Marquette, Denver Represent #BIGEASTmlax In NCAA Tourney
INDIANAPOLIS – The NCAA Division I Men’s Lacrosse Committee announced the 17-team field for its championship tournament on Sunday night with BIG EAST regular-season winner Denver and BIG EAST tournament champion Marquette representing the league for the second year in a row.
Denver is the overall No. 5 seed in the tournament and earned an at-large berth. Marquette repeated as the BIG EAT tourney winner and received an automatic qualifier. Denver will host Air Force at 5 p.m. ET on Saturday, May 13. Marquette travels to No. 4 seed Notre Dame on Sunday, May 14 for a noon ET first faceoff.
The winner of the Marquette/Notre Dame game will advance to the NCAA quarterfinals to face the victor of the Denver/Air Force contest at Hofstra on May 20.
Big Ten tournament champion Maryland received the No. 1 overall seed and will face the winner of the Bryant-Monmouth opening round game, May 14 at 2:30 p.m. ET.
In addition to Marquette and Maryland, the other automatic qualifiers were Albany (America East), Towson (Colonial), Yale (Ivy), Monmouth (MAAC), Byrant (Northeast), Loyola (Patriot League) and Air Force (Southern).
Al-large teams in addition to Denver include Johns Hopkins, Notre Dame, Penn State, Duke, North Carolina, Ohio State and Syracuse.
Marquette (8-7) defeated Providence, 10-9, in the BIG EAST title game on Saturday afternoon to earn its second NCAA automatic bid in as many seasons. Prior to its win over the tournament-host Friars, MU upset No. 2-ranked Denver, 11-8, in the league’s semifinals on Thursday in Providence. Notre Dame enters the national tournament 8-4 overall after compiling a 2-2 record in the Atlantic Coast Conference. The Fighting Irish, who defeated MU 11-10 this season and 8-7 in 2016, have lost thier last two games, a 14-10 ACC title game loss to North Carolina prior to a 10-9 defeat to Army West Point on Saturday. ND is 5-0 all-time against the Golden Eagles.
Denver (11-3) won its fourth BIG EAST regular-season title with another 5-0 league slate. The Pioneers are 11-8 all-time in the NCAA Tournament, including 4-1 at Peter Barton. This is the fifth-straight year that the Pioneers have hosted the NCAA Men's Lacrosse First Round and the sixth time in program history. Denver is one of four programs to host a first-round game in each of the last five seasons (Syracuse, Maryland, Notre Dame). Denver is 18-2 in its Division I history against the Falcons, winning the last nine games in the series. This will be the first meeting between the old ECAC and GWLL rivals in the NCAA Tournament. Denver won the Feb. 11, 2017, match-up 14-6 at Peter Barton, led by a six-point day from 2016 Tewaaraton Award Finalist Connor Cannizzaro and a 15-of-18 stint at the dot for junior 2017 Tewaaraton Nominee Trevor Baptiste.
In its first NCAA tournament game last season, Marquette fell to eventual national champion North Carolina, 10-9, as the No. 6 national seed at Valley Fields in the first round.
The BIG EAST has received two or more bids from 2010-2013 and 2016. In 2010, the first year the league sponsored men’s lacrosse, the conference had three teams in. In 2014 and 2015, Denver was the league’s lone representative to the Big Dance. The Pioneers won it all in 2015.
All Division I first-round games will be televised on ESPNU. The quarterfinal games will all be televised on ESPN2 or ESPNU on May 20 at James M. Shuart Stadium in Hempstead, N.Y., or Delaware Stadium in Newark, Del., on May 21. The Division I semifinal and championship games, and the Division II and III championship games, will be held at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, May 27-29 and hosted by Harvard University. The Division I semifinals will be televised live on ESPN2 starting at noon ET, May 27. The championship game will be televised live on ESPN2 starting at 1 p.m. ET on May 29.
For additional information, including purchasing tickets for each round of the lacrosse championship, game times and location, please visit NCAA.com/lacrosse.