One of the tidbits from my visit to Georgetown's lacrosse practice was an update on attackman Brendan Cannon, who suffered a sprained left ankle against Rutgers on Saturday.

Cannon (23 goals, 21 assists) was in a walking boot and has not practiced this week for the Hoyas (9-3), who visit Penn State on Saturday.

"The ankle's doing well," Cannon said. "There's a good chance I'll be able to play on Saturday. I'm just being cautious with it and doing what I can. I won't push it too hard because it's a serious injury to an extent, but I think I should be able to go on Saturday."

If Georgetown was safely in the NCAA tournament field, it would be absurd for Cannon to play when he could rest a week and be ready for the postseason. But unlike most seasons of late, the Hoyas need to beat (or, more precisely, avoid losing to) the struggling Nittany Lions.

If Cannon does play, Georgetown has to hope it can run out to an early lead in much the same way it did last week so they can get him out of there as quickly as possible. And if he doesn't, the Hoyas can only hope to avoid the sort of loss that could potentially end their 11-year NCAA tournament streak.

Since, as coach Dave Urick points out, Cannon has a long history of missing practice with injuries and then playing, I suspect Cannon will indeed give it a go in State College. But it goes without saying the Hoyas would love to get him as much rest as possible heading into the postseason.

--- Patrick Stevens

Virginia doesn't play the final weekend of the lacrosse season, so it gives coach Dom Starsia a chance to disperse his coaching staff throughout the eastern half of the United States.

Assistant Marc Van Arsdale was at tonight's America East semifinals and will fly out to Detroit to see the GWLL semis tomorrow. Assistant Hannon Wright will take in Hopkins-Loyola and Hofstra-Drexel on Saturday. And Starsia will be at Princeton-Brown on Saturday afternoon.

But apparently, scouting the final weekend is something of a Sisyphean task for the Cavaliers --- there's always plenty more to do once the 16-team field is released.

"Of course, we won't play the teams we go see," Starsia said, pointing out that it is nearly inevitable for the Cavaliers to draw someone they don't scout during the season-ending bye.

Who, then, could continue the Cavaliers' wicked luck in such a scenario? UMBC is a possibility. So are Georgetown, Navy and perhaps Army, though the Black Knights would require a flight to make it to Charlottesville.

If indeed it is the Retrievers, you can be sure Starsia will get a chuckle out of it on his conference call with reporters on Sunday night.

--- Patrick Stevens

The top seeds advanced in both the CAA (Hofstra and Drexel) and the America East (Albany and lucky-to-be-alive UMBC) over the last two nights.

So beyond awarding a bid, how do those two title games matter for Sunday's tournament selection announcement?

Quite a bit, especially if you assume both conferences are one-bid leagues --- and after looking at UMBC's RPI and strength of schedule, the Retrievers' victories over Maryland and Ohio State might not be enough to offset things like losing to Rutgers and being forced to play winless Hartford and better but still sub-.500 Vermont once and annoyingly scary and aesthetically displeasing Binghamton twice.

(I say that with reverence for a Binghamton team that found ways to stay close to a few opponents that outgunned it; it doesn't change the fact five of the Bearcats' 12 games featured a total of 11 goals or less. I shudder at the thought of games decided by 3-2 and 5-1 margins).

All of this is because of the NCAA's limit of two flights for the first round. The number seems to dance around every year between 300 and 350 miles, though I have it on good authority a Baltimore school can be shipped to the Research Triangle without hopping on the Southwest shuttle to RDU I am so fond of.

Right now, Drexel is a possible fit to travel to Virginia. But if that berth goes to Hofstra, you can be sure the Pride will be sent to Cornell or Maryland or Hopkins. UMBC is a distinct possibility for a trip to Chapel Hill. But putting Albany (on the fast track to Cornell or Syracuse) into the field means a Loyola or a Georgetown or even a western representative could find themselves hanging out on Franklin Street next weekend.

Of course, the western representative --- quite possibly a Notre Dame team with a strong RPI --- might be playing host to a tournament game for the first time. And in that instance, just about any unseeded team would be a candidate for a trip westward.

Eighteen games remain in the regular season, and only two --- Dartmouth-Harvard and Rutgers-Massachusetts --- don't feature at least one team that plausibly has a chance to make the tournament and thus impact their postseason profile one way or another.

So breaking down what's unfolded is all well and good; but there's still a lot to come.

And by the way, it's 72 hours and ticking until the selection announcement.

That, of course, means a lot.

Because of a great marketing machine that has made the NFL as ubiquitous as Starbucks, construction along the Pennsylvania Turnpike and terrible reality TV shows, the league never quite disappears from the public's consciousness at any time of the year.

It's an amazing Jedi mind trick, getting people to obsess over mini-camps and draft combines and whether a guy will be a pre- or post-June 1 cut --- in the big picture, very silly stuff that isn't worth obsessing over unless you're actually personally involved in the mini-camp, draft combine or pre- or post-June 1 cut. And it also gets people to look ahead to a draft that won't occur for another 52 weeks.

And while I try to avoid the league more than most, it is impossible to ignore it completely when you cover a guy who is quickly being adorned as a possible first-round pick next year: Maryland wideout Darrius Heyward-Bey.

I've been around when Hey-Bey has been asked about the pros, and his replies are so much out of the "saying the right thing" vein that I don't have any of them on hand --- they just aren't worth transcribing because they are exactly what you would expect him to say. He'll need to stock up on variations of "saying the right thing," since it appears the 6-foot-2, 206-pound junior will receive plenty such questions in the next nine months.

Other people are talking plenty about Heyward-Bey. In just the last week or so, this stuff has popped up:

* SI named him as one of a dozen first-rounders for next year.

* Draftking.com has Hey-Bey as a No. 5 overall selection to San Francisco. It's amazing someone is actually projecting which draft position each team will assume, and then who they will draft/be in need of a year from now.

* NFLdraftwatch.net sends Heyward-Bey to Chicago at No. 16. At least this guy just based his draft order on the reverse of the Vegas odds to win the Super Bowl.

