Thoughts on the NCAA bracket

The bracket is available here from Inside Lacrosse in a nice pdf version. We usually keep a copy on our fridge during the tournament.

I thought that the committee did a good job here. Coach Toomey and the Loyola Greyhounds might feel understandably deprived but someone always is disappointed by these kinds of processes. Although I doubt it is part of the selection criteria, if Loyola had made the tournament instead of Brown, there would have been a matchup problem. Hopkins is #8 facing Brown and we wouldn't want to see Loyola at Hopkins two weeks in a row. We could have sent Loyola to #7 Notre Dame but that would have sent Maryland to Hopkins. Ugh. We could have sent Loyola to #6 Carolina but that would have sent UMBC to Hopkins. Not much better. We could have sent Hofstra to Hopkins and Loyola to #5 Cornell but that would have taken Hopkins out of the Annapolis region with Navy not even playing in two weeks unless they win at Duke. So that would have meant Loyola at #4 Princeton and UMass at Hopkins. That would have been a heck of a reward for the Tigers. Ultimately, as a fan I have no complaints about how this ended up.

Has anyone remarked on the subtext of a possible goalie brothers redux? When Hopkins played Hofstra earlier in the year, the Gvozden brothers ended up facing each other unexpectedly. If Michael Gvozden had to leave the game for any reason, guess who might be in the crease -- this guy. Happens to be the younger brother of Jordan Burke, the All-American goalie at Brown.