This week we will be shifting from the pro level of the PLL to a closely related world of college lacrosse.
For the past 48 years the NCAA Lacrosse championships has given us fans a true vehicle to yield the best team of each college season. We have seen many storied schools been born throughout the years from the Syracuse teams of the 90's to the more recent Duke teams of the 10's now into the modern age of college lacrosse. For all 48 of these championships, first starting in 1971, the final four has been the pinacle of the sport's success, always taking place on Memorial day weekend. The two semi-final games being played on the Saturday and the championship game following on Memorial Day. This has served to be a jam packed weekend of college lacrosse and has put many teams to the test more and more each year with the challenge of facing possibly two games in a span of three days. Now more recently however, people have began to wonder whether or not we are seeing the absolute best product on the field when it comes to the championship Monday, or are our teams facing levels of fatigue that are hindering the result?
I propose that the NCAA should move the championship game to the following weekend after the Final Four to produce a not only more exciting game, but a more enjoyable and perhaps more eventful game. This would leave the week in between for media sites and fans to create all sorts of hype that would generate an electric atmosphere each and every year.
The question should be why hasn't the NCAA even considered this sooner rather than fans just begun murmuring about it. Some of the most popular college sports both seperate their Final Four with a week prior to the championship game, being College Football and College Basketball. I think most people can agree that both of these title games reach the same level of hype and excitement year in year out. For college lacrosse I think there would be some tweaks that the NCAA could make to specify the need of the fans that meet their standards such as keeping the same location for both weekends. I would not be surprised that if one of the reasons the NCAA hasn't considered moving the date would be due to attendance but with the growth and increase in competition between untraditional schools over the recent decade, I think it should be unquestionable that the dates should change in the next 5-10 years given the rapid growing exposure to audiences as well.
This point does not come with out the data to back it up. Now we must look at most recent history of the past 5 years and compare the order in which the semi-final games were played and the result of the championship game just a short day later.
*For a quick insight, a college game is an hour long with four 15 minute quarters. The field is just wider and barely longer than a football field with a fair comparison to the amount of endurance of soccer.*
2015
Game 1: Denver v. Notre Dame
Game 2: Johns Hopkins v. Maryland
Champion: Denver
2016
Game 1: North Carolina v. Loyola
Game 2: Maryland v. Brown
Champion: North Carolina
2017
Game1: Maryland v. Denver
Game 2: Ohio State v. Towson
Champion: Maryland
2018
Game 1: Yale v. Albany
Game 2: Maryland v. Duke
Champion: Yale
2019
Game 1: Virginia v. Duke
Game 2: Yale v. Penn. State
Champion: Virginia
The first semi-final game is usually played starting at 11:30 P.M. EST with the second game beginning around 3:30 P.M. This gives the winner of the first game an extra 3-4 hours of rest and recovery to prepare for Monday's game. This might not seem like much but the time it takes for the body to finally calm down and begin rebuilding muscle and refuel for the big game is taking place up to 6 hours after the first team has already played. While I did intentionally leave out the scores of these semi-final games each of the games played second have been fast shoot outs that have been high scoring and often going into overtime. So on top of playing the later game, most of the time the later game tends to go longer, thus forcing teams to expert more energy.
I don't have the final four teams for the 2020 season (obviously) but if I gave you the order of the games I think you would have a good idea on who to pick regardless of knowledge of the teams or rankings, as I left out rankings in the previous data. Regardless, it appears to be obvious that despite all of the rich history that the sport has been so fortunate to have endured it has come clear that a change in how the champion is decided in college lacrosse. The NCAA needs to move the college lacrosse championship to the following weekend after the Final Four to create a more eventful, enjoyable, and fair game for the two teams that have earned their spot at the top of the lacrosse world. For the love of the sport, give the teams a fair chance.