* Collegefootballnews.com doesn't list him as a first-rounder. He is, however, the No. 3-ranked wideout behind Florida's Percy Harvin and Texas Tech's efficient Michael Crabtree.

* Rivals.com figures Heyward-Bey to be the No. 14 pick to Houston, behind Crabtree but well ahead of Harvin.

Of course, all of this is meaningless. Three months ago, Maryland fans figured linebacker Erin Henderson was leaving to become a third- or fourth-round pick and he went undrafted. Lots of things can happen to Heyward-Bey in the next year, from getting injured to rolling up a 1,000-yard season, from being stuck in an inert offense that juggles quarterbacks to being the centerpiece of a team that contends for an ACC title. Oh, and maybe Heyward-Bey will stick around for his senior year, too.

No matter how it plays out, Hey-Bey will have some hype to contend with along the way.

--- Patrick Stevens

Those familiar with the work of author Simon Winchester probably know about the great work he did in examining earthquakes in "A Crack in the Edge of the World."

(OK, I probably lost a lot of you. But there is a point to this, besides linking to a solid summer reading choice.)

Anyway, Winchester discusses a lot of the history behind plate tectonic theory, meandering along the way to talk about a great many topics and neatly tying them in to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

That event was a startling event for obvious reasons, and did a great deal to change the landscape of the Bay area (and eventually helped people understand what the heck had just happened).

Anyway, an event that could be incredibly disruptive to the college lacrosse world --- its own massive tectonic shift, if you will --- could be coming later this month: The formation of a Big East men's lacrosse conference.

The Syracuse Post-Standard's Dave Rahme examined this in Sunday's edition, with Syracuse AD Daryl Gross saying he was on board for if and when the topic arose at this month's conference athletic director meetings in Florida.

(If I was Winchester, I would begin a sharp-witted 10-page aside on how athletic directors manage to find a way to go to a nice resort for a few days, filling some meetings around inevitable trips to the golf course. I'll only say it must be nice work if you can get it, and I don't have the patience for golf.)

Anyway, one of the two sticking points Rahme looks at are getting Providence and Villanova to add financial support to their programs, since at least one of the two is needed to make the conference big enough to earn an automatic NCAA berth (and make it a worthwhile endeavor, since everyone but Syracuse already is in a league with an AQ and the Orange have done well for themselves as an independent).

The other is Gross' insistence the league tournament be played at the Carrier Dome every year, giving ingrained national power Syracuse an extra edge annually.

I brought that up with Georgetown's Dave Urick when I swung by the school yesterday afternoon.

"Gee, I don't know. I think it would be nice to have it in the nation's capital every year," Urick said. "Come down here and see the cherry blossoms. I'm not sure where that's coming from. I think there's a few other teams in the Big East that might want to weigh on that. I talked to the Notre Dame coach [Kevin Corrigan] about it and he had the same reaction you did --- a little bit of a chuckle.

"That's a little down the road a ways. It hasn't occurred yet. I think we're getting very close to Big East lacrosse, and I think that's a good thing. Hopefully, it continues to move in a positive direction and we get there someday. I think we're a lot closer now than we ever have been, but it's not a done deal."

Rumblings in the coaching community suggest this could be in place by the 2010 season, and this is where the tectonic shift occurs. The Big East would take teams out of the ECAC, the Colonial, the Great Western Lacrosse League and the Metro Atlantic, potentially setting off a chain reaction in all of those conferences. It would also leave Johns Hopkins as the lone powerful independent.

Toss in the fact the heretofore nonexistent in lacrosse Northeast Conference will have six teams playing the sport once Bryant moves up to Division I next year and another league could form as well (The NEC would peel teams from the MAAC, the CAA and the GWLL), and the possibility the MAAC takes in regular members Fairfield and Loyola and the landscape could be incredibly different.

There are only eight leagues in Division I lacrosse, and chances half of them --- the America East, the ACC, the Ivy League and the Patriot League --- will emerge in their same form. Two leagues will be added, and the ECAC is the top candidate to be erased from the sport's map altogether.

Remember, none of this is guaranteed to happen, and chances are the future will not be identical to this. But it could be like when Homer Simpson turned a toaster into a time machine; the final outcome might turn out to be close enough to previous expectations, minus a meeting with an ill-tempered Mr. Peabody.

It's just one man's guess. Perhaps Penn State joins Ohio State in the GWLL rather than taking associate membership in a souped-up CAA with the Buckeyes (either way, the schools make for a logical partnership since they are the only Big Ten schools in Division I). Maybe Saint Joseph's and VMI head someplace other than their current MAAC membership.

But even if those projections are correct, there's no question it's still a different looking world. It would impact 35 of what will be 59 Division I programs, nearly three out of five overall.

Teams in black would remain in their current leagues.
Teams in blue would switch leagues.
Teams in green have announced plans to establish Division I programs or move up from Division II.

Anyone have any thoughts on the possibility of this brave new world, or is it just full of sound and fury? (And I'll take any other Shakespearean allusions if you've got them).

--- Patrick Stevens

Notre Dame and Ohio State play on.

Denver is done.

Cornell will be staying in Ithaca for the first two weekends of the tournament.

That's the key moving and shaking from today's games.

There's still probably a surprise or two out there tomorrow, but today's five games featured a mild upset in the MAAC (VMI over Providence) and otherwise predictable results.

So the bracket remains close to what it was, though Ohio State slips ahead of Army for the final spot --- for now. If the Buckeyes win on Sunday, they'll be in the field anyway and Notre Dame returns to the pile of at-large possibilities. If they lose, their profile will probably sustain enough damage to drop them out of the field.

But no one knows for sure.

(1) Duke vs. ECAC/Loyola

* If there's two western teams in the field, it is bad news for the Greyhounds. The selection committee's limit of two flights pretty much consigns Loyola to a trip to Durham unless VMI can spring a second upset in the Metro Atlantic tournament.

(8) Georgetown vs. GWLL/Notre Dame

* A matchup that remains unchanged from earlier in the week. Somebody's got to earn the No. 8 seed, and these teams are as likely as anyone to secure it.

