May 8, 2016

2016 Div I Men’s Lacrosse Championship Selections | 2016 Bracket

The University of Notre Dame earned the No. 3 national seed and Saturday (May 14) will play host to Air Force (15-2) in the first round of the 2016 NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Championship.

The game is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. (EDT) at Arlotta Stadium and it will be telecast live on ESPNU.

Notre Dame (10-3) claimed a share of the Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season title. Air Force won the Southern Conference title in its first season in that conference.

This marks the third-highest seed received by the Irish in the NCAA bracket. Notre Dame was the top seed a year ago and a No. 2 seed in 2013.

The winner of Notre Dame’s first-round contest against Air Force will take on the winner of the first-round tilt between No. 6 seed Marquette and North Carolina in the quarterfinals May 22 in Columbus, Ohio.

The Irish are making their program record 11th straight appearance in the NCAA Championship. Notre Dame and Maryland are the only two programs to earn an NCAA berth each of the last 11 seasons.

Notre Dame owns a 17-20 record in 20 previous trips to the NCAA Championship. The Irish in 2015 were the No. 1 seed and topped Towson in the first round and Albany in the quarterfinals before falling in overtime to eventual NCAA champion Denver in the semifinals. Notre Dame has advanced to at least the quarterfinal round of the last six NCAA Championships (the only school to do that).

This is the ninth time overall–and eighth time in the last nine seasons–the Irish have earned one of the eight national seeds for the NCAA Championship. The Irish also were seeded for the 2001 (5th), 2008 (6th), 2009 (7th), 2011 (4th), 2012 (4th), 2013 (2nd), 2014 (6th) and 2015 (1st) tournaments. Notre Dame advanced to the NCAA championship weekend in 2001, 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2015–and played in the title game in 2010 and 2014.

The 18-team NCAA Championship field is comprised of 10 automatic-qualifying teams and eight at-large squads. The top eight teams in the bracket are seeded. Four ACC programs made the field and two are seeded–Notre Dame No. 3 and Syracuse No. 8.

Notre Dame faced four of the other seeded teams this season (posting a 3-1 mark) and six programs overall that made the NCAA field. The Fighting Irish went 4-3 against those six squads (victories over No. 1 seed Maryland, No. 6 Marquette, No. 8 Syracuse and Duke, with losses to No. 2 Denver, Duke and North Carolina).

The tournament’s semifinals and finals will be held May 28 and 30 at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For more information on the 2016 NCAA Division I Men’s Lacrosse Championship, including a complete bracket, log onto ncaa.com.

For ticket information, call the Notre Dame ticket office at 574-631-7356 or visit www.UND.com/buytickets. Ticket office hours are 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. EDT.

Here’s the NCAA schedule for the first week of play:

Wednesday, May 11
Hartford (11-6) at Quinnipiac (11-3) Hobart (10-6) at Towson (14-2)

Saturday, May 14
#7 Loyola (Patriot League AQ, 12-3) vs. Duke (ACC at-large, 11-7), noon
#6 Marquette (BIG EAST AQ, 11-4) vs. North Carolina (ACC at-large, 8-6), 2:30 p.m.
#5 Brown (Ivy League at-large, 14-2) vs. Johns Hopkins (8-6, Big Ten at-large), 5 p.m.
#3 Notre Dame (ACC at-large, 10-3) vs. Air Force (Southern AQ, 15-2), 7:30 p.m.

Sunday, May 15
#1 Maryland (Big Ten AQ, 14-2) vs. Quinnipiac/Hartford winner, 12:30 p.m.
#2 Denver (Big East at-large, 13-2) vs. Towson/Hobart winner, 3 p.m.
#4 Yale (ACC AQ, 13-2) vs. Navy (10-4), 5:15 p.m.
#8 Syracuse (ACC champion, 11-4) vs. Albany (12-3, America East at-large), 7:30 p.m.
All eight Saturday and Sunday games are televised live on ESPNU.

The University of Notre Dame men’s lacrosse team pursues excellence on and off the field through the three pillars in which the program is built: Character, Culture & Community. These three foundational values guide the promise of the program, which is to provide its student-athletes with the most compelling and enriching experience in all of college athletics. Through academics, competition, service and travel, the program aims to immerse its players in situations that enhance their student-athlete experience to help them become the people, students and teammates they aspire to be.

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