Marquette Lacrosse Improves In Bracketology After Loss To #1 Notre Dame

Last week, Marquette men's lacrosse had edged closer towards the bubble in Lacrosse Magazine's NCAA tournament bracketology.  That projection came out right before Marquette lost to #1 Notre Dame in overtime.  What happened in this week's tournament projection as a result of that loss, along with MU holding on to win against Providence on Saturday?

Marquette moved from last team in to second to last team in.  Yep, they improved their position with a loss to the best team in the country.  How did that happen?  Well, a week ago, Marquette had a strength of schedule of 48.  This week, it's up to 41.

On that note, Marquette's strength of schedule ranking is going to improve by leaps and bounds over the next 10 days.  They play Duke (RPI 14, SOS 4) on Friday, and then close the regular season with a road trip to see Denver(RPI 4, SOS 22) eight days later.  Both of those teams are currently in the Lax Mag field, with Denver earning a #2 seed and Duke sitting one spot in front of Marquette in the at-large order.  Needless to say, going 1-1 in those two games would do Marquette a world of good when it comes to solidifying that at-large bid.  If they get the win against Denver, the Golden Eagles would win their first ever Big East regular season title on top of moving to tournament lock status.

Notre Dame is #1 in the Cascade/Maverik media poll, and they are the #1 seed in this projection, too.  Villanova comes in as the #7 national seed, hosting Loyola in the first round.  Quinnipiac continues to lead the MAAC, so they continue to hold down the conference's automatic qualifier placeholder in one of the two play-in games.

Faceoff with the Blue Devils is scheduled for 6pm Central time on Friday, and you can watch that game on ESPN3/WatchESPN.

You can check out the full bracketology breakdown right here.