(5) Johns Hopkins vs. PATRIOT/Colgate

* The mileage cutoff for the selection committee when determining who flies and who is stuck on a charter bus is 350 miles; Mapquest says Hamilton, N.Y., is 323 miles from Baltimore. So this pairing is definitely possible.

(4) North Carolina vs. AMERICA EAST/UMBC

* A Baltimore team can be bused to the Research Triangle, making the selection committee's job a lot easier. It would be stunning if the Tar Heels aren't paired with Loyola, UMBC or a western team.

(3) Virginia vs. CAA/Drexel

* A rematch of the teams' season opener in Philadelphia. A Hofstra win in the CAA title game means a much better chance for a western team to land in Charlottesville.

(6) Maryland vs. IVY/Princeton

* Let's be perfectly clear about the Tigers: They'd better win tomorrow at Brown. The home victories over Cornell and Hofstra are nice and the RPI and SOS numbers aren't dead weights. But the AQ is Princeton's road into the tournament, especially since a loss will hurt its computer numbers.

(7) Cornell vs. Ohio State

* I'm still inclined to believe Army will end up opposite the Big Red if they take care of Penn tomorrow. As for Navy fans who still have some hope, Ithaca is 340 miles away from Annapolis.

(2) Syracuse vs. MAAC/Canisius

* From out of the frying pan and into the fire; if Canisius isn't shipped to Duke, it will most certainly be given a ticket east on the New York State Thruway to the Dome.

--- Patrick Stevens

The NCAA lacrosse tournament selection committee has a new chairman this year --- Bucknell senior associate AD Tim Pavlechko. But it's not like it's his first time he's been involved in the selection process.

It's his second year on this committee, and he spent three years as an assistant director of championships with the NCAA.

Pavlechko clarified yesterday that the distance teams are allowed to bus in the first round is 350 miles. And yes, the two-flight restriction remains in place, as well, though Pavlechko indicated there could come a time when the committee has no choice but to use more flights. With Denver losing to Ohio State last night, chances are it won't happen this year.

One other tidbit: Don't expect the three Sunday games (Notre Dame-Ohio State, VMI-Canisius, St. John's-Duke) to cause too many headaches for the committee. They'll all be done by 3 p.m. (the selection announcement is in the 9 p.m. hour), and the committee will have data at its disposal to project what the final RPIs, strength of schedules and results-based criterion depending on the outcome of any of those contests.

Here's some other insights; the last one in particular on the relative importance of head-to-head matchups should be required reading for anyone who is inclined to complain about the 16-team bracket that will be unveiled tomorrow night.

On the selection process in Indianapolis:

"We'll have our staff liaisons there, have our RPI experts that are playing out scenarios for us. As those results and as they automatic qualifiers are determined, we'll continue to evolve [the process]. We'll work Saturday night pretty late and come in Sunday morning and get going and wait for those games to be done and finalize it and put it to bed."

On reliance on mathematical formulas:

"Every time you come to the end and you're leaving teams on the bubble, you're looking at what different teams have done. You come to a point where it just just seems like there are a lot of teams that are going to be under consideration for that last spot. It just doesn't come down to two teams usually. You're talking about how some have beaten others, there's no direct head-to-head for others. There needs to be something that's different and another tool. I think the mathematical RPI, when it gets to that point, it's one of the tools.

"Maybe years ago, people and coaches always said 'If you had one big win.' Now, I think there a lot of 'one big wins.' I think that's where it comes to how the game's grown and how programs have evolved. You look at the conferences that are stronger, and that's great for the game. It does create some challenges for the committee. I think that's where the perception it's a numbers game comes from, that the numbers play a more important role."

On the value of head-to-head, which is NOT one of the primary selection criteria.

"It's something where it's part of our criteria. It's another tool. It's not the only thing. It is something that is used to evaluate the cross section of a team's schedule and the wins and losses they've had. It's a matter of how much weight does it give? It give weight, looking at seeding and two teams on the border. But there are rarely two teams on the border. It is relevant where there are only two teams left you're looking it. There are so many other factor and so many other tools. It's not just black and white, this team played this other team. There are so many other peripherals. Head-to-head is one tool. It's not the only tool."

--- Patrick Stevens

You didn't need to be a graduate of one of the prestigious institutions of higher learning listed in the subject line to know both simply needed a victory on the road today to lock up an NCAA tournament berth.

Princeton would have snared the Ivy League's AQ with a win at Brown. Georgetown would have safely placed itself in the at-large pool by dumping sub-.500 Penn State.

And neither did.

So that is going to make for a very interesting 24 hours for both teams --- especially Georgetown.

The Hoyas were up 11-9 with a minute to play before yielding a pair of goals. They proceeded to win the opening faceoff and took a shot rather than call a timeout. The shot was saved, Penn State called a timeout and missed on their next possession.

Georgetown proceeded to run down the field, not bother with a timeout, and gain have a shot saved by Penn State's Drew Adams. The Nittany Lions didn't let their second chance escape, with Max VanArsdale scoring with 2:23 left in OT to secure the 12-11 victory.

Something tells me the decision not to call a timeout either time could haunt the Hoyas tomorrow night.

Apparently, some fans agree. Within minutes of the loss, a thread entitled "Georgetown '09" was posted on laxpower.com.

The Hoyas can only hope they have a little bit of '08 left. But with a loss to a team in the bottom half of Division I, the forecast got a whole lot bleaker.

--- Patrick Stevens

It looked so much like the perfect cap to a completely befuddling day.

Team by team that simply needed to win to secure an NCAA tournament berth fell by the wayside. And when UMBC was down 8-1 in the second quarter, I IM'd one of the copy editors on our desk.

"[They're] getting reamed," I noted. "They ain't coming back from that."

Oops.

The Retrievers just wrapped up a remarkable 14-13 victory over Albany, punching their third straight NCAA tournament trip despite trailing 11-2 in the middle of the second quarter.

In the process, they avoided joining Georgetown, Princeton, Army and Drexel as teams that may well have played their way out of the tournament today.

A bracketology update is coming up.

