner of the ASUN CCG gets to represent the league in that tournament. 

This year, there will be one play-in game between the two lowest rated conference champions.  The ASUN is not likely going to be one of those two leagues this year.  The winner of that game will face the #1-seed in the 16-team national tournament.

The latest bracketology has Utah facing the 3rd-seeded UVA Cavaliers in that round of 16.

[Ute2]

Is every conference aq in lacrosse?

I kind of thought some got left out.  Am I mistaken?

[PhiladelphiaUte]

Not every conference gets an autobid.  For example, there’s no automatic bid for the winner of the ACC, because the ACC has only 5 members, and the requirement for an autobid is a minimum membership of 6.  Also, a conference has to have been in existence, as a D-1 conference, for 2 or 3 yrs before being eligible for an autobid.  The ASUN was able to skirt that rule last year, because the ASUN used to be a D-1 Lacrosse league, but then stopped playing for a couple of years, and then resurfaced by adding a bunch of independents (i.e. Utah, Cleveland St, RMU, and Bellarmine), who were already playing D-1.  And since Bellarmine was already an “ASUN school”, it qualified the ASUN as a D-1 Lacrosse league who’d already met the minimum requirement for an autobid. 

Under the “autobid” rules, the only conferences that qualify are the Top-7 conferences, as rated by the D-1 Nat’l Committee, of the following: America East, ASUN, Atlantic 10, Big East, BigTen, Colonial, Ivy, Metro Atlantic, and Patriot League.  The bottom two would have to play in the “play-in” game, for the right to get trounced by the #1-seed in the national tourney.  And right now, that’s looking like the “play-in” teams will be the conference champions of the Metro Atlantic and the Atlantic 10.

For what it’s worth, even without an autobid, there’s very little chance an ACC team doesn’t get in.  I can’t remember a single tournament that didn’t have multiple ACC teams playing in it.  And as I’d mentioned before, the latest bracketology has Utah facing 3rd-seeded UVA.  In that link I’d just provided, you’ll also find Duke, North Carolina, and Notre Dame earning at-large slots — or essentially, every team in the ACC not-named Syracuse.  And those 4 ACC teams constitute a full quarter of the entire tournament.

[Ute2]

Great rundown!  Thanks!

[Author]

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