The 2008 NCAA Division I lacrosse tournament was the 38th annual tournament hosted by the National Collegiate Athletic Association to determine the team champion of men's college lacrosse among its Division I programs, held at the end of the 2008 NCAA Division I men's lacrosse season. The tournament was played from May 10–26, 2008.
Syracuse beat Johns Hopkins in the championship game, 13–10.
The championship game was played at Gillette Stadium, the home of the NFL's New England Patriots, in Foxborough, Massachusetts, with a crowd of 48,970 fans.
The first round of the single-elimination tournament was played on May 10–11 at the home field of the top-seeded team. The quarterfinals were held on May 17–18 on two separate neutral fields: the Navy–Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis, Maryland, and Schoellkopf Field in Ithaca, New York. The tournament culminated with the semifinals and finals held on Memorial Day weekend. The championship weekend, which included the Division II and Division III championships, was hosted by Harvard University and the Eastern College Athletic Conference.
Qualifying
The Division I NCAA Men's Lacrosse Committee was responsible for selecting the teams that competed in the championship tournament. The qualifying teams, along with the seeding for each team in the tournament, were announced on Sunday, May 4, 2008. Seven conferences received automatic bids to the tournament for its top team. The remaining nine teams were selected as "at large" bids by the committee.
Five conferences held a conference tournament championship to award the conferences' bid. Canisius earned an automatic bid by winning the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) championship. This marks the first time that Canisius College has gained entry to the National Championship tournament. Colgate earned an automatic bid by winning its first-ever Patriot League championship. Hofstra earned an automatic bid by winning Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) championship, Notre Dame earned an automatic bid by winning Great Western Lacrosse League (GWLL) championship, and UMBC earned an automatic bid by winning America East Conference championship.
Two conferences award their bids based on regular season conference records. Loyola earned an automatic bid by winning the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) championship with a 6–1 conference record. The Ivy League's automatic bid was awarded to Cornell. Cornell and Brown had identical conference records, but due to a victory by Cornell in head-to-head competition earlier in the season the tiebreaker was given to Cornell.
The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) conference tournament champion was Duke. However, the ACC does not receive an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament because a conference must have at least six members competing (for 2 years) in order to be awarded an automatic bid.
The following teams were awarded at-large bids by the NCAA Selection Committee: Duke (ACC), Virginia (ACC), Syracuse (Independent), North Carolina (ACC), Johns Hopkins (Independent), Maryland (ACC), Denver (GWLL), Navy (Patriot), and Ohio State (GWLL).
Bracket
* = Overtime
Game summaries
First round
The first round of the 2008 championship tournament saw upsets, an overtime game, and the NCAA career points record broken.
Unseeded Ohio State bested #8 Cornell 15–7. The opening goal of this game was scored by Ohio State goaltender Stefan Schroder, who ran the length of the field to put one past the Big Red netminder. Navy upset #4 seeded North Carolina in Chapel Hill with a final score of 8–7 on the strong play of the Midshipmen defense and the four goal effort of Tim Paul, who was honored with Nike Player of the Week honors. Notre Dame, who was hosting its first NCAA Tournament game, topped Colgate in a contest that was settled in overtime. In a victory over Loyola, Duke's Matt Danowski broke the NCAA career points record, eclipsing Joe Vasta's mark. Syracuse ended Canisius's first ever appearance in the tournament early with a 20–3 victory. Johns Hopkins was led by Paul Rabil's four goals in a 10–4 win over Hofstra. Virginia's Garrett Billings third goal of the game with 6:50 left in the game sealed the Cavaliers win over UMBC. Maryland beat GWLL's Denver 10–7.