--- Patrick Stevens

Everything seems so cut and dried coming into the weekend to me. But on Thursday afternoon, Virginia coach Dom Starsia warned me that anyone who really thought they knew how everything would play out was bluffing.

As if anyone needed a clarification, the insightful, sagacious Ivy Leaguer is going to be right more often than not. And he certainly was this time.

The Saturday of surprises has shuffled up everything outside of the top seven seeds, which remained relatively stable this weekend. But everything else is in flux, and it's anyone's guess who earns the final three at-large berths.

Here's mine --- for now, anyway. I'll sleep on all this and try to give it one last shot tomorrow.

It is surely a season the committee has a difficult task.

(1) Duke vs. ECAC/Loyola

* No one is rooting for VMI more than the Greyhounds. There could be an intriguing trickle down if the Keydets make the tournament --- perhaps VMI paired with Duke, Loyola shipped to Virginia, Navy paired with North Carolina and UMBC paired with Syracuse and Navy sent to Syracuse.

(8) GWLL/Notre Dame vs. Denver

* Can this matchup happen, since the teams are in the same league? Maybe not. But Denver edges out Georgetown, Brown and Princeton for the final at-large berth simply because the Pioneers have done nothing egregiously bad and have a decent schedule strength.

(5) Johns Hopkins vs. CAA/Hofstra

* If the seeds held in this bracket, the Blue Jays would have a chance to chase a title and pursue a vengeance tour at the same time. Hofstra, North Carolina and Duke all dealt the Hop losses, as did the two best teams in the bottom half of the draw (Virginia and Syracuse).

(4) North Carolina vs. AMERICA EAST/UMBC

* The Retrievers did well last year when it drew an ACC team that passed the computer test better than the eyeball test. This could be another upset opportunity for a team that needed a pair of highwire acts to survive the America East tournament.

(3) Syracuse vs. MAAC/Canisius

* The Orange cost themselves a shot at the No. 2 seed today, but it doesn't really matter that much. It probably set up an upstate New York quadrant of the bracket.

(6) IVY/Cornell vs. PATRIOT/Colgate

* The Raiders have a case for the final seeded spot in the field. At the least, it won't be an easy opener for the Ivy League champion Big Red, which locked up an AQ when Princeton lost at Brown.

(7) Maryland vs. Ohio State

* The Terrapins' offense finally started clicking today, dropping 16 on Yale to secure the team's best output since basketball's Selection Sunday. Maryland would need some scoring punch against the Buckeyes, who have suffered three of their four losses in overtime.

(2) Virginia vs. Navy

* Navy managed not to lose on a bye week, which ultimately meant the Midshipmen were big-time winners. Victories over Ohio State, Maryland and Colgate all look a bit better, and the Mids' solid RPI and strength of schedule didn't take hits this weekend.

--- Patrick Stevens

After a topsy-turvy Saturday, today's three games held to form.

Notre Dame and Canisius won their respective conference tournaments. Duke handled St. John's in its regular season finale.

As a result, I'll stick with my projected field from last night. The last three at-large berths go to Ohio State, Navy and Denver. Of course, those spots could also go to Army, Georgetown and Brown. Or Princeton, Drexel and one of those other six teams. It's still a bit of guesswork.

However, I will offer an alternate bracketing from last night, since Maryland coach Dave Cottle, a selection committee member, told me last week there is a requirement to avoid pairing teams from the same league in the first round.

(That must have been developed in the last few years; Rutgers and Georgetown played in 2003 despite their ECAC membership).

If three teams from the west make it, and the ban on league rematches is in effect, it would require the committee to go beyond its limit of two flights in the first round. I brought that scenario up with committee chairman Tim Pavlechko last week.

"We seed 1 to 8, and from then on it's trying to be fiscally responsible with those flights," Pavlechko said. "You look at the teams and the flights that are then selected. That's an important thing. Once the 16-team field is filled, the committee will go into those pairings and look at that. There might be a time where we might have more. [But] our guidelines say we have to be fiscally responsible."

Maybe that time has arrived. And this bracket would certainly reflect it, and would be much more balanced than last night's effort:

(1) Duke vs. ECAC/Loyola

* The Blue Devils start out with a regular-season rematch with a team they drilled 21-8 back in March.

(8) GWLL/Notre Dame vs. PATRIOT/Colgate

* There are enough numbers floating about that suggest Notre Dame is a top-five team. The Irish's strength of schedule is not one of them. They deserve their first-ever home tournament game, but common sense should prevail and keep them from rising too much higher than No. 8.

(5) Johns Hopkins vs. Navy

* The GWLL final didn't go the way the Mids hoped it might, but it was still a very useful weekend for Richie Meade and Co. A trip to Homewood can't be much more frustrating than than drilling the Blue Jays delivered last month.

(4) North Carolina vs. AMERICA EAST/UMBC

* UMBC could go a great many places; so much depends on how heavily the Retrievers' America East-influenced strength of schedule is really weighed.

(3) Syracuse vs. MAAC/Canisius

* Even if only two western teams are in the field, this is an easy safety valve for the committee to claim "fiscal responsibility.

(6) IVY/Cornell vs. CAA/Hofstra

* If the Pride isn't shipped to Ithaca, it might end up at Hopkins or Maryland. Cornell's alternate opponents include Colgate or a western team.

(7) Maryland vs. Ohio State

* This is just one guess, though the Buckeyes have a pretty decent case for inclusion --- victories over North Carolina and Denver (twice).

(2) Virginia vs. Denver

* Navy, Ohio State and UMBC are also logical options to be shipped to Charlottesville.

--- Patrick Stevens

The NCAA has posted its final lacrosse RPI, which is supposed to account for 30 percent of the selection criteria.

If this was purely an exercise in RPI, the nine at-large teams would be Duke (No. 1), Syracuse (No. 2), Virginia (No. 3), North Carolina (No. 5), Johns Hopkins (No. 7), Ohio State (No. 8), Maryland (No. 10), Denver (No. 12) and Princeton (No. 13).

Just missing the cut would be Brown (No. 14) and Navy (No. 15). Georgetown, by the way, is at No. 18.

