When No. 1 equals No. 2

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The NCAA Division I Women's Lacrosse Tournament bracket was announced Monday evening, and Penn is the No. 2 seed and will face Colgate Sunday at 1pm. Over the next few days I'll provide some analysis and team reactions to the draw. First up, Did the Quakers get shafted? -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Everyone's heard of Selection Sunday when the March Madness bracket is announced. But how about Selection Monday?

Well for Division I Women's Lacrosse teams the first Monday in May, not the third Sunday in March, is their big night to find out their seed and draw for the NCAA tournament.

And yesterday, the Penn team sat waiting inside the women's basketball team's locker room (apparently the only Athletics room that gets CBS' CollegeSports TV) to hear who they'd be playing and what seed they'd gotten

In the end, the No. 1 Quakers discovered that despite their top national ranking, they had earned the second seed behind No. 2 Northwestern. They'll play Colgate 1 pm Sunday at Franklin Field.

So did the team get shafted out of the No. 1 spot?

"We thought we'd be a one or a two seed" because of "our record and beating the then-No. 2 team and the team that was No. 1 throughout the whole season" coach Karin Brower said alluding to victories over Princeton and Northwestern, respectively. But "we're happy to be in the top four. No matter where you are you have to play good teams."

The players seemed a little more disgruntled, but they also realized that a two seed -- the highest the team has ever received -- is nothing to sneeze at.

"It was a little disappointing," senior attack Allison Ambrozy said. "It would've been quite a thing to be number one. You know we're number one in the rankings and we beat Northwestern, but having the two spot is not too bad."

Looking at the two teams' numbers, it's not that surprising that the Wildcats got the higher seed. The Quakers do have the head-to-head factor, as they dispatched the Wildcats 11-7 on April 27 at Franklin Field. And they are currently ranked higher in the Inside Lacrosse Media Poll, albeit it by the smallest of margins (213 votes overall including six first-place selections vs. Northwestern's 210 and four, respectively).

But besides those two (important) factors, Northwestern holds basically every other advantage. Northwestern is the three-time-defending National Champion, and while one would believe the tournament committee wouldn't take into account past performance, it wouldn't be a stretch of the imagination if that was an underlying factor. Looking at this year, the Wildcats do have a better overall record (17-1 vs 14-1) and those losses are significant as well. Penn lost to Stanford (12-8), who despite winning its conference and earning the 17th spot in the media poll, did not receive an at large bid (its conference, the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, does not receive an automatic bid). Northwestern's loss is to a top quality program, Penn.

Furthermore, the geeky numbers the selection committee looks at point to Northwestern's edge. Just like other NCAA tournament committees, the women's lacrosse one doesn't openly admit what numbers it looks at and what weight it gives such numbers. However, laxpower.com has a composite summary of important statistics called the "Tournament Selection Index" that maps out seven different numerical values. The TSI then ranks all 85 NCAA D-I programs with the lowest score earning the No. 1 spot. Northwestern is first on that list with -15.75 (again the lower the better). Penn is fourth at -.60.

The categories included are poll ranking, power rating, RPI, SOS, Quality Win Factor, Losses, and a Trend factor. (Read more about TSI here.) NU's power rating is higher (first vs. sixth), NU's RPI is higher (first vs. second), NU's schedule is harder than Penn's (fifth vs. 14th), and NU's QWF is higher (first vs fifth).

So in the end, it's not that surprising that Northwestern is the one seed and Penn is the two. But ironically, being No. 2 might actually help Penn. The NCAA does not seed the bottom half of the sixteen team bracket. Instead, the lower half is assigned to a top-eight seed depending on geography. Hence, just because Northwestern is the top seed doesn't mean they get the easiest first round matchup. In fact, it appears Penn might have that advantage.

Colgate has the worst record of any NCAA participant with an 11-9 overall mark. Their power rating is ranked 44th vs Penn's sixth-ranked one, and they give up over 13 goals a game vs Penn's 6.00 (which leads the nation). At the same time, the Raiders have been to three of the last five NCAA tournaments, something Penn can't claim (this is only its second since 1984).

Northwestern, meanwhile, gets a really tough first round draw. The closest team to them that's unseeded is nationally-ranked No. 10 Notre Dame (12-6). The Fighting Irish probably were the best team to not get a top eight seed. Their power rating isn't that much lower than NU's (11 vs 1). However, the Wildcats did destroy the Irish April 9 16-2. So don't go writing in that upset just yet.

Regardless, facing an easier first round opponent than the Wildcats is the silver lining for the Quakers' two seed.

"I'd rather play Colgate than Notre Dame," Ambrozy said. "And despite being No. 2, we might actually have an easier first two rounds. So No. 2, we can't complain"