PSU MLAX 2026 thread
- Thread starter Tom McAndrew
- Start date
Penn State men's lacrosse's Hunter Aquino highlights Big Ten All-Tournament Team selections
After defeating Johns Hopkins 16-8 on Saturday to win the Big Ten Tournament, Penn State has earned plenty of names on the All-Tournament Team.
Penn State men's lacrosse to open NCAA tournament with home meeting against Army
Penn State is going dancing in the NCAA Men’s Lacrosse national tournament.
Is there a reason why, like with the Hockey Tournament, there are so few teams in the Lacrosse tournament when there are many more schools that definitely could compete in the tournament? Also, it seems as if the ACC was favored in this tournament, especilly with the inclusion of Duke.
18 teams out of 73 made it, so about 25% of all college lax teams. For comparison, only 18% of D1 basketball teams make the NCAA tournament and only 9% of all FBS football teams are represented in the College Football Playoff. When a quarter of your entire sport makes the playoffs, I struggle understanding your argument. Perhaps you thought more colleges than 73 play Lax?
Sorry for the delayed response. As Ram said above, there aren’t many schools that participate in lacrosse. For instance, the B1G only has six teams for lacrosse and that includes non traditional B1G member, Johns Hopkins. As for the ACC mention, the teams are graded heavily on RPI and quality wins. PSU already has wins over Princeton, Cornell, and Hopkins. However, they had head scratching losses to Villanova and Navy. Regardless, they won the B1G, avenged a previous loss to Hopkins, and seem to be peaking at the right time.
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That's my hope for this PSU squad: that they struggled somewhat at the beginning of the season but now have gotten hot at the right time. Regardless, this program has turned into an elite one since the late 2010s, which is good to see.
PA has become a hotbed of HS lacrosse. Specifically, southeast PA. It isn’t just Baltimore, Long Island, and New England any more. PSU is benefitting from that with guys like Ament, Aquino, Lehman, Walstrum, Sabia, etc. Powerhouse high schools like Malvern Prep, Haverford, Springfield, Radnor, LaSalle and others are pumping out D1 recruits annually. This has helped PSU grow. Plus, Tambroni is a really good coach. Getting him to come to PSU was big.
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Just to give you an example of the talent pool in SE PA currently, I’ll use LaSalle as an example. They currently have one player committed to ND, one to Duke, two to Ohio State, two to Cornell, one to Drexel, and one to Jacksonville. There are probably others that I missed, but those are the ones I can think of of off the top of my head who are seniors. They are coached by a former PSU All-American, who coached at ANC (Hunter Aquino) before he took over for his brother (also a former PSU All-American) at LaSalle. LaSalle had several D1 recruits last year also. It’s pretty much every year. Springfield has one kid committed to PSU and one to MD, amongst some others. Malvern Prep is the same. They sent triplets to PSU last year. So, is Episcopal. The MVP from the national title game last year is from Radnor. UVa had a middie that was a beast a few years ago from Garnet Valley. Grant Ament was a Doylestown kid that went to Haverford, then to PSU, then the #1 overall pick in the PLL a few years ago. Michael Sowers went to Upper Dublin. The talent is deep and PSU is sitting just a short car ride away from all of it in several directions. PSU should be good.
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PSU did get screwed with a #8 Seed as a regular season and CCG B1G Champion. VA got a 5 Seed despite being a 4-seed in the ACC Postseason Championship (ND won the Regular Season Championship outright over NC and Syracuse) - VA also had a lower winning % than PSU, so it's a bit ridiculous that VA got a higher seed despite PSU being both the B1G Regular Season and Postseason Champions (and have a win over top-seeded Princeton) and have a higher Winning % than VA. Also ridiculous that there are 4 ACC teams with a higher Seed than the highest seeded B1G Team which is both a Regular Season & Postseason CCG B1G Champion and owns a 13-7 Regular Season win over #1 Seed Princeton. The result of the absurd seedings involving the ACC schools means PSU will likely have to play #1 Seed Princeton in the Quarter-Finals in a rematch and none of the ACC teams will have to play #1 Seed Princeton at all. That is just beyond absurd and completely corrupt seeding by the NCAA Seeding Committee which is clearly stacked with ACC biased members.
Several years ago, PSU was blatantly screwed in the NCAA Championship Semifinals when a clear and obvious illegal game-winning goal by Duke (Duke player put his entire foot in the goal crease on his shot) went uncalled. They did not have Video Review for the Men at the time (Women's Lacrosse did have Video Review) - Video Review for the Men was immediately instituted the next year as a result of the uproar at how brutally bad the Non-Call was in this game (I believe the NCAA even issued PSU an apology acknowledging that the game-ending goal was an illegal goal and should have been called but said there was nothing else they could do beyond the apology once the game was in the books...... so Duke advanced to the National Finals on a beyond obvious Illegal Goal that went uncalled.
