Updated: Monday, May 5, 10 p.m.

For the first time since 1996, Georgetown’s men’s lacrosse team, which was ranked fourth in the nation entering Saturday, was shut out of the 16-team NCAA tournament field.

“We thought we we’re in, but we knew it wasn’t a slam dunk for sure,” Head Coach Dave Urick said. “We we’re surprised, but when you start to factor in some of the variables they use [to select the tournament field] it was a concern.”

The Hoyas were upset 12-11 in overtime by a mediocre Penn State team on Saturday, prompting many experts to project Georgetown to be on the bubble, but most felt it would still be in the field. The Hoyas, ranked in the top five before the season began, finished 9-4 overall and 5-2 in the ECAC.

“It was the fourth time this season we had a late lead and lost it to send the game to overtime,” Urick said. “We still looked at the fact that we beat Navy head-to-head and they lost four of their last five games and they got in. Still, if we win on Saturday we’re not sitting here talking about this right now.”

Georgetown’s other bad loss this season, last month at Loyola, gave the Greyhounds the league title and cost the Hoyas an automatic qualifier.

After stumbling out of the gates and losing two of its first three, including a season-opening 11-6 loss to Maryland, Georgetown reeled off six straight victories, including a sound 11-7 beating of No. 1 Duke. The Blue Devils are the top-seeded team in the tournament.

“We were talking in the office today, and [Associate Head Coach Marc Van Arsdale] kept saying that he thought Georgetown was out,” Virginia Head Coach Dom Starsia told Inside Lacrosse yesterday. “I was like, ‘Wait a second, that can’t be possible. They’ve got the best win on the board over Duke.’ But if you crunch the numbers and you’re talking about a quality win over the No. 1 team isn’t different than a win over No. 5 — it’s not as significant as we thought.”

The Great Western Lacrosse League stole the show Sunday with three teams earning bids. Denver (10-5) was to face seventh-seeded Maryland. The Pioneers’ biggest win was a 9-8 victory over conference champion Notre Dame last month, but two blowout losses to Ohio State — 20-13 in the regular season and 15-8 in the GWLL tournament — coupled with a 20-7 loss at the hands of Cornell made some skeptical about their at-large chances. Their 12th-ranked RPI was six spots ahead of Georgetown’s and most likely gave them the advantage.

“I think maybe they should rethink the way the computers work,” Urick said. “I know the basketball people put a lot of emphasis on the way teams end the season and the RPI, but they play 25 games and I think the [RPI] numbers work better with that many games. When you play 13 games — statistically that doesn’t hold up as well.”

Ohio State, which lost to Notre Dame 9-2 on Sunday in the GWLL conference title game, will play eighth-seeded Cornell in the opening round. The Buckeyes owned the eighth spot in the RPI and had their biggest victory in a 13-6 win over at-large team Colgate.
Elsewhere, Syracuse, which beat the Hoyas 9-8 in double overtime on March 9, garnered the No. 3 seed a year after missing the tournament altogether.

A year from now, Georgetown will look to make a similar turnaround.

“I’m just hoping that our young guys learn from this,” Urick said.