Watching the Princeton – Syracuse game this Spring I heard the commentators note that the two teams had more than ½ of the NCAA titles in the past 20 years between them, and the weekend before I heard a commentator talk about ‘perennial lacrosse powers like Notre Dame’.

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That same day, a lacrosse aficionado friend of mine who is younger than I am (but who isn’t?) said it would be nice to have someone other than Syracuse, Princeton, or Virginia win the championship. I assured him that these things change--I told him that I could recall how Princeton used to be a cipher in NCAA lacrosse in the 1970s.

So let’s see how the current behemoths fared back in the ‘old days’--have they always been the big dogs? If not, who was? And what other, unheard-of teams were factors in NCAA men’s lacrosse then? Let’s start by looking at the 1970’s and 1980’s--I choose this period because it is the beginning of the “Modern” game with the first NCAA lacrosse playoffs in 1971.

In the 1970s, there were only 8 teams seeded in the NCAA tournament, while in 1986 there were 10 and from 1987 to 2002 there were 12, with the current 16 starting in 2003. A place in an earlier tournament, with fewer seeds, could have been a greater achievement than it is today. This change came because of the increasing popularity of the sport, as reflected in game attendance and the number of teams. Equipment has changed as well--in contrast to today’s high-tech sticks, some players used leather webbing on their wooden sticks not so long ago. The photo two thirds of the way down the page shows the University of Virginia team with some of the equipment used in the early 1970s. It shows that lacrosse has changed a lot since the NCAA tournament began in 1971.

In addition to equipment changes, some rule changes have been implemented, such as the stall warning. Perhaps the most infamous NCAA rule change was in May 1978, when they eliminated faceoffs after goals--I remember being at Johns Hopkins games and following the traditional chant of “1, 2, 3, … We want more!” with the phrase “Face offs!” added at the end. I was thankful when that rule change was overturned the next year.

So, were my friend’s current likely suspects for the NCAA title–Syracuse, Princeton, and Virginia--in the same position in the 1970s? Actually, Hopkins has a better record in the past decade than Virginia, with playoff participation every year, 4 finals appearances and 2 championships vs Virginia’s participation 9 years of 10 with 2 finals appearances and 2 titles. But the Cavaliers’ performance this year and in 2009 has caused Virginia to cast a big shadow in college lacrosse.

What about Syracuse, the dominant team of the past decade? Although the NCAA tournament started in 1971, Syracuse was not seeded until 1979, when they were eliminated in the first round, and then they played in 9 of 10 tournaments in the 1980’s. Syracuse won the championship in 1984, 1988, and 1989 and lost in the final game in 1985, so the late 80’s was their first dominance.

Princeton was the dominant team in the late 1990’s and a power this decade, but Princeton was not seeded at all in the 1970’s or the 1980’s and was routinely bested by Penn back then. Indeed, I recall Hopkins’ early-season game against Princeton as (for many years) a ‘gimme’ victory for Hopkins--How things change! Virginia was in the NCAA playoffs from the beginning, in 1971, and followed with appearances in 1972, 1973, 1974, 1978, 1979, and 1980. They won the championship in 1972 and lost in the finals in 1980 and 1986, so they were a power in the 1970’s.

What about the seeming newcomers--Teams like Cornell, North Carolina, and even Duke? And Notre Dame’s ascendance in the rankings recently has stimulated debate. Cornell may seem like a newcomer based on a perspective of the 1990s and 2000s tournaments, but in the 1970s (the first decade of the NCAAs) Cornell was seeded in all but the 1972 and 1973 tournaments, and won the championship in 1971 and in 1976 and 1977 they won with a team led by Hall of Famer Eamon McEneaney. As a 1975 Hopkins graduate, I can still recall grinding my teeth while watching him play! Cornell has been a 're'-emerging team recently. In the past decade they appeared in the playoffs 6 times of 10, being eliminated in the quarterfinals in 2002, 2003, and 2004 and the first round in 2006 and 2007 and, of course, losing in the Championship game in 2009.

The University of North Carolina was a newcomer in the 1970’s, but they burst onto the national stage in 1976, followed by appearances in the 1977 and 1979 tournaments and all of the 1980’s tournaments. And now, Billy Bitter could be the new Jim Brown, or at least an Eamon McEaney, if he is not taken out by a cheap shot. Duke was not in any NCAA playoffs in the 1970’s or 1980’s -- Their first appearance was in the 16-seeded 1992 tournament, the year after Mike Pressler became Duke’s head coach. Since then they have had an impressive 13 appearances, reaching the finals in 2005 and 2007. Since Pressler’s departure, the program he built may not endure--only time will tell. They seem to be slipping.

Notre Dame has played in the tournament 14 times, starting in 1992, reaching the semifinals once, so they are a newcomer that has become a common playoff participant. One would think that their schedule would have developed along with their record.

