Maryland men’s lacrosse will be the No. 4 seed of the 2023 NCAA tournament, the Division I Men’s Lacrosse Committee announced Sunday night. The Terps will host Army at 7:30 p.m. at SECU Stadium on Saturday.
“This is going to be a big challenge for us, but at this time of year, everybody in the NCAA tournament poses challenges,” coach John Tillman said.
The seed is the program’s lowest since 2019, when the Terps were unseeded.
Maryland endured its worst pre-NCAA tournament campaign since 2019, the only other time the Terps failed to win either the Big Ten’s regular season or conference tournament title. The program’s 10 wins this season marked its fewest entering the NCAA tournament since 2013.
The Terps’ up-and-down year started off with an excellent 11-goal victory over Richmond in the season-opener. They followed that with a five-goal defeat to Loyola. Coach John Tillman’s squad went 7-3 over the remainder of the regular season.
That run featured victories over then-No. 1 Virginia and Penn State, No. 1-seed in the Big Ten tournament. It also included a five-goal defeat to Michigan — the Wolverines’ first win over the Terps in program history — and a 12-11 loss to in-state rival No. 4 Johns Hopkins to close the regular season.
[Maryland men’s lacrosse blown out by Michigan in Big Ten tournament final defeat, 14-5]
Maryland enters the NCAA tournament after losing to Michigan 14-5 in the Big Ten tournament’s title game.
The NCAA tournament appearance will be the program’s 45th and its 20th consecutive season in the field, the longest active streak among all Division I schools.
“If people are talking about the standard, I guess I would take that as a compliment that people are talking about us,” Tillman said. “It says a lot about the players that we’ve had and the coaches that were here and what those folks did … but I certainly realize this is a new year and a new team, and we really haven’t done anything yet that is going to be legacy-wise.”
Army enters the tournament as the champions of the Patriot League, having defeated Loyola 10-8 in the conference championship Sunday. The Black Knights won nine consecutive games after dropping their season opener to finish the regular season 10-3.
Defense is their strength. Army allowed 8.71 goals per game this season, second-fewest in Division I and the best out of any team in the tournament.
If Maryland wins and advances to the second round, the Terps will face the winner of No. 5 seed Penn State and Princeton.
