Lax Factor Lacrosse Podcast

May Madness is upon us, and today is the day I make predictions for the entire first round, complete with a predicted "margin of victory", and I'll also reveal my full bracket and pick my winner for this years NCAA Division I Lacrosse Tournament.

I won't spoil my picks within the description, but the games I'll be talking about obviously are...

I'll also talk very briefly about the DII quarterfinal/play-in games as well.

Lastly, I pick my winner for the Tewaaraton, because I've been saying all year, if either Duke, UNC or Maryland wins the title, their big cat will win the Tewaaraton, so be sure to listen to the end for that pick as well.

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So North Carolina brings home the top seed, followed up by Duke, Maryland and Virginia. Army ended up being the first team out, and Rutgers the last team in, and this was a tough call for the committee.

Matchups look like this...

#1 North Carolina vs Monmouth

UNC will win this game by a large margin, but congrats to Monmouth for making the big dance.

#2 Duke vs High Point

Duke rolled high point in their previous meeting, but expect an improved High Point team to put up a better showing in this tournament game. Duke will still win, but High Point should put up a good fight with Asher Nolting playing great lacrosse and taking care of the ball.

#3 Maryland vs Vermont

A good matchup for Maryland EXCEPT, Tommy Burke at the face-off dot could present some problems between the boxes for the Terps. But alas, Jared Bernhardt and company will end up being too good even if Burke rolls and Maryland will still win by a margin.

#4 Virginia vs Bryant

The toughest draw by far out of the top 4 seeds, which is kind of the idea. Virginia should be able to beat Bryant by a margin, but UVA has a tendency to let teams hang even where they have them outmatched on paper.

#5 Georgetown vs Syracuse

Perhaps the best first round matchup of the tournament, these teams are very evenly matched. Georgetown looks better on paper, they are tough both offensively and defensively. But Syracuse is far more battle tested and has proven they can hang with the best of them. This one is anyone's ballgame and should be a great game to watch Saturday night.

#6 Notre Dame vs Drexel

Lots of people are scratching their head at Notre Dame being placed in th is 6th spot, including myself, but alas, the Irish match up well against a very good and scrappy Drexel team. This game will be won by Notre Dame's defense which plays with an intensity that Drexel has not seen yet this season.

#7 Denver vs Loyola

Tough draw for Denver as Loyola isn't too far removed from knocking off the team that beat Denver twice this year (Georgetown). But Thompson is playing the best lacrosse of his career in cage for Denver, Stathakis and Ierland should be able to handle Savio at the dot, and Denver's offense has played better than Loyola's for most of the year.

#8 Lehigh vs Rutgers

This game will tell us for sure, is the Big Ten overrated this year or is the Big Ten as good as ever and this year just happened to be Rutgers year to hang right below Maryland. Lehigh is incredible, they win face-offs like it's no one's business and if Rutgers wins this game, we can end the talk about the B1G having a down year, because Lehigh is a legit team.

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We have had a great week of college lacrosse action with conference tournaments in full swing. On Thursday night we saw teams like Maryland, Denver, Georgetown and Drexel all handle their business. We also saw teams like Albany, Vermont and Hopkins pull upsets that will keep those hoping for at large bids guessing.

Hopkins win over Rutgers was the big one, as Rutgers will now pray that Maryland wins the Big Ten Tournament and not eat up one of the coveted at large bids. The same goes for Delaware. They'll be hoping Drexel takes down Hofstra so they don't have to compete with the Dragons for an at large. Every good team that lost is hoping the better teams win their conference tourny's.

So we'll see Maryland take on Hopkins in the Big Ten finals. We'll see Bryant take on Saint Joseph's in the NEC finals.  We'll see Vermont take on Albany in the America East finals. The Patriot league still has to work through their semi-final games today (Friday). And yes, I ran out of time to talk about the MAAC again, but at least I didn't trash on them today.

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Syracuse hit the road to face Notre Dame with revenge on their minds, and instead they come home huge losers as the Irish embarrassed the Orange in an absolute blowout that has the #FireDesko crowd screaming from the rooftops, and even myself, a long time Desko supporter is starting to wonder if maybe the game has now passed this living legend by.

Michigan and Hopkins picked up huge Big Ten conference tournament victories over Ohio State and Penn State.  Michigan and Hopkins only made the tournament field thanks to COVID, but ended up flipping the tournament upside down, as now the lowest two seeds will face the top two seeds in the semifinals. Great outing for both teams.

Vermont beat Stony Brook at the buzzer, literally, with no time left on the clock. Stony Brook had tied the game up with just 8 seconds to go, only to see Burke win the ensuing face-off and Vermont marched down and scored the game winner with ZEROS on the clock. Great scene as the Vermont team cleared the bench prior to the officials calling the shot a goal and they were all huddled around the refs waiting for the signal that the game was over and they finally got it.

We'll talk about tournament seedings for the America East, NEC, CAA, Patriot and more.

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The Big Ten Lacrosse Conference seedings and tournament schedule is set. Maryland get's the #1 seed, Rutgers the #2, Penn State the #3, Ohio State #4, Michigan #5 (thanks to a coin toss) and Hopkins is the last seed. That tournament will kick off this weekend with Maryland as the obvious favorite after going 10-0 in conference play this season.

The CAA, NEC, America East and Patriot League all have games being played this weekend that will help finalize their tournament fields and seeding. We'll discuss those.

And we'll very briefly touch on the Chase Scanlan vs Syracuse saga. I hate being shady and not getting more into what's going on, but this is a serious matter and no one, including myself, wants to say the wrong thing here. So cut us some slack, we can discuss in a manner that feeds your curiosity because it is a big story, but there are also humans involved, and some of those humans could have lawyers in play and I hate lawyers.

