Lacrosse is a foreign concept to me. I grew up in the bucolic, mountainous wasteland of western North Carolina, where the idea of “sports” starts with football in the fall and ends with basketball in the winter. The warmer months are reserved exclusively for fishing and NASCAR. In my neck of the woods, lacrosse wasn’t just un-American, like soccer, tennis, or socialism—it didn’t even exist.
Like many who come to this school, my enthusiasm for Georgetown athletics was based entirely around our basketball team. I didn’t realize, however, that our men’s lacrosse team is just as feared and respected on a national level. It turns out that the teams are strikingly similar in their performance this year—and given the maddening inconsistency of JTIII’s group, this has been both good and bad for the lacrosse team.
Just like last year’s hoops squad that fell to plucky Davidson in the second round of the NCAA tournament, the men’s lacrosse team ended last season on a disappointing note, missing the postseason for the first time in 11 years after a solid regular season campaign. Then, the season began with a smashing upset of a juggernaut, a 13-10 defeat of the No. 3 Maryland Terrapins (for the unacquainted: think the basketball team’s win at UConn).
Despite their impressive early performance, the Hoyas quickly fell into a hole, losing to St. John’s, Hobart, Syracuse, and Duke to fall out of the national rankings. Sound familiar? The basketball team suffered a similar midseason swoon, losing to in-conference foes Duke and Syracuse as they stumbled out of the top 25.
Fortunately, Georgetown lacrosse has managed to pull itself out of its slump a bit, currently sitting at No. 18 with just two games to go. And as the postseason approaches, the Hoyas find themselves just where the basketball team did: squarely on the bubble of the NCAA tournament’s 16-team field.
That’s where the similarities end. If you were raised outside the mid-Atlantic or the Northeast, chances are you have never been properly introduced to the fast-paced and physical sport. The disparity in national exposure between the two sports is mirrored on campus, making it difficult for lacrosse to garner comparable attention.
That’s not to say that the team is ignored—over 2,000 spectators packed the stands at the Multi-Sport Field to witness the Hoyas’ hard-fought loss to Navy on March 28, and the team got to beat the Terps in front of a national audience on ESPNU. Still, Hoya basketball games are shown regularly on either ESPN or CBS, and attendance at home games frequently approaches 20,000. Despite similar accomplishments and national standing, the lacrosse team lives in relative obscurity compared to the attention basketball players receive.
The basketball team’s performance down the stretch may have been lackluster at best, but a strong performance in their last two matches (home against Rutgers this weekend and Penn State the next) could propel Hoyas men’s lacrosse into the postseason again. I, for one, will be in attendance, no matter what anyone from back home says.
Teach Sean how to handle a stick at stq@georgetown.edu
