No. 6 Maryland (12-3) learned Sunday night that it had drawn the No. 6 seed in the NCAA tournament and will open the first round against Yale (11-4) on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. at Byrd Stadium.
The Terps are 3-3 as a No. 6 seed in the NCAA tournament and advanced to the national semifinals in 1983. But they are 15-4 in the first round and have won six of their past seven first-round games.
Maryland will meet a Bulldogs team that captured the Ivy League title – the program's third in the past four years – and defeated the Terps, 10-6, on Feb. 21. Here are some instant reactions from Maryland coach John Tillman.
What did you think about the team's placement in the NCAA tournament?
I was a little surprised that we were a 6 seed, and that doesn't mean that I'm complaining or I'm being critical. I kind of looked at it over the past couple days, and I thought it would be hard for us to get that high. So that was my first reaction, that we were a little higher than I thought, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Were you surprised about a rematch with Yale?
Not really. With all of the travel restrictions and us being where we are, there was a really strong possibility we would get Yale or Cornell or Albany – and I felt like on the outside – maybe Colgate or Brown. But it kind of felt like those were pretty strong possibilities. I even thought Yale did so well this weekend that they might have earned themselves a home game."
Is a rematch what the guys wanted?
I don't know. I haven't talked to the guys. That game just seems like it was so long ago. I'll certainly take the temperature of the guys. I think we're all just excited to have another week together, but there aren't any easy games anymore. You've just got to come ready to play, and I think our guys are eager to get back to the practice field. We've really focused on us the last few days here and tried to get things re-started for Monday.
Does a 15-4 record in the first round bode well?
Every year's a new year. So I don't worry about that. Each team is different. When you look at the last four years here, last year was a one-goal game [8-7] against Cornell where we were down and then came back. The year before that, we lost [16-8] to Cornell and the year before that, it was a tight game [10-9] with Lehigh. So over the last three years, it's been a blowout [loss] and we've won two one-goal games. So you can't expect anything else other than a 60-minute battle in a pretty close game.