Syracuse men’s lacrosse moves to No. 1 in the country

The Syracuse Orange men’s lacrosse team took its rightful place back atop the polls on Monday. At 8-1 (3-0 in the ACC), the Orange have racked up a number of high-quality wins, but it took some losses elsewhere near the top of the rankings to facilitate the move for sure.

This is SU’s first No. 1 ranking since the close of the 2015 regular season.

Though SU has won a lot of one-goal games this season (six in all), the team’s only loss was also by just one goal -- to No. 6 Army. The Orange own top-20 wins over No. 5 Albany, No. 8 Duke, No. 10 Notre Dame, No. 13 Johns Hopkins and No. 18 Virginia.

Two of Syracuse’s next three opponents are also in the current rankings -- No. 17 North Carolina and No. 20 Binghamton.

But first, they’ll face CNY rival Cornell on Tuesday evening, while trying to break the unfortunate streak of losses by the No. 1 school in the nation.

Last week, previously unbeaten Penn State was tops in the polls, before falling 15-11 at Maryland. Notre Dame, Rutgers and Denver have also respectively lost in their first and only week at number one -- a string that now dates back to week five when the Pioneers took the top spot. SU is the seventh different team to be ranked No. 1 this year -- joining PSU, ND, Rutgers, DU, Maryland and UNC. Maryland and Notre Dame (two weeks each) are the only schools to hold the spot for more than a week.

For more on the lacrosse team’s current ACC Tournament projections as the season winds down, you can check out Jim’s excellent seeding scenarios piece from this morning.