On Sunday night, the Syracuse Orange learned of their NCAA Tournament path.
During the NCAA Selection Show (or earlier if you spend any time online), it was revealed that ‘Cuse received the No. 6 seed in the 2026 Division I Men’s Lacrosse Tournament and will host their first-round game this coming weekend.
The Orange will host the Yale Bulldogs in the JMA Wireless Dome on Sunday, May 10 at 5 PM on ESPN U.
Yale, one of the last at-large teams into the tournament, earned that bid after going 9-5 overall and 4-2 in the Ivy League. They began the year very slowly, getting off to a 3-4 start and looking like they had no chance to even be in the tournament conversation. But they closed the regular season by winning six straight games, including over Cornell and Harvard, to sneak their way in after a subpar start. On Friday, their winning streak ended with a 12-10 loss to No. 1 overall seed Princeton in the Ivy League Semifinals.
The Orange and Bulldogs shared four common opponents in the regular season. Both teams beat BU, and both lost to Princeton (Yale did twice). ‘Cuse lost to Harvard, while Yale beat them, but the Bulldogs lost to a Penn team that SU took down in overtime. Yale will be ‘Cuse’s fourth Ivy opponent on the year.
This will be the first meeting between the programs in nine years, since they met in the first round of the 2017 NCAA Tournament. ‘Cuse won that Dome game in thrilling, 11-10 fashion. The schools met for the first time all the way back in 1920, with the Orange holding a 20-4 advantage in the all-time series.
How do you guys feel about ‘Cuse’s draw? Given that they’ve failed to add to their resume in recent weeks, I think this feels like about as decent a path as they could have hoped for. How do you feel about their prospects?
