MLAX : Syracuse to travel to No. 3 Duke in NCAA tournament 1st round
Syracuse will face No. 3 Duke in the first round of the NCAA tournament in Durham, N.C., on Saturday.
The game is a rematch of the Big City Classic on April 1, when Duke defeated Syracuse 12-10.
The Orange (9-7) earned an automatic bid to the tournament after winning the Big East tournament championship on Saturday. SU struggled to a 7-7 record during the regular season that included just one win over a ranked opponent, then-No. 10 Princeton, and went into the postseason on the NCAA tournament bubble. But the Orange played arguably its two best games of the season to defeat Villanova, 15-6, and St. John’s, 12-4, in the conference tournament.
Syracuse will be making its fifth straight NCAA tournament appearance.
Duke (13-4) boasts an impressive resume with wins over top-10 opponents North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland. The Blue Devils won the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament.
Duke was rewarded with a home game at Koskinen Stadium at noon on Saturday against the Orange.
Loyola (14-1) received the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament. Johns Hopkins, Duke, Notre Dame, Virginia, Massachusetts, and North Carolina round out the top eight seeds in the 16-team tournament. No. 6 UMass is the only undefeated team in the field.
In each of the last four seasons, the Orange was a top-three seed and won two national championships in 2008 and 2009. But in Syracuse’s trips the last two years, the team was upset in the first round and quarterfinals, respectively.
Published on May 6, 2012 at 12:00 pm
Contact Ryne: rjgery@syr.edu