The University of Maryland team seems to be a perennial bridesmaid, in recent history--They last won the NCAA championship in 1975 and won it once before in 1973--They were seeded in every NCAA tournament in the 1970’s. Maryland teams lost in the Championship game in 1971, 1974, 1976, 1979, plus more recently in 1995, 1997 and 1998. The 1973 Maryland championship team, with Hall of Fame attackman Frank Urso, nearly lost in the NCAA finals due to a tactic used by Hopkins Hall of Fame coach Bob Scott. Maryland had beaten Hopkins 17 – 4 in the regular season, so Scott used a slow, measured game, with 15 minutes of non-shooting possession in the first half. Urso was limited to two goals and the game went into overtime, where Urso scored to win the game 10 - 9. Duke’s coach Danowski could have benefited from reviewing that game before Duke’s 2007 NCAA semi-final game against Hopkins, because Hopkins coach Dave Pietramala used the same tactic to defeat Duke by one goal. That year, Duke was considered the 300-pound gorilla. They beat Hopkins by 11 goals in the regular season and had just defeated Ohio State 21 – 10 in the quarterfinal game, but Danowski could not find a response to Pietramala’s tactic and Hopkins went on to the Finals.

In contrast to Notre Dame, there have been other teams that have made appearances in the tournament but have faded from prominence. Washington and Lee was in the NCAA tournament in 1972 through 1977 and in 1980. CW Post made an appearance in 1986 and Adelphi played in 1982, 1985, and 1987, while Cortland State participated in 1972. There is no chance these teams will be back. They all play in Division 2 or Division 3 now. The University of Pennsylvania played in the tournament in 1977 and in 1983 – 1985 and 1987 – 1989. These streaks and appearances may have as much to do with changes in coaching as with recruiting top players.


What about teams that have recently appeared on the NCAA playoff stage?  Who might be an up-and-coming power that could unseat the current big dogs?  Well, since 2001 four teams -- Navy, Massachusetts, Delaware, and Cornell -- have made huge runs, becoming ‘newcomer’ teams that appeared in the Final Four.  Navy, the powerhouse in the 1960’s, burst back into prominence but were eliminated in the Finals in 2004.  Navy (pictured above celebrating a goal against Syracuse in the '04 Championship game) then lost in the first round of the tournament in 2006, 2007, and 2009, and were eliminated in the quarterfinals in 2008.  Before that, they were eliminated in the first round in 1992, 1994, and 1999.  Massachusetts played in the 2002, 2003, 2006 and 2009 tournaments.   They were eliminated in the quarterfinals in 2003 and the first round in 2002 and 2009.  Like Navy did in 2004, UMass made one huge run in 2006 only to lose in the Championship game to Virginia.  Delaware made a similar run in the 2007 playoffs, losing in the Final Four to Hopkins.  Then last year Cornell made a run of their own, losing in the Championship game.  The frequency of such runs--4 in the same decade ('04, '06, '07, and '09) --by teams not in the prior years Final Four likely reflects the increasing competitiveness of the college game. 

There were only two such runs in the 1990s--Loyola in 1990 and Towson in 1991.  Both teams made the Championship game and lost. No teams made runs like that in the 1970s or 1980s. Loyola made at least the quarterfinals in 7 of 9 tournaments following their appearance in the Finals. Towson, on the other hand, reached the quarterfinals only once in the 90’s, 5 years after their appearance in the Finals. So, Loyola’s Finals appearance was a reliable indicator of a team that would be a presence in the NCAA tournament in upcoming years, while it was not for Towson. Which path will Cornell follow after last year’s Finals appearance?

Who else has recently been on the NCAA radar screen? Playoff participation by other teams not routinely predicted to be contenders in February includes: Albany in 2005 and 2007 -- eliminated in the first round in 2005 and the quarterfinals in 2007. Marist was eliminated in the first round in 2005. Fairfield, Stony Brook and Manhattan were all eliminated in the first round of the 2002 tournament, and they are now showing up in the Top 20 in the laxnews.com rankings. The 2003 playoff seeding produced a crop of recent newcomers (at least then), with Mount Saint Mary’s, Rutgers, Ohio State, Albany, Dartmouth, Penn State, and Army all losing in the first round. The 2003 playoffs were unusual, because all 8 of the top seeds advanced to the quarterfinals -- Only one of them (Duke) had never won a national championship. For at least that year, a history of successful lacrosse program seemed to help.

And there are also the teams that have been doing well but have not been generally considered finals or semifinal material, such as Towson, Hobart, Loyola, and others. They could win it all but, if Duke serves as an example, it may be difficult.

The emergence of new teams and the waxing and waning of the fortunes of traditional powers is unavoidable. But once a coach builds a program, with training, assistant coaches, and recruiting that produces winning teams, the program can usually be expected to result in good teams for some time. Indeed, it seems as if development of good programs is happening at more schools and is spreading geographically. For instance, Denver’s program should begin to flower in the next few years because of Bill Tierney’s move there.

The increase in the number of quality lacrosse programs could be a consequence of the growth in the popularity of lacrosse, as more traditional ‘sports schools’ get involved and become more dominant. Will this squeeze out the smaller traditional lacrosse powerhouses, like Hopkins Navy, etc? Who knows what will happen? Hopkins already had to apply for an exemption from a NCAA rule that would have excluded it from Division I lacrosse. As the game grows and matures, there will be changes. Money may be the real force behind the changes --That may not be good news for smaller traditional powerhouses but may benefit larger ‘sports schools’, like Syracuse.

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