The Syracuse Orange men’s lacrosse team returns to the NCAA Tournament yet again, as they discovered on Sunday evening when the bracket and seedings were announced.
SU enters the NCAA Tournament unseeded against the eighth-seeded Loyola Greyhounds. That game will take place Saturday at noon ET, and will be the first NCAA Tournament opening round road game for the Orange since 2012. The Penn State Nittany Lions are the top seed in the tournament and the likely quarterfinal opponent should Syracuse win this weekend. Here’s the full men’s bracket:
Here it is, the 2019 #NCAALAX Bracket! Who ya got? pic.twitter.com/BKMMjuIhwb
— College Crosse (@College_Crosse) May 6, 2019
As you’re unfortunately aware, Syracuse hasn’t made the Final Four since 2013 and hasn’t won a title since 2009 (the longest gap for the program since the NCAA started sponsoring the MLAX championship). If they want to try to fix either of those streaks, they’ll likely have to get through PSU. Should they make it to the Big Barbeque, they’ll face one of Yale/Georgetown/Penn/Army in the national semifinals.
Four of five ACC programs made it into the field this year, with North Carolina being the lone team on the outside looking in. Duke was the 2-seed, Virginia was third, and Notre Dame was No. 7, along with SU getting in as an unseeded at-large team.
More on the game as the week continues.