Field Hockey Learns NCAA Fate Tonight

The Harvard field hockey team needed a lot of conference tournament results to go its way last weekend to have a chance at an NCAA berth.

For the most part, the results went Harvard’s way.

Conference favorites, such as UConn and Northeastern, won their tournaments.

Several of the teams in bubble contention with Harvard—such as Iowa, Central Michigan, Louisville and Boston College—lost in their first rounds.

The conference favorite who Harvard beat—California—won its conference. The Golden Bears can clinch an NCAA bid with a victory over Lafayette in a play-in game today.

Harvard will find out if all of the uncontrollable events have cleared way for its selection to the tournament at 8 p.m. tonight.

“Some things went well for us this weekend,” said captain Katie Scott. “Hopefully that will put us in position for a bid. We don’t know. We’re just kind of crossing our fingers at this point.”

There are eight automatic berths to the NCAA tournament and eight at-large berths. Three of the at-large berths are destined to go to the ACC (Wake Forest, Maryland, and Duke) and two are certain to go to the Big Ten (Michigan and Penn State). That leaves three berths for bubble teams.

Joining Harvard on the bubble are James Madison and William & Mary from the CAA, Louisville and Central Michigan from the Mid-American Conference, and BC from the Big East.

James Madison—who beat Wake Forest, BC and Duke—and Louisville, who beat Kent State twice and hosts the national championships, have the clear edge for two of the spots. The two teams could only be considered on the bubble because they have so many losses to teams out of NCAA contention.

William & Mary and Central Michigan each finished second in their conference’s regular season play, but William & Mary’s only notable win is against James Madison, while Central Michigan’s only notable win is one over Kent St. in three tries. Also, both candidates suffer from being in regions crowded with at-large candidates.

If the NCAA decision comes down to Harvard versus BC—who are the only serious Northeast at-large contenders—BC (15-6) might seem to have the advantage over Harvard (12-5) because of the Eagles’ superior win percentage and their double-overtime victory over the Crimson on a controversial goal.

Harvard’s advantage might lie in that BC hasn’t beaten any of the tournament-bound teams or serious contenders other than Harvard. Harvard would have one such victory provided California wins today. That result would be helpful to Harvard since record against teams already in the tournament is an NCAA selection criterion. On the other hand, a California win would put Lafayette (19-2) on the bubble too. The Leopards would have a worse record against common opponents and a much weaker schedule than Harvard, but they could get in based solely on their good record.

BC could also be hurt by its two head-to-head losses to Villanova. The Wildcats could actually beat out BC in a pairwise comparison because of those defeats. Harvard, on the other hand, has lost only to BC and four conference champions.

If Harvard doesn’t make NCAAs, it will compete in the ECAC tournament. Harvard chose not to declare for ECACs last season because it wanted to aim for higher goals, but this season—with only two seniors on the roster—the team felt it could benefit from pressure-packed postseason experience.

“We have a young team, we thought it would be a good idea to [declare for ECACs],” Scott said.

And while the ECAC experience would be good for Harvard training its youth, the NCAA experience would be far better. The Crimson only hopes it is so lucky.

—Staff writer David R. De Remer can be reached at remer@fas.harvard.edu.