Braxatology, etc.

Yesterday the 16 team field for the NCAA lacrosse championships were annouced. I was pleased the 10-5 Cornell Big Red landed a first round home game as the #7 seed vs. the #10 seed Loyola Greyhounds. Here's the link to the bracket: http://www.ncaa.com/auto_pdf/p_hotos/s_chools/ncaa/sports/m-lacros/auto_pdf/MLax-D1-2010Bracket

I don't know much about Loyola, except they lost Saturday to Johns Hopkins, allowing the 7-7 Blue Jays to keep intact their streak of 38 straight NCAA appearances (must be .500 to get in the field).

Cornell's season has been a mixed bag, but the bottom line is they've done well to return to the NCAAs after graduating a number of key seniors from last year's NCAA runner-up team, including Max Seibald, who won the 2009 Tewaarton Trophy, lacrosse's version of hockey's Hobey Baker award.

After jumping out to a 4-0 record including an overtime win over eventual Patriot champ Army, Cornell got thumped by number one Virginia 12-4 at home. The Big Red ran its record to 7-1 following the loss to the Cavaliers, but then lost three of four, including a neutral site loss to an unacclaimed Dartmouth team, a heartbreaker to upstate rival Syracuse and a loss to ivy foe Brown, both at home.

The Big Red closed the regular season on a high note, hanging on for a road win against Princeton giving them a share of the ivy crown and the chance to host the first ever Ivy League tournament. After Cornell avenged its earlier loss to Brown in the tourney semis, Princeton did the same against Cornell with an overtime win in the championship.

The losses to Syracuse and Princeton were reminiscient of last year's meltdown in the NCAA championship game in terms of giving up fourth quarter leads, with the decisive goals being scored with only seconds to go. In last year's championship game, Syracuse scored the tying goal with only two seconds left and then won in overtime. In this year's installment of Orange heartbreak, Syracuse scored the winning goal as time expired in regulation to capture an 8-7 win after Cornell had led 7-5 with eight minutes to go.

Then a week after denying Princeton a game tying goal at the end of regulation, a game in which Cornell led 9-3 early in the fourth, in the ivy championship game, Cornell gave up the game winning goal to the Tigers with only two seconds left in overtime. This time, Cornell had led 6-2 at the half and 7-3 midway through the third, so I'm hopeful Cornell can do a better job hanging on to the lead now that they're in the tourney.

If they can vanquish Loyola, Cornell will have a regular season rematch, most likely against second seeded Syracuse, but possibly against Army, the 15 seed and winners of seven straight and nine of ten. My neighbor Todd Butler is a West Point grad who played midfield there in the early 90s and helps me keeps tabs on college lacrosse from across the fence.

Expectations are in check, but if Cornell can play like they have in the first halves of the games I've seen, they can play with anyone. Go Big Red!

Golf -- Players Championship
A shout out to Tim Clark, who picked a good spot for his first PGA Tour victory. He's been close a bunch and you always knew it was just a matter of time -- a little guy with a lot of golf chops.

A tough one for Robert Allenby -- a Mother's Day win in honor of his late mother surely would have meant the world to him. It would have been a big win for Lee Westwood too as the well-spoken Englishman has now lost two in a row after taking leads into the final round of both the Masters and the Players.

Phil Mickelson made a nice run on Saturday, but never got it going on Sunday, and who knows what's going on with Tiger who had to withdraw with an injury in the final round, though he was well off the pace.

If I had more time, I'd say some more about the course itself, seemingly always a storyline in the tournament with the dramatic island green 17th and several other iconic holes.

Though no pushover at 7200 yards, it has three reachable par-5s and three par-4s under 400 yards -- I'd be willing to bet that's more sub 400 yard par fours than most PGA tour venues these days. The players ate up the course the first three days, but as the greens hardened and took on that major championship rust color, the course showed it's teeth on Sunday while still yielding a 67 to the outstanding play of Tim Clark. It's had a wide range of champions in the last decade from the big guns like Tiger, Phil and Sergio, to shorter hitters like Fred Funk and this year's champ Tim Clark.

My bias has always been to the older more traditional layouts, and frankly I've never cared for the TPC Sawgrass, but it does seem to be more democratic than some of today's courses, so I'm going to give it another look.

Final Word
With apologies from my favorite faux news host, Stephen Colbert, tonight's word: relegation. To me, one of the coolest concepts in all of sports comes from the English soccer leagues where the bottom teams in the standings are relegated to a lower division the following year and the top teams climb the ranks. Sorry Portsmouth, this year's record of 7-24-7 has earned you a trip from the Premier League to the Coca Cola Championship Division (it may sound better, but it's not).

Just imagine the implications, for U.S. sports. Pro: Hey, New Jersey Nets, 12-70 doesn't give the best chance for the top draft pick, instead you get to play in the CBA next year. College: Eastern Michigan, 0-12 last year, you get to play football championship subdivision (fka I-AA) next year. And it works the other way too -- Villanova wins the FCS championship, next year you get to play in the Big East in football too!

And it even works at the individual player level -- if a baseball player's not performing, then he gets sent down to the minor leagues and a minor leaguer gets promoted to play . . . . . . hmmm, so I guess the U.S. already has some forms of relegation.

In addition to the NCAA lax tourney, the Preakness is on tap for this weekend, so we'll see if Super Saver can keep his triple crown hopes alive. And for the non-fringe sport fans among you, the NBA and NHL playoffs are heating up too. Go Super Saver!