The NCAA Division I Men's Lacrosse Championship tournament determines the annual top men's

field lacrosse Field lacrosse is a full contact sport, full contact outdoor men's sport played with ten players on each team. The sport originated among indigenous peoples of the Americas, Native Americans, and the modern rules of field lacrosse were initiall ...

team in the

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

Division I. This tournament has determined the national champion since the inaugural

1971 NCAA Division I Men's Lacrosse Championship The 1971 NCAA Division I Men's Lacrosse Championship was the first Division I NCAA men's lacrosse tournament. Prior to this the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (USILA) had voted for the national champion and, subsequently, awar ...

. From 1936 through 1970, the

United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association The United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association is an association of member institutions and organizations with college lacrosse programs at all levels of competition, including the three NCAA divisions and non-NCAA schools, at both the varsi ...

(USILA) awarded the

Wingate Memorial Trophy The Wingate Memorial Trophy was the award given to the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (USILA) national champion in men's college lacrosse from 1936 to 1970, and the NCAA Men's Champion in 1971-1972. The first intercollegiate ...

annually to the collegiate champion based on regular season records.

History

The first Division I Championship tournament held in 1971 replaced the USILA and Wingate Memorial Trophy national title awards. As of 2021, 50 NCAA tournaments have been held (not held in 2020). In that span eleven teams —

Johns Hopkins Johns Hopkins (May 19, 1795 – December 24, 1873) was an American merchant, investor, and philanthropist. Born on a plantation, he left his home to start a career at the age of 17, and settled in Baltimore, Maryland where he remained for most ...

Syracuse Syracuse may refer to: Places Italy *Syracuse, Sicily, or spelled as ''Siracusa'' *Province of Syracuse United States *Syracuse, New York **East Syracuse, New York **North Syracuse, New York *Syracuse, Indiana * Syracuse, Kansas *Syracuse, Miss ...

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine ...

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

Cornell Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

Duke Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are ran ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

, Loyola University (Maryland),

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

and

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

— have won the national title, with Syracuse leading with ten titles (plus one vacated by the NCAA). In all, 41 teams have participated in the NCAA tournament since its inception. Only seven unseeded teams — the 1988 Cornell Big Red, the 1991

Towson Tigers The Towson Tigers, formerly the ''Towson College Knights'', are the athletics teams of Towson University. All of the major athletic teams compete in the Colonial Athletic Association with 19 Division I athletic teams (13 in women's sports, 6 in ...

, the 2006

Massachusetts Minutemen The UMass Minutemen are the athletic teams that represent the University of Massachusetts Amherst; strictly speaking, the ''Minutemen'' nickname applies to men's teams and athletes only — women's teams and athletes are known as ...

, the 2010

Notre Dame Fighting Irish The Notre Dame Fighting Irish are the athletic teams that represent the University of Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish participate in 23 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I intercollegiate sports and in the NCAA's Division ...

, the 2011 and 2012 Maryland Terrapins and the 2016

North Carolina Tar Heels The North Carolina Tar Heels are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The name Tar Heel is a nickname used to refer to individuals from the state of North Carolina, the ''Tar Heel ...

— have made it to the championship game, and only ten unseeded teams have made it to the tournament semi-finals, the most recent being North Carolina in 2016. Johns Hopkins has appeared in every tournament but three (1971, 2013, 2021). The Number One seed in the tournament has won the title 17 times and there have been 13 undefeated

National Champions National champions are corporations which are technically private businesses but due to governmental policy are ceded a dominant position in a national economy. In this system, these large organizations are expected not only to seek profit but als ...

. North Carolina in 2016 was the first unseeded team to win the national title. Originally consisting of eight teams, the size of the tournament field has changed over the years, increasing to 10 in 1986, 12 in 1987, 16 in 2003, 18 in 2014, down to 17 in 2017, down again to 16 in 2021, and finally back up to 18 in 2022. The two semifinal games and the final have been played on the same weekend at the same stadium since 1986. All three matches have always been scheduled for

Memorial Day Memorial Day (originally known as Decoration Day) is a federal holiday in the United States for mourning the U.S. military personnel who have fought and died while serving in the United States armed forces. It is observed on the last Monda ...

weekend, with the semifinals doubleheader on Saturday afternoon and the final held on the holiday itself. The sport has historically been focused in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states, with the sport's U.S. heartland today extending from New England to North Carolina. Only six schools from outside the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic have played in the NCAA tournament—

Air Force An air force – in the broadest sense – is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an a ...

Butler A butler is a person who works in a house serving and is a domestic worker in a large household. In great houses, the household is sometimes divided into departments with the butler in charge of the dining room, wine cellar, and pantry. Some a ...

, Denver, Marquette, Notre Dame, and

Ohio State The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best public ...

. No team west of the Eastern Time Zone won an NCAA championship until Denver in

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...

. 19 coaches have won Division I titles: Richie Moran, Glenn Thiel,

Bud Beardmore Clayton Albert "Bud" Beardmore (October 26, 1939 – January 20, 2016) was an American lacrosse coach. As head coach at the University of Maryland, Beardmore led the Terrapins to two NCAA tournament championships in 1973 and 1975. He was induct ...

, Bob Scott,

Henry Ciccarone Henry A. "Chic" Ciccarone (February 8, 1938 – November 16, 1988) was an American college lacrosse coach. He was the head coach of the lacrosse team at Johns Hopkins University from 1975 to 1983 during which time he amassed a 105–16 rec ...

, Willie Scroggs, Jr., Roy Simmons, Jr., Dave Klarmann, Don Zimmerman,

Bill Tierney William G. Tierney (born September 26, 1952) is an American lacrosse coach who currently heads the men's lacrosse team at the University of Denver. Tierney is the first college lacrosse coach to win an NCAA DI Championship west of the Eastern T ...

Dom Starsia Dom Starsia (born April 21, 1952) is an American lacrosse coach. He is the former head coach of the University of Virginia men's lacrosse program, with whom he won four NCAA national championships, in 1999, 2003, 2006, and 2011. Previously, he ...

John Desko John Terry Desko is a retired lacrosse head coach. Desko coached the men's lacrosse team at Syracuse University for 22 seasons from 1999 to 2021. Desko took over as head coach in 1999 from Hall of Fame coach Roy Simmons Jr. Early life The Des ...

Dave Pietramala Dave Pietramala (born 1967) is the defensive coordinator for the Syracuse University Men's Lacrosse team and the former head coach for the Johns Hopkins University Men's Lacrosse team. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest defensemen in la ...

, John Danowski, Charley Toomey, John Tillman, Joe Breschi, Andy Shay, and Lars Tiffany. Tierney is the only one to have won at two different schools (Princeton and Denver).

Results

Team titles

Finals appearances by state

Notes

References

External links

NCAA page for men's lacrosse
{{National Collegiate Athletic Association Recurring sporting events established in 1971 1971 establishments in the United States