Major League Lacrossse Draft: Colgate's Peter Baum Goes Number One and More

Major League Lacrosse, one of the country's two professional field lacrosse leagues, held its Collegiate Draft tonight at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown. It's a little odd for a professional league to hold its draft before the commencement of a season, but in the end people attended the event and everything. Another feather in the cap for America!

Peter Baum -- long expected to be the first pick in the draft (regardless of whether he chooses to pursue the MLL or LXM Pro) -- was taken right off the top by the Ohio Machine; he'll join 2012 first-round pick Steele Stanwick (second overall) as cornerstones to the franchise's attack. Chris LaPierre (Virginia), Tucker Durkin (Johns Hopkins), Jesse Bernhardt (Maryland), Josh Hawkins (Loyola), Cameron Flint (Denver), Brian Megill (Syracuse), and Mike Sawyer (Loyola) followed in the first round. (New York retained Rob Pannell's rights from last year's draft when the Lizards took the Cornellian first overall.) For a full recap of the affair, click this text that I have designed as a link to another Internet computing webpage.

As this is a site dedicated to Division I college lacrosse, here's a few nuggets from the MLL draft tonight relative to college lacrosse concerns:

Number of Division I Programs Represented
There are 63 schools that will field a Division I team this season. Almost half of those -- 30, to be exact -- will have at least one player that was selected in the MLL Collegiate Draft tonight. That's a nice number, showing the depth of talent that exists in college lacrosse's highest division.

Highest Number of Draft Picks (School)
If you like to smash crabs with hammers, tonight was a good night for your presumed lacrosse rooting interests. Johns Hopkins, Maryland, and Loyola each ended the night with five draft picks, accounting for almost a quarter of the draft in totem. Rounding out the top five schools were Notre Dame (four) and Massachusetts, Duke, Hofstra, Denver, Ohio State, and Lehigh with three each. Maryland and Loyola dominated the first two rounds with three picks each -- those six accounting for about 38 percent of the selections in the first two rounds -- with only one other school -- Denver -- approaching that volume with two.

Highest Number of Draft Picks (Conference)
It wasn't just a big night for Loyola, college boy. In fact, its conference -- the ECAC -- dominated the draft, totalling 13 out of the 64 selections made. The ACC finished second among leagues with 11 selections, with the Big East coming in third with nine picks and the Colonial Athletic Association (eight), and Patriot League (seven) rounding out the top five.

In terms of where conferences made their hay, the ACC and ECAC were the horses of the first four rounds, notching nine selections each over the first 32 picks (over half of the selections). The Big East dominated late with seven picks coming over the final 32 selections and the Patriot League and CAA pulling in five each in those last four rounds. In the first two rounds -- money rounds where the stakes involve yachts and fingers -- it was all the ECAC and ACC, recording six and five selections, respectively, over the first 16 picks. That's an incredible saturation of MLL draftees in just two conferences, with no other league seeing more than one pick in the first two stanzas.

Eligible 2012 First Through Third Team All-Americans and Where They Were Taken
There were 15 guys from last year's All-America lists (first through third teams) that were eligible for the MLL draft and were subsequently selected:

First Team
Peter Baum: 1st (overall)
Will Manny: 14th
Tuker Durkin: 3rd
John Kemp: 25th

Second Team
Marcus Holman: 12th
Mike Sawyer: 8th
Chris LaPierre: 2nd
John Ranagan: 17th
Jesse Bernhardt: 4th
Chase Carraro: 13th
Brian Megill: 7th
Jason Noble: 10th

Third Team
Logan Schuss: 11th
Garrett Thul: 21st
Scott Ratliff: 9th

The Overall Leaderboard
Assuming I counted correctly (and that may or may not be the case), Syracuse still leads the way in overall MLL draft selections with 45. Virginia comes in second with 41, with Hopkins (35), Maryland (33), Notre Dame (26), Massachusetts (25), Duke (24), Georgetown (23), Hofstra (22), and North Carolina (21) rounding out the top 10.