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A near must win for Syracuse in Charlottesville on Saturday and the Orange sent a message to everyone that doubted them letting us all know, they ain’t dead yet. Jakob Phaup who has struggled at the face-off dot against ACC foes went 24 of 27 against Petey LaSalla who has been the ACC’s best face-off guy since getting merked by Cuse his last time out. The possession deficit proved too much for UVA to overcome as the Orange pull out the 13-11 win on the road, and improve to 6-4, locking up a better than .500 record and an NCAA tournament bid.

Nakeie Montgomery and Michael Sowers put Duke on their backs and helped their team climb out of a 12-7 hole late in the 4th and then later win it in overtime. Another classic Thursday night ACC showdown for Duke.

Hopkins gave Maryland all they could handle on Saturday, but the terps were able to pull off the 14-13 win thanks to big games from Jared Bernhardt and Logan Wisnauskas who both went for 4 goals with a dish in this game.

Navy’s defense stifled Army’s big cat Brendan Nichtern holding him to zero points and just a couple of shots in their big 9-4 win over the Black Knights.

Dylan Foulds stuck the game winner on Saturday for Penn State with just 1:08 remaining in the game and tore the hearts out of Ohio State that needed this game badly to make their case for an at large bid. Foulds finished the day with 4 goals, Mac O’Keefe put up 2 goals and a helper.

UMBC beat Stony Brook in OT for the second time this season, dropping the Seawolves 14-13 in their second meeting, and snapping Stony Brook’s 6 game win streak. Ryan Frawley get’s the game winner on a feed from Brett McIntyre with 28 seconds left in the extra period.

We'll talk about all of the above action and much more in this weeks episode.

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In todays show we'll talk about the Duke and Notre Dame rematch that will be played Thursday night on the ACC Network. This will be a monster lacrosse game played under the lights in primetime. Michael Sowers and company will look to get revenge over Notre Dame and their insane defense.

We'll rip through the top 5 teams in the country and talk about each teams "key players" for continued success. On this topic we'll discuss Michael Sowers at Duke and how Duke can better utilize his skill. Jared Bernhardt has been on a tear for the Terps and we'll discuss what makes him so good. Kyle Thornton has been Notre Dame's biggest stat getter on the defensive side of the ball and he needs to keep that up so Notre Dame can keep winning big games. Matt Moore is a beast that needs to work a touch on his shot selection for UVA to be at their best. Colin Krieg needs to keep standing on his head if North Carolina is going to win their final two ACC contests.

There are some huge conference matchups being played this weekend within the America East, the CAA and the Patriot League and we'll talk about those games as well.

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North Carolina put the big hurt on Syracuse in the Carrier Dome on Saturday beating the Orange 21-9. It's the first time in Syracuse's history they have lost by 7 or more goals 3 times at home. Terrible outing for Syracuse and things aren't looking good heading into their final games against Virginia and Notre Dame.  For UNC, a huge bounce back win that they needed badly. Chris Gray paced UNC with 2 goals and 6 assists.

Georgetown picked up their first regular season win over Denver in an 11-10 OT thriller. Declan McDermott scored the game winning goal in the OT period giving the Hoyas revenge for their earlier in the season loss to Denver. James Reilly factored heavily for Denver winning 16 of 24 face-offs against TD Ierlan and Alex Stathakis. Without that effort, Denver wins this game by a couple of goals.

LIU picked up a big conference win over The Mount. Delaware used a Tye Kurtz goal in OT to beat Hofstra. Virginia handled their business against Utah, but Utah looked tougher than many expected in the loss. Towson gets back to a 500 record with a big win over UMass.

We'll talk about these games and more in todays episode. A nice long one for you all.

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Virginia gave Duke everything they could handle in another instant classic within ACC lacrosse play. The game went back and forth all game long seeing both teams hold leads of 2 goals or more, only to see the other team battle back right through into overtime.

Joe Robertson scored 2 goals and had 3 assists on the day including the game winner in overtime, his second game winning OT goal of the season. Brennan O'Neill tallied 3 goals and 2 assists and Mike Sowers went for 3 goals in the Blue Devils win.

Dox Aitken and Charlie Bertrand paced UVA with 3 goals each on the day and Payton Cormier and Matt Moore each put up 2 goals of their own in the Cav's loss.

Alex Rode and Max Adler each had great days in net for their respective teams. Rode put up 16 saves for UVA in the losing effort and Adler put up 16 of his own and got the W.

Pete LaSalla had a great game for UVA winning 18 of 27 face-offs against Jake Naso who coming into the game was the best face-off guy in the ACC in terms of win percentage.  But LaSalla won the day dominating the dot and put up a goal of his own, but alas it wasn't enough to get Virginia the win.

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Maryland gets the top spot in Inside Lacrosse's new media poll and I'll talk about why I think that Notre Dame probably deserves it. I will go through and outline my own top 10 as I also think they have Virginia and Duke reversed and I think Denver and Rutgers are both ranked too highly.

There are a lot of guys playing really well at the face-off dot, but I'm going to go through why I think Petey LaSalla is the best face-off athlete in the country, and it's not actually all that close thanks to his 11 points on the season.

There were a couple of OT games on the D3 landscape over the weekend with Gettysburg and Stevenson both needing an extra period to pull off wins.

And as always we'll do a bit of a preview on the biggest games coming up this weekend, starting with Duke @ Virginia, North Carolina @ Syracuse, Hopkins @ Rutgers and many more.

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