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As of April 18, the NCAA men's lacrosse committee had YOUR Marquette Golden Eagles as the #9 team in the national championship field. Then they turned around and lost 16-1 to Duke on Friday.
That brings us to Lacrosse Magazine's newest attempt at bracketology for the tournament, and the first attempt since the NCAA announced their slightly dated top 10 on Saturday afternoon. Marquette still has a spot in the field, but it's the last spot available to an at-large bid. For those of you keeping track of these kinds of things, that's a drop of one spot from last week but a return to where they were the week before that.
The final at-large bid earns the Golden Eagles a date with the #3 team the field, since the top two teams have to play the winners of the play-in games. That would give MU a return bout with Notre Dame back in South Bend. The NCAA doesn't skip on non-conference rematches in the first round because of the low number of teams that populate Division 1, so there's no problem pairing the Irish and the Golden Eagles.
In other Marquette opponent news, Denver occupies the #1 spot on the board. The Pioneers and the Irish are the only familiar sqauds to get a seeded spot in the field. Villanova lines up a spot with #4 Maryland, while Duke slots into a meeting against #8 Navy. MAAC front runner Quinnipiac is paired in one of the play-in games with NEC leader Bryant. The Bobcats have clinched the MAAC regular season title, but they'll need to win the conference tournament to make it into the Big Barbecue.
Marquette squares off with #1 Denver on Saturday to settle out which one of the 4-0 teams will be Big East regular season champion and who will have to settle for the #2 seed in the conference tournament. Faceoff is scheduled for 2pm Central, and it'll be broadcast on CBS Sports Network.
You can check out the full bracket projection right here.