Yesterday, there were about 40 regular-season women’s lacrosse teams on the docket.
Today, the postseason begins for four Atlantic Coast Conference teams. These are the two play-in games for Virginia Tech, Louisville, Clemson, and Pittsburgh as they seek to play next week in the quarterfinals in Charlotte.
As we were talking about a couple of days ago, the backing out of the regular season into January, as well as the backing out of the NCAA Tournament to give participating teams their own broadcast windows on ESPN two Thursdays before the Final Four, has led to a number of strange and odd schedule quirks. What used to be a quick conference tournament season is now a marathon leading to Selection Sunday.
There’s been something like this happening in other college sports when it comes to schedule creep. In basketball, the NCAA Division I men’s tournament used to be finished up by March 31st — hence the trademarked and heavily-guarded trademark “March Madness.”
But it is notable that the last NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament that finished before the start of April was all the way back in 1989. Since then, what had been March Madness has culminated the following month.
And so it goes.
