I've mentioned before how Notre Dame lacrosse is incredible underrated--they've ended the regular season at a perfect 13-0 and yet they'll be hard pressed to sniff a top-4 seed in the NCAA tournament without a lot falling their way. I feel for them, because despite a weaker schedule (and in lacrosse a "weaker schedule" isn't like a Mountain West slate vs. an SEC slate, for instance) defeating everyone who was put in front of you is worthy of some consideration.
I'm reminded, however, of how perennially Notre Dame football has been overrated. In the comments on Inside Lacrosse, there's been a good deal of complaining from the Notre Dame faithful. Someone, no doubt tired of the complaints, made a comment of me in the vein of "talk to me when you start giving back all of those undeserved BCS bowls."
To further add to the irony, most of the pro-Notre Dame folks make their case by disparaging Hopkins and their 4-losses. Hopkins, of course, is an independent with an incredible history who often gets the benefit of the doubt. Sound familiar?
There's a lot that could change in these last two weeks before the NCAA tournament. UMBC just beat Vermont soundly, 18-5, to secure the America East regular season championship and a #1 seed and home field for the conference tournament. We need to win it for a sure shot at the tournament, though we still have an outside shot at it should we fall in the AE championship game. It hurts, however, that our strongest win keeps getting weaker, as the Terps ended their season yesterday in the first round of the ACC Tournament of Redundancy Tournament. It puts me in an interesting place. If UMBC wins the AE, I want to see upsets in other conference tournaments and late-season action so some of the smaller leagues get multiple bids. A side effect of this could be keeping the Terps out of the tournament. This isn't a slight at them, but I would like to see less than all four ACC teams make the tournament, and they seem the most likely to draw the short straw. If, however, UMBC should miss out on the AE AQ, I want chalk from all the other conferences to open up as many shots at an at-large as possible. I guess we'll just have to see how this next week or so shapes up...
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