NCAA D1 Lacrosse National Championship - 1pm/10am ESPN2

Submitted by WolvinLA2 on

In about an hour on ESPN2 Maryland and Denver will square off for the NCAA D1 National Championship in Philadelphia.  

Maryland is a blue-blood but hasn't won since the 70's (depite making the championship game a few times recently) and Denver has consistently been one of the best programs in the country for the last half decade at least, but hasn't been this far.  Their coach Bill Tierney, however, won multiple championships with Princeton in the late-90s.  

A couple interesting things about today's game - we will either see a Big Ten team win the title in the first year of the conference, or we'll see a non-traditional power added to the club.  The Western-most team to win the D1 Lacrosse championship is probably UNC or Duke, whoever of those is farthest West.  

Also of note, Maryland's women's team won it all yesterday, so they could double dip which is quite a feat.  

gwkrlghl

May 25th, 2015 at 12:31 PM ^

This is the exceeding rare occasion where I would be happy with either team winning. You either get to see the up-start win it all or get to the see the B1G take a huge step toward being the best lax conference in the country. The Big Ten killed it this year.

WolvinLA2

May 25th, 2015 at 1:18 PM ^

There hasn't been traditionally, but that is changing. Loyola won the national title for the first time a couple years ago, and Denver can today. Add in Notre Dame who was #1 for a big part of this season and OSU making noise in the tourney and there is a lot more parity now than there was 10 years ago. That is going to keep increasing as the sport grows at the HS level much faster than D1 teams are added.

L'Carpetron Do…

May 25th, 2015 at 11:07 PM ^

Yep- you hit it on the head. I think it s lacrosse's #1 problem. To have the same teams always win hurts the progress of the sport. I'm glad Denver was able to pull it off today. I hope that means some other ADs out west will take notice.

We need Michigan to get in there soon and it won't be long. I think it will also help if some lacrosse powers that have large general fan bases have success in the future. I would like to see more UNCs, Michigans, Ohio states and penn states making the final 4 and fewer loyolas princetons and hopkinses.

WolvinLA2

May 26th, 2015 at 12:26 AM ^

But there is way more parity now than there ever has been.  Look at OSU - relative newcomer to postseason success and not from a tradition lacrosse hotbed, but was able to make the tourney as an at-large and (kind of) beat up on two-time defending champ Duke.  And the crazy thing is they had losses to Detroit and Marquette, two new or new-ish D1 programs from the Midwest.  You've got non-powerhouse teams like Albany, Colgate and Brown (who do not recruit with the likes of Hopkins or Duke) hanging with everybody this year, Towson was the worst team in the tournament and they still gave 1-seed Notre Dame all they could handle.

I don't agree that there's no parity in college lacrosse.  That was a problem before, but not now.  Of the 8 first round games in the tournament, only 2 had the higher seed handling the lower seed and 3 of the 8 games were upsets. In a sport with only 60-some teams, that's pretty good.    About 1/5th of the teams in D1 lacrosse had a legot chance to win it all.  As a percentage of the total number of teams - that's parity.   

L'Carpetron Do…

May 26th, 2015 at 12:51 PM ^

Oh - its definitely getting better, especially compared to the old days when Syracuse or Hopkins would slaughter the designated "Western" team in the first round.  

Its  getting better, just slowly.  While its still a problem, its definitely headed the right way.   I was actually glad to see Marquette, BU and Richmond in the Top 20 this year.  Hopefully Michigan can crack it next year.

Historically, I would agree that there is little to no parity in college lacrosse, but its certainly starting to change.

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

May 26th, 2015 at 1:35 PM ^

I don't think there's any real parity in college lacrosse.  One year's competition doesn't really define that.  One of those "upsets" was a Hopkins win, which can't possibly be used to argue for parity.  Ohio State is a huge-budget school.  Albany I'll grant you, but let's see what happens when they lose Lyle Thompson.  Colgate was the shit too, when they had Peter Baum, but now they're just as meh as ever.