Of course, there's more to it than just one mathematical formula. So everyone will have to sit and wait a couple more hours until Quint Kessenich pops up on the magic box to discuss the selections on ESPNU.

--- Patrick Stevens

All games on ESPNU.

Georgetown's out. Navy's in. Three teams from the west --- and three flights this season, too.

More to come later in the night.

FIRST ROUND

SATURDAY

Denver at No. 7 Maryland, noon
Loyola at No. 1 Duke, 2:30
Ohio State at No. 8 Cornell, 5
Navy at No. 4 North Carolina, 7:30

SUNDAY
Colgate at No. 6 Notre Dame, noon
Hofstra at No. 5 Johns Hopkins, 2:30
UMBC at No. 2 Virginia, 5
Canisius at No. 3 Syracuse, 7:30

QUARTERFINALS

May 17, Annapolis

UNC/Navy vs. Hopkins/Hofstra
Virginia/UMBC vs. Maryland/Denver

May 18, Ithaca. N.Y.

Duke/Loyola vs. Cornell/OSU
Syracuse/Canisius vs. ND/Colgate

SEMIFINALS

May 24, Foxboro, Mass.

FINAL

May 26, Foxboro, Mass.

--- Patrick Stevens

There are some big names absent from the NCAA tournament. Princeton certainly is one of them.

Georgetown is the other. The Hoyas' 11-year tournament streak is over, as is their six-year run of quarterfinal losses.

Instead, they'll look back at road setbacks against Loyola and Penn State as what kept them at home.

Make no mistake --- the Hoyas are the most talented team sitting on the sideline. And they may well be the best team snubbed since the field expanded to 16 teams.

But, ultimately, it wasn't a surprise.

Georgetown played in an unusually down league this season, with half the eight teams under .500 overall, another team at .500 on the button (Penn State) and a league champion (Loyola) at 7-6.

Saturday's loss was killer. Penn State, to be kind, simply wasn't all that great this season (though the Nittany Lions did manage to scuttle the at-large hopes of both Bucknell and Georgetown down the stretch). Georgetown also led 11-9 entering the final minutes, and would have probably edged into the field had it just managed to hold on.

Not to steal too much thunder from tomorrow's print edition, but here were some of coach Dave Urick's comments to me about 20 minutes after the selection show. The phone was ringing off the hook at his home --- I heard a couple calls coming in during our five-minute conversation --- and I suspect he made a similar case to anyone who would listen:

"Navy is the one we're going to have the toughest time coming to grips with," Urick said. "When you beat a team head to head on their field — and we also had a win over Duke, which no one else had. ...

"When you watch the selection show for basketball, one of the things they point out is how teams finish the season up. If you look at Navy, they lost their last three and four of their last five. I don't know if this committee does [take that into account]."

Just some quick hitters on each series to whet the appetite until tomorrow morning.

No. 1 Duke vs. Loyola

* Duke leads series, 10-7

* Duke won last meeting 21-8 (March 8, at Loyola)

* The teams have never met in the NCAA tournament.

No. 8 Cornell vs. Ohio State

* Series tied 1-1

* Ohio State won last meeting 8-7 (2001)

* The teams have never met in the NCAA tournament,

No. 5 Johns Hopkins vs. Hofstra

* Hopkins leads series 16-4

* Hofstra won last meeting 8-7 in overtime (March 8, at Hofstra)

* Hopkins has won all three NCAA tournament meetings (1974, 1978, 1999 quarterfinals)

No. 4 North Carolina vs. Navy

* Series tied 11-11

* North Carolina won last meeting 12-8 (May 13, 2007, at North Carolina)

* North Carolina is 4-1 against Navy in the NCAA tournament. Navy won in 1976 quarterfinals; North Carolina won in 1980 (quarters), 1981 (semis), 1982 (quarters) and 2007 (first round)

No. 3 Syracuse vs. Canisius

* First meeting

No. 6 Notre Dame vs. Colgate

* Notre Dame leads series 1-0

* Notre Dame won only meeting 11-10 (March 28, 1987, in Geneva, N.Y.)

No. 7 Maryland vs. Denver

* Maryland leads series 3-0

* Maryland won last meeting 16-8 (May 13, 2006, in College Park)

* Maryland won the teams' only NCAA tournament meeting (2006 first round)

No. 2 Virginia vs. UMBC

* Virginia leads series 12-2

* Virginia won last meeting 20-9 (April 27, 1996, in Catonsville, Md.

* The teams have never met in the NCAA tournament

--- Patrick Stevens

They're all important, so pay no heed to the order. And while there could be 10 if I dug hard enough, but it's a bit late. If you want a sixth, the Washington Post's Christian Swezey offers this up. If you want a seventh, I suppose it's fair to point out that only one No. 8 seed has even made it past the quarterfinals (1999 Syracuse), let alone won a title.

1. Thou shalt have a top-four seed.

It's pretty simple; only one team has managed to win a national title from a slot below a No. 4 seed since the tournament began in 1971. That was North Carolina in 1986. It helps to be a top-three seed; just two No. 4 seeds --- 1987 Hopkins and 2004 Syracuse --- went home with the hardware.

Favors: Duke, Virginia, Syracuse, North Carolina
Does not favor: Everybody else

2. Thou shalt have reached at least the quarterfinals last year.

Only six teams have won a title without having made the final four the previous year (minus the first champion, of course). Of those, only 1983 Syracuse didn't have even a quarterfinal appearance to its credit.

Favors: Duke, North Carolina, Johns Hopkins, Cornell
Does not favor: Everybody else

3. Thou shalt not have lost by double-digits during the regular season.

Only two teams have ever lost by 10 goals during a regular season and rallied to win a title: 1986 North Carolina and 2004 Syracuse. Both teams took 12-goal trouncings at Hopkins, and both defeated the Blue Jays in the semifinals.

But they're exceptions, not the rule. National title-caliber teams tend not to get run off the field.

