College Lacrosse Schedule and Open Thread: March 16 and 17, 2013

There are 63 current Division I teams. 60 -- Six. Tee. -- will put on the foil this weekend, none playing games on back-to-back days. I don't even know how to process all of that. My gigantic brain is already attempting to leak out of my ears so that it doesn't need to deal with trying to understand it all.

Your five highlights for the weekend are as follows:

• Johns Hopkins at Syracuse: Ryan put together another beauty of an inforgraphic for this rivalry, and you should probably print it out, bring it to your local tattoo parlor, and tell the artist to ink it to your chest. There's something special about Johns Hopkins-Syracuse -- mostly that their fans are sociopaths and despite having not yet attempting to wipe each other out with poison or nuclear weapons over the last 30-plus years -- and the next iteration of the rivalry focuses this afternoon on ESPNU. This isn't a make-or-break game for either program, but it will help define what kind of ceiling each team is facing this season.
• Penn State at Massachusetts: THUNDERDOME! Look: Neither the Nittany Lions or Minutemen are swinging axes at teams this season (Penn State is currently ranked 36th in adjusted efficiency margin; Massachusetts is slightly better at 24th) but for today all that matters is that the Nittany Lions and Minutemen will swing axes at each other. THUNDERDOME! isn't exactly the ultra blood-and-lost-limbs conference that it was a season or two ago, but given the relative competitive balance in the league this season -- Massachusetts, Penn State, and Drexel are all in the hunt to somehow survive the destructive fire-bombing that is THUNDERDOME! -- today's game in Amherst holds extended value, if only to determine which team needs a head bandage more.
• Cornell at Yale: Are Randolph and Mortimer Duke excited for this one?
  
  
  Indeed.
• Ohio State at Virginia: The Cavaliers have dropped two of their last three -- both in heart-pulled-from-chest-while-still-beating fashion, losing in the Carrior Dome in overtime and last weekend at Klockner against Cornell -- and have played a schedule thus far ranked only 25th in opponent efficiency margin. It's unclear what Virginia actually is -- the team's best win is either an overtime win against Drexel to open the season or a stomping of Mount St. Mary's in late-February -- but today's date with a surging Buckeyes squad in Charlottesville is defining for both teams, even if it is only mid-March. This yelling polar bear agrees.
• Princeton at Pennsylvania: This, basically:
  

Here's Saturday's full schedule. If there are errors, please let me know. I pulled this information from the Lacrosse Magazine website. I'll populate links to live stats and video as the day progresses.

And here's your Sunday slate:

This is your open thread for the weekend. The only thing I truly believe in is that I'd probably eat buffalo-sauced concrete without concern. People will be around to yak about whatever is tickling their fancy.

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