UF Lacrosse Starts 2/10

The championship match vs. James Madison is on ESPNU at Noon Saturday.

 

17 wins in a row heading to the NCAA tournament.
Ninth Ranked Gators Capture AAC Tournament Title in Double-Digit Victory Over Dukes - Florida Gators

 

This is not your typical UNC Top 5 team. Their record is 10-6, finished tied for 4th in the ACC with a 6-3 record. Gators are ranked 9th in the Coaches poll, North Carolina is ranked 17th. In the RPI rankings, we're ranked 17th, North Carolina 18th. The Top 8 seeds are Northwestern, Boston College, Syracuse, Maryland, Virginia, Yale, Notre Dame & Penn. If we beat North Carolina we play #5 seed Virginia, assuming they win their first match and then would face #4 Maryland if seedings play out. So we actually wouldn't have to face a Top 3 seed until the Final 4. I think we got a pretty favorable draw.

 

We're moving to the Big 12 next year.

 

Yes, 19-10, but UNC had lost to James Madison (who we beat badly twice in conference play) the week before. That was only their 3rd game when North Carolina was ranked very high. They have not lived up to pre-season hype at all and have a 10-6 record, their worst ever under coach Jenny Levy, who has been there since 1996. However ALL of their losses except James Madison are to teams ranked higher than Florida. The Gators, with a ton of new players, were still figuring out how to play together and are MUCH better now than they were at the beginning of the season. My only concern, though, is that our record of 17-2 is deceiving because our schedule has been very weak outside of those first early scheduled games againt Loyola-Maryland, UNC and Maryland. The only other ranked team UF played other than James Madison was Princeton. They were ranked #21 when we beat them 16-13. North Carolina is one of the women's lacrosse blue bloods and is used to playing tough competition week in and week out in the ACC, so we'll definitely be tested.

 

Yes, but it's still no the ACC or the Big 10, the top 2 lacrosse conferences.

 

Gators made the Final 4 in 2012. We lost in the semifinals in OT to Syracuse 14-13, hurt by a controversial call late in regulation where the refs took away a Gator goal due to a problem with the racquet that scored the goal being too loose. That goal would have sealed the match for Florida, if I remember correctly, and kept us from playing for the national title.