Favors: Duke, Syracuse, Notre Dame
Does not favor: Virginia, North Carolina, Johns Hopkins

4. Thou shalt not have lost more than two straight games at any juncture.

Johns Hopkins of last year is an anomaly; no other team has ever overcome a three-game losing streak and still won a title. Of course, the Blue Jays had a five-game skid this year, so maybe they can make history again.

Does not favor: Johns Hopkins, Denver, Navy, Canisius
Favors: Everybody else

5. Thou shalt have a coach who has been to the final four before.

Only five coaches have won a tournament in the first time they went to the semifinals. Two (Cornell's Richie Moran and Virginia's Glenn Thiel) did it the first two years of the tournament. Two other guys (Don Zimmerman with 1984 Hopkins and Dave Klarmann with 1991 Carolina) took over pretty well-stocked teams. And Bill Tierney outfoxed everyone in 1992 for the first of his six titles at Princeton.

And that's it. Since Tierney's first title, 13 coaches have made their first Division I final four appearance. And all of them --- Peter Lasagna, Dom Starsia, Mike Pressler, Dave Urick, John Desko, John Haus, Kevin Corrigan, Dave Pietramala, Richie Meade, Greg Cannella, Bob Shillinglaw, Jeff Tambroni and John Danowski --- left without a title in that initial final four foray.

Does not favor: Ohio State, Denver, Colgate, Hofstra, Canisius, Loyola
Favors: Everybody else

Long story short: Everything favors Duke, which makes them an even safer pick to finally collect the program's first national title.

--- Patrick Stevens

You have to feel pretty good when a traveler you leave a voicemail with returns your call before he even picks up his bag from the luggage carousel.

It's even better when it's the chairman of a tournament selection committee that wrapped up its work a few hours earlier.

It's getting pretty late --- and I want to have some goodies left over for tomorrow --- but here is Bucknell senior associate AD and lacrosse committee chair Tim Pavlechko's take on the exclusion of Georgetown from this year's field.

"Georgetown had a great year and there were more than 16 teams that deserve to be in this tournament," Pavlechko said. "There was a bundle of teams that we were splitting hairs on. Georgetown was one of the teams we spent a lot of time talking about. We held as firm as we could to the selection criteria, and looking at the one thing that was most difficult for Georgetown was the strength of schedule."

Pavlechko also mentioned the results-driven criteria as well, but this pretty much confirms what seemed to be the best explanation for Georgetown's exclusion: The ECAC was middling at best this season, and the Hoyas were forced to play seven of their 13 games against that competition.

Even after tossing Mount St. Mary's and league opponents Fairfield and St. John's from the strength of schedule equation, Georgetown still had to count Penn State, Rutgers and Massachusetts among its top 10 opponents. And in reality, Loyola, Hobart and Delaware didn't do all that much to help, either.

Compare that with at-large pick Denver, which got to jettison anyone not in the top half of the final RPI from its schedule strength calculation. Or Navy, which just played a larger number of quality teams (Hopkins, Maryland, Ohio State, Georgetown, Cornell, Bucknell, Army, Colgate twice) than the Hoyas did.

OK, that's it for tonight. Expect plenty more fallout tomorrow and the opening of the tournament inches closer.

--- Patrick Stevens

Been a little busy the last few days, with the NCAA's release of the Academic Progress Rate filling up a lot of time yesterday.

Since Howard's football team incurred penalties from the NCAA, it bumped the usual lead of any academics-related story --- Maryland basketball --- deeper into the story.

Still, it was important to talk to Terrapins coach Gary Williams, who has his lines for these occasions well-rehearsed by now.

I happen to agree with Williams' assertion that it's a prudent decision for guys to withdraw from classes to pursue far more money in pro basketball than they'd make initially coming out of school and entering the "real" workforce.

It's especially true when the NBA is in play. No one should begrudge Maryland or D.J. Strawberry for Strawberry's decision last spring to bolt College Park --- a choice that ultimately got him into Phoenix's organization.

But what is irritating is Williams' eagerness to toy with the numbers. He proudly said the Terps would be 8-for-10 in graduating seniors whose eligibility expired between 2007 and 2009.

That's all well and good, but for the NCAA's purposes, it's really 6-for-8. Walk-ons, such as Gini Chukura and Jason McAlpin, don't count in the calculations, and I pointed this out to Williams.

"He's my player and he counts to me. ...," Williams said. "People are always trying to put labels on people. It happens a lot of the time. I'm not one of those people."

That's certainly swell. There's no doubt Chukura and McAlpin are good guys and were useful parts for the Terps in recent years. But no scholarship means no consideration in the NCAA's number crunching. That goes for the APR and for the graduation success rate, in which Maryland so famously earned a zero percent for last fall.

There are things to argue about in the APR system. Since an athlete can get two points each semester --- one for eligibility, one for retention/graduation --- anyone who transfers automatically costs the school a point. So Maryland will lose a point for Shane Walker's transfer, even though Williams said Walker will leave College Park in good academic standing.

What does not help is to be disingenuous about the numbers. Ekene Ibekwe, Will Bowers and Parrish Brown graduated last year, while Mike Jones and Strawberry did not. James Gist and Bambale Osby are expected to graduate this month. Williams said Dave Neal is on track to graduate next spring.

That makes 6-for-8 on scholarship players, which is good --- but not as good as 8-for-10. The tendency toward statistical chicanery does not enhance any arguments coming from Williams, it hurts them. And heavens knows he'll be making them for a few more years.

The mass exodus of the class of 2006 (Chris McCray, Nik Caner-Medley, Travis Garrison and Sterling Ledbetter) will anchor down Maryland's APR for a couple more years before that class finally cycles out of the data. And that will leave Williams to put his own spin on the academic state of his program in the interim, a lingering black eye and nuisance from a group whose exploits are not exactly the stuff of legend in College Park.

--- Patrick Stevens

To find finalists for most postseason awards, it's usually easy enough to pluck a player off each of the top four or so teams and then add in someone else, even if it's from one of the teams already represented.

This year's bunch of Tewaaraton Trophy finalists perfectly fits that description.

No. 1 Duke has Matt Danowski and Zack Greer.