There might've been 11 or 12 teams with a legit chance to win it all if we stretch the hell out of the definition of legit.  That's not parity though, because mostly it's the same 11 or 12 every year.  All that's really happened is a few new teams have cracked open the door, consisting pretty much of huge-budget schools or schools that hired a coaching legend.

Take a look at hockey if you want to see parity.  Parity is Providence winning it all as a regional four seed.  Parity is the large parade of different schools in the Frozen Four every year and the very diverse, almost random, distribution of seeds.  Parity is powerhouse Wisconsin winning like three games all year.  This year in lacrosse the Final Four was three of the same four teams it was last year.  The only parity in lacrosse is among the same elite club of teams which sort of ebb and flow among themselves; the effort required to break down that door is enormous.

WolvinLA2

May 26th, 2015 at 2:06 PM ^

It's all relative. I'm not saying the parity in lacrosse is as good as every other sport, just that it's a lot better than it used to be.

Hockey is different just based on the nature of the sport. They are very low scoring games where one team can get hot and beat a few teams they aren't actually better than. That's harder to do in lacrosse.

In the last 2 of the last 4 years we've had teams win the lacrosse national title for the first time. I don't expect that to continue at that rate, but I do think we'll keep seeing new teams in the tournament and the elite 8 will start to jumble up more from year to year.

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

May 26th, 2015 at 3:24 PM ^

Hockey's also different because of the structure of the sport.  College lacrosse gets 100% of the best lacrosse players and they always stay for all four years.  Genuine hockey stars that go to college and play out their eligibility are very rare.  The lesser talent pool and increased turnover increases parity.  Probably more so than the nature of the on-ice game, because when I say parity I'm mainly referring to how things play out year over year.

That's really what drives the parity (or lack thereof) in lacrosse: the much slower roster turnover and the continual parade of elite talent to the same schools.  In hockey schools like Union or Quinnipiac can and do win the national title.  Quinnipiac hasn't even been D-I that long.  In lacrosse, Quinnipiac doesn't even have the remotest prayer.  The Final Four and final eight might get jumbled a bit, but it won't be the Quinnipiacs of the world.  It'll be the teams that can buy their way into the club.

WolvinLA2

May 25th, 2015 at 1:31 PM ^

Normally I would always cheer for the Big Ten team, but I like the idea of a new team winning it and Denver has a lot of CA kids which I obviously like. Denver is definitely looking like the better team in the first quarter.

laxalum

May 26th, 2015 at 10:10 AM ^

While I disagree with you about the potential payoff for lacrosse versus soccer (even this game ended with 15 total goals scored), I do agree this was a boring game.  It was bound to happen when two of the slowest pace of play teams in the NCAA played each other on one day of rest.  Hopefully more people tuned into the semifinals on Saturday.  Both were incredible games with great finishes.

WolvinLA2

May 25th, 2015 at 2:04 PM ^

More boring than soccer? The score right now is 5-3 in the first half, when does that happen in soccer? Also lots of big collisions, rather than a penalty every time they touch each other, like in soccer.

And there is a shot clock. The refs put it on when the offense takes too long. If you like soccer, that's your prerogative, but lacrosse is an action-heavy sport. If you don't like the sport, stay out of our thread.

gwkrlghl

May 25th, 2015 at 1:57 PM ^

I'm surprised that the lax semis were bumped to ESPN2 for a softball regional and now for a regular season MLB game. Even hockey gets the ESPN treatment for the title game and that's more niche than lacrosse at this point

gwkrlghl

May 25th, 2015 at 3:19 PM ^

Happy that Denver is about to win it all, but I always feels for the traditional power in these. I want to pull for the underdog, but I always see Michigan Hockey / Football in the traditional power(s) struggling to win a national title again