PSU then got hosed by Officiating again a couple years later in the NCAA Championships in a late-round game vs ACC top-seed ND.
But this year's tournament seeding is beyond criminal in regards to PSU whose 5 losses (UVa has 6 losses) came on a total of 6 goals (several in OT - Lacrosse has a sudden-death OT) and PSU owns the B1G Regular Season and Postseason CCG Championships as well as a Regular Season 6-goal win over #1 Seed Princeton!
Several years ago, PSU was blatantly screwed in the NCAA Championship Semifinals when a clear and obvious illegal game-winning goal by Duke (Duke player put his entire foot in the goal crease on his shot) went uncalled. They did not have Video Review for the Men at the time (Women's Lacrosse did have Video Review) - Video Review for the Men was immediately instituted the next year as a result of the uproar at how brutally bad the Non-Call was in this game (I believe the NCAA even issued PSU an apology acknowledging that the game-ending goal was an illegal goal and should have been called but said there was nothing else they could do beyond the apology once the game was in the books...... so Duke advanced to the National Finals on a beyond obvious Illegal Goal that went uncalled.
PSU then got hosed by Officiating again a couple years later in the NCAA Championships in a late-round game vs ACC top-seed ND.
But this year's tournament seeding is beyond criminal in regards to PSU whose 5 losses (UVa has 6 losses) came on a total of 6 goals (several in OT - Lacrosse has a sudden-death OT) and PSU owns the B1G Regular Season and Postseason CCG Championships as well as a Regular Season 6-goal win over #1 Seed Princeton!
PSU, John Hopkins, Ohio State, and Maryland all finished 3-2 in conference play. As such, all four teams shared the B1G Regular Season Championship.
Tiebreakers were used to determine the seeds in the B1G Tournament. Hopkins was the #1 seed, PSU was the #2 seed, Maryland was the #3 seed, and Ohio State was the #4 seed.
I understand all that - PSU was a Regular Season Champion (shared with 3 other teams) and were the Postseason CCG Champion. UVa finished 4th outright in the ACC Regular Season (ND was the ACC Regular Season Champion) and won the Postseason ACC CCG. In addition, PSU has a higher winning % than UVa and owns Regular Season wins over #1 Seed Princeton (by 6 goals) and a 12 Goal win over 7 Seed Cornell (as well as a 10 goal win over Tournament At-Large Selection Yale and an 8 goal win over Tournament At-Large Selection John's Hopkins). Just ridiculous that UVa is 3 seeds higher because they have better loses but in fact have inferior wins and a lower overall Winning % - that's just dumb to put more weight on the quality of a team's losses than the quality of their wins. Beyond absurd to be honest especially when UVa has more losses and an inferior Winning % than PSU. The ACC having 4 of the 5 Top Seeds is also laughably biased and absurd.
Obviously, the powers that be believe that the ACC was a better conference than the Big 10 this season, which probably is true, because they selected a Duke team that very easily could've been left out. The fact that Maryland had a disappointing season also hurt the perception of the Big 10.
calling PSU the regular season champ doesn't indicate that you understand things all that well.
There was a 4-way tie for the regular season championship. If you don't indicate that, then your argument is based on falsehoods.
As for PSU getting screwed in their seed, I think that's looking at things with blue/white glasses. Most of the analysis heading into the NCAA Selection Show had PSU as an 8 seed or a 9 seed.
RPI:
1. Princeton
2. Notre Dame
3. Richmond
4. UNC
5. Cornell
6. Syrcasue
7. UVA
8. John Hopkins
9. PSU
10. Duke
Strength of Schedule:
1. UNC
2. UVA
3. Syracuse
4. Princeton
5. Maryland
6. Cornell
7. PSU
8. Notre Dame
9. John Hopkins
Wins Against Teams that made NCAA/Losses Against Teams Outside the Top 20:
1. Princeton
Wins: UNC, Cornell, Syracuse, Yale
Losses: None
2. Notre Dame
Wins: UNC, Richmond, Syracuse, Duke, Georgetown
Losses: None
3. Richmond
Wins: Cornell, UVA, Georgetown
Losses: None
4. UNC:
Wins: Syracuse, Hopkins, UVA, PSU, Army
Losses: None
5. Cornell:
Wins: Princeton, Duke
Losses: None
6. Syracuse:
Wins: Hopkins, UVA, Duke, Georgetown
Losses: None
7. UVA:
Wins: Notre Dame (2X), UNC, Duke
Losses: None
8. PSU:
Wins: Princeton, Cornell, Hopkins, Yale
Losses: Villanova, Navy, Michigan
9. Hopkins:
Wins: UVA, PSU
Losses: Rutgers
Based on the RPI, SOS, and elite wins/bad losses, I'd say that PSU is seeded about where they deserved to be.