No. 2 Virginia has Ben Rubeor.

No. 3 Syracuse has Mike Leveille.

No. 4 (according to the Inside Lacrosse poll) Johns Hopkins has Paul Rabil.

Funny thing is, if you replaced Leveille with Cornell's Max Seibald, you would have come up with the likely list a casual fan would have produced in the preseason.

So there's no qualms with the Tewaaraton committee at all, even if the results were reasonably predictable.

As for who wins the thing? I'd take a guy from whoever wins the national title. The last six winners came from the team that captured the championship, and since the vote occurs after the tournament, the results will loom quite large in the minds of panel members.

--- Patrick Stevens

For those fortunate enough to have ESPNU, there will be back-to-back live lacrosse quadrupleheaders this weekend.

If you're me, you'll be covering games at Maryland and Virginia and maybe ducking into a College Park establishment to catch one or two of the games Saturday evening. But you're not me, so you might have a chance to sample a little bit of every game.

Everyone has their preferred announcers, even in this sport, so I thought I'd mention which broadcasters the WWL is deploying for the first round.

Dave Cohen and Mark Dixon: Denver at Maryland, Saturday, noon; Colgate at Notre Dame, Sunday, noon.

Eamon McAnaney and Matt Ward: Loyola at Duke, Saturday, 2:30 p.m.; Hofstra at Johns Hopkins, Sunday, 2:30 p.m.

Rob Simmelkjaer and Jack Emmer: Ohio State at Cornell, Saturday, 5 p.m.; Canisius at Syracuse, Sunday, 7:30 p.m.

Dave Ryan, Quint Kessenich and Melissa Knowles: Navy at North Carolina, Saturday, 7:30 p.m.; UMBC at Virginia, Sunday, 5 p.m.

--- Patrick Stevens

Lacrosse coaches, like their football and basketball brethren, love to talk about parity. And compared to a decade ago, parity very much exists.

But it is usually not enough to neutralize a home-field advantage in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

This is the sixth year of the 16-team tournament with home sites in the opening games. And if the first 40 games in this format are any indication, there probably won't be many surprises this weekend.

The home team is 35-5, with only 2003 Georgetown (at Rutgers), 2005 Cornell (at Towson), 2006 Massachusetts (at Cornell), 2007 Delaware (at Virginia) and 2007 UMBC (at Maryland) springing upsets.

Put another way, one wacky evening last May accounted for nearly half of the road victories in the first round over the last five years.

Close games is another way of looking at it. A fair definition of "close" is probably three goals, though it isn't hard to find a 9-6 game that was once a 9-3 game before things grew tighter during garbage time.

Nevertheless, of the 40 games over the last five years, just 12 have been decided by three goals or less. Four of those close games actually came in 2003, which runs counter to the parity talk.

There are certainly plenty of matchups that could prove to be close. There could even be a few victories on the road. But it's better to anticipate chalk in the first round (and often beyond), since that's what the NCAA tournament tends to serve up.

--- Patrick Stevens

It was only a month ago that the first preseason basketball rankings for 2008-09 popped up. Heck, there was one here.

Well, there have been plenty of revisions. And such is the case here as well thanks to early entrants to the NBA Draft.

Every team is treated as if their players in the draft won't be returning, so it will be worth coming out with another set of rankings in late June once the deadline to remain in the draft has passed. There are some teams that got shuffled up because they were overlooked a month ago (Oklahoma, and to a lesser extent Marquette, UNLV and Wake Forest). Guys who could theoretically return are in parentheses.

1. Connecticut. Assuming A.J. Price is healthy, the Huskies could be in very, very good shape.

2. Pittsburgh. OK, had the Panthers a tick underrated before. They'll fall back toward the middle of the top 10 as players return to school, but they'll still be formidable with Sam Young back.

3. North Carolina (Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington, Danny Green): Yep, the Tar Heels are this high even with three of their top six players in the draft. Getting Tyler Hansbrough will do that.

4. Louisville: Hey, look, another Big East team. Derrick Caracter won't be back, but that's probably for the best. Earl Clark's decision to remain makes placing the Cardinals in the top five last month looks more credible.

5. Texas (A.J. Abrams): The Longhorns won't be No. 1 without D.J. Augustin. But they still have a lot of superb pieces to remain a top-10 team.

6. UCLA (Kevin Love, Russell Westbrook, Josh Shipp, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute): The Bruins' recruiting class is good enough to land them back in contention for another Final Four trip.

7. Purdue: Scott Martin has transferred out, but the Boilermakers should still be the Big Ten's top team.

8. Duke: The Blue Devils stay where they were a month ago. And this should be about where they start next season.

9. Notre Dame: Much like Duke, the Fighting Irish should be very, very good last year (EDIT thanks to a careful reader: Next year, too. Oops!). Not sure if they can be Final Four good, but it's tough to envision them as anything but a tough out even after they fall a bit with players coming back to school.

10. Tennessee: Does Bobby Maze solve the point guard questions? Who knows. But the Volunteers are still in decent shape to pace the SEC.

11. Kansas (Mario Chalmers, Darrell Arthur)
12. Michigan State
13. Ohio State (Kosta Koufos)
14. Villanova
15. Florida (Marreese Speights)
16. Memphis (Antonio Anderson, Robert Dozier)
17. Georgetown
18. Davidson
19. West Virginia (Joe Alexander)
20. Wisconsin
21. Gonzaga (Jeremy Pargo)
22. Miami
23. San Diego
24. Oklahoma
25. Arizona State
26. Southern California
27. Syracuse (Donte Greene)
28. Xavier
29. Kentucky
30. Virginia Tech
31. UNLV
32. Clemson
33. Baylor
34. Marquette (Jerel McNeal)
35. Wake Forest

--- Patrick Stevens

Unlike Buzz Bissinger --- well, at least the pre-apologetic Buzz Bissinger --- you don't need to convince me there are some useful sports blogs out there run by fans.

One that I consider appointment reading at least a few times a week is Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician, a highly entertaining look at Syracuse sports.