Party time in Colorado

kdhoffma

May 25th, 2015 at 3:29 PM ^

to some of the big schools in the west.  I don't agree with the ESPN announcers that it's the small, non-football powers that need to spread this sport.  I think it's the Texas, USC/UCLA's, Oregon's that really need to pick the sport up to start a western spread.

gwkrlghl

May 25th, 2015 at 3:52 PM ^

I'm sure it's only a matter of time before there are tons of schools out west fielding men's and women's teams. The sport is growing rapidly and it ain't expensive to start it up. There will be a Pac12 league in the next 10-20 years

WolvinLA2

May 25th, 2015 at 5:41 PM ^

Agreed. High school lacrosse is absolutely enormous out here and half of the top club teams are from California. You put the top kids from those 10 schools together right now and you have a competitive 4-5 schools.

I said this above, but with the speed that high school lacrosse is growing, finding talent for start up D1 teams will be no sweat. There are more "D1 level" kids than there are D1 spots.

laxalum

May 26th, 2015 at 10:07 AM ^

They didn't say that's where it NEEDS to happen.  They said that's where it is GOING TO happen.  We'd all love to see the big football schools add men's lacrosse.  That won't happen very frequently for a lot of reasons.  In the past 36 years it's happened exactly twice, at Notre Dame and Michigan.  Meanwhile a couple of dozen or more smaller D1 schools without football have added men's lacrosse.  That will continue to be the trend.

Women's lacrosse will continue to be added at big football schools with regularity.  Great Title 9 add.

ak47

May 25th, 2015 at 3:35 PM ^

This was supposed to be a rebuilding year for Maryland so getting to the championship game was a nice surprise but getting embarrassed is disappointing. They are bringing in 3 top 25 players next year though on offense so that should help.

NittanyFan

May 25th, 2015 at 10:23 PM ^

Stanford, USC, Colorado, Oregon and Cal all sponsor the sport.  They currently play women's lacrosse in something called the "Mountain Pacific Sports Federation", against other schools like St. Mary's and Fresno State and San Diego State.

Now, Arizona State needs to add a women's sport in addition to their new D-1 men's ice hockey team.  Sounds like that sport will be either women's rowing or women's lax.

If it's lacrosse --- that's six and the Pac-12 likely sponsors the sport.

The whole point here --- Pac-12 women's lacrosse may give a kick in the butt to the idea of Pac-12 men's lacrosse.  I DO believe men's lacrosse takes off big-time in the next 5-10 years, but you do need to get that "critical mass" of schools out in the west.

ElBictors

May 26th, 2015 at 12:46 PM ^

Actually being from Denver, I can say the DU program has been solid for decades.  No they hadn't won the NCAA title before, but for any team outside the New England -> Carolina corridor to make any impact was the exception.  And moreso than the goegraphical distinction for DU is the fact that until DU, there were so few programs that won the title.

This is due to a number of factors, but the most significant is the lack of depth for the sport nationally.  That is changing and changing quickly.  Kids LAX is gutting baseball leagues places like here and there are waitlists for the teams.  My company has long advertised during the LAX Tourney in part because my boss is heavily involved in the sport and has a son who was a very highly-touted recruit a year ago (with more coming out of Garden City area schools), but also because it has traditionally been a "rich East Coast sport."

Schools like Johns Hopkins, Fairfield(CT), Princeton, etc. can dominate without the resources of a full-blown DI AD program.  But due to programs like the one another friend of mine began in the Thousand Oaks/WLV area in LA, the west coast kids are getting exposure and going 'back East' to the powerhouses, or staying put and beginning to create western school programs.

Love that DU won ...my Mom's Alma Mater and where my Sparty sister earned her JD ...but wish the telecast was less focused on apologizing for the "east coast" and making excuses and simply acknowledging DU's win.

And as football continues to move along and more and more parents steer kids away from it, LAX will benefit.  Gone will be the days of the 5'8" 170lb speedster and instead LAX will feature kids 6'4" 210lbs..  It's a good sport albeit like soccer, not necessarily TV or fan-friendly.