Anyway, that blog linked to an interesting graphic from the Birmingham News about attendance at spring football games of BCS conference schools in the last couple months.

(You can go ahead and note the irony of finding any useful football-related tidbit in any way connected with Syracuse).

I'm not sure which a more frightening statement on society: That most people struggle to name all of the justices on the Supreme Court, or that 16 BCS schools (plus Southern Mississippi) could claim attendance figures in five figures despite actually charging fans for the privilege to watch a glorified scrimmage.

At least Missouri and Oregon can claim three food items would get you in the door.

Anyway, the median number for the 64 schools that produced attendance figures was 14,308, the average of No. 32 Rutgers and No. 33 Oregon. Michigan had a closed spring game and North Carolina held a regular scrimmage after poor weather fouled up its spring game plans, accounting for the two BCS schools not included.

It should come as little surprise that much of the ACC was below the median figure. Miami (11,000), Maryland (10,221), Georgia Tech (8,500), Wake Forest (4,100), Virginia (4,000), Boston College (3,500) and Duke (3,250) all checked in on the second half of the chart. Florida State and Virginia Tech both claimed attendance of 30,000, but that still didn't crack the top 10 nationally.

On the bright side, no ACC schools charged admission. It's oddly heartwarming to know no one was snookered out of any money in the Land of the Larger Geographic Footprint to watch vanilla football.

At least not yet this year, anyway.

--- Patrick Stevens

There's still a few more first-round goodies to get to before the NCAA lacrosse tournament starts, but what's a postseason without some picks that will inevitably be pilloried in the weeks to come.

This doesn't seem like a year to expect many surprises at the top. A Duke-Virginia-Syracuse-Hopkins final four would not be stunning, and a Duke-over-Virginia final --- in a very tight game --- is the pick here.

But first up is the round of 16, where everyone is looking for a chic upset pick. Trouble is, it probably won't be easy to find.

SATURDAY

No. 7 Maryland vs. Denver: Everyone wants to say the Pioneers don't belong in the tournament, and it very well might be true that they wouldn't beat Georgetown on a neutral field. But Denver did a great job of playing the RPI/strength of schedule game, and benefited from early wins (Colgate and Brown) that looked better than anyone would have guessed.

The Pioneers play a brand of organized chaos, but one pattern tends to stand out over the years: They don't like leaving the Mountain time zone.

Denver is 29-5 in Colorado over the last four years. Elsewhere, they are a measly 11-18.

In 2006, when both Denver and Maryland were better (and paired together), the Pioneers were 10-0 in Colorado and 2-4 elsewhere entering the tournament. The Terrapins drubbed them 16-8.

This year, Denver is 8-0 at altitude and 2-6 everywhere else. One of those wins was on a neutral field against Notre Dame, but don't bet on the Pioneers adding to the total.

Pick: Maryland 12, Denver 8

No. 1 Duke vs. Loyola: This does not look pleasant on paper. The Blue Devils won a regular season meeting 21-8 in Baltimore, and this will be the final final home game for the likes of Matt Danowski and his fellow fifth-year seniors. Loyola, which can be a bit erratic, should make it closer. But that won't stop Duke from cruising.

Pick: Duke 18, Loyola 9

No. 8 Cornell vs. Ohio State: You know what sort of team you might want to avoid picking? One that scored just two goals against anyone its last time out, especially a team that was busy demolishing the weaker sisters on its schedule in the middle of the season. The Buckeyes seemed a shade underrated for much of the season, and while Cornell is no juggernaut in 2008, the Big Red should have just enough to survive and earn a spot in the quarterfinals for the fourth time in five years.

Pick: Cornell 10, Ohio State 8

No. 4 North Carolina vs. Navy: On paper, the Tar Heels should have this one under control in Chapel Hill. But neither team has played in more than two weeks, and it's anyone's guess how that will play out. Chances are, Carolina will be fine if Grant Zimmerman gets hot and the rash of penalties incurred in the second half of the ACC semifinal loss to Duke can be avoided.

And here's a Betcha-didn't-know stat: Between Washington College, Johns Hopkins and North Carolina, John Haus-coached teams are 7-0 in their NCAA tournament openers.

Pick: North Carolina 11, Navy 9

SUNDAY

No. 6 Notre Dame vs. Colgate: It's nice to know the quarterfinal field will include at least one team that isn't a usual suspect. And in some ways, this is the most curious first round game of them all.

The computer numbers place Notre Dame's body of work in a favorable light. But the Irish is only 3-2 against teams in the tournament field and it's hard to really decipher how good they are.

No one would be surprised if Ohio State and Denver were bounced on the opening day. If Notre Dame joins them on the sideline so quickly, the howls and protests from Selection Sunday will echo into the second weekend of the tournament.

And if I was looking for an upset, this is where I'd begin to zero in, with a torrid team fresh off a victory over Syracuse making the trip to Indiana.

Pick: Colgate 11, Notre Dame 10 (OT)

No. 5 Johns Hopkins vs. Hofstra: There are lots of lacrosse traditions at Hopkins. One of them for nearly two decades has been not losing the final game of the season at Homewood Field, even if it comes in the NCAA tournament.

The Blue Jays last dropped a home finale in 1991, when Syracuse poached a quarterfinal victory in Tony Seaman's first season. Since then, the Hop has won home tournament games in 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 (twice), 2006 and 2007. That's 13 straight postseason victories at home.

So, sure, Hofstra nabbed Hopkins in lousy weather on Long Island early in the season. Lightning isn't going to strike twice, even if Seth Tierney has shown his head coaching chops in his second season with the CAA champion Pride.

Pick: Hopkins 11, Hofstra 7

No. 2 Virginia vs. UMBC: Retrievers fans don't want to hear about how their team's computer numbers weren't all that great --- not as good as Denver's, by the way. They look at their No. 5 ranking and wonder just why they got sent down to Charlottesville.

It probably would have been more fair to ship UMBC to North Carolina. But here's a reality: Attackman Ryan Smith (team-high 29 goals) tore up his knee last weekend, and that no doubt will mean something to the Doggies' offense. My guess is it won't be good, even if they performed a