There was a touch of regret as JoJo Marasco talked about Syracuse’s departure from the Big East. Just a hint of disappointment as he thought about the steps the conference’s members had made during the last two years to improve as lacrosse programs.

But that little bit of lament quickly dissolved into excitement when the Orange midfielder’s discussion moved on from the Big East to the new-look Atlantic Coast Conference.

‘It is that superconference,’ Marasco said. ‘Some of the best players in the country get to play against some of the other best players in the country and go to those great schools. That’s really exciting. It’s definitely going to be an unbelievable experience.’

Unbelievable. Exciting. Fantastic. Intense. Brutal. Those are some of the words used to describe the ACC as a lacrosse conference, which Syracuse will join sometime within the next two years. The Orange joins Maryland, North Carolina, Duke and Virginia, all of which are perennial powers on the growing lacrosse landscape. If SU could join the ACC this year, the five-team league would claim the last four national champions and 10 of the last 13 dating back to 1999.

The league already was known as the top-notch collection of teams in men’s lacrosse, even without the legendary Syracuse, Johns Hopkins and Princeton programs. And now, with the addition of SU, the ACC could become the center of the lacrosse world for years to come.

‘These are the most competitive, the most athletic, the most physical lacrosse games that we play,’ Virginia head coach Dom Starsia said. ‘What Syracuse is going to find is that running through a schedule of ACC games, you’ve got to be on top of your game every single time. We really get after each other all the time.’

Unlike in basketball and football, SU lacrosse does not have a long-standing history with the Big East. The Orange was an independent lacrosse school until it joined the conference for its inaugural season in 2010.

Many questioned Syracuse’s decision to join the league rather than remain independent. Its storied history and status as a national powerhouse didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the members.

The other six Big East schools — Villanova, Notre Dame, Georgetown, St. John’s, Rutgers and Providence — have a combined three final four appearances and only Notre Dame has played for a national title.

SU’s 11 national championships are the most for any team in the country.

And while Syracuse has faced the occasional nail-biter against conference foes in the past two years, the Orange has dominated the Big East. It is 12-0 overall, and even with two one-goal wins against Georgetown and Villanova last year, SU has still outscored its conference opponents 157-72 in those 12 wins.

That’s all likely to change in the ACC.

‘It’ll probably be a little bit more competition,’ Marasco said. ‘It’s the top five teams in the country. Some of the best players step on the field to play against each other. You’ve got some of the best coaches. You’re playing some of the best teams in the country every time you step on the field.’

Since the NCAA tournament’s inception in 1971, only eight teams have won the 41 titles. They are the five ACC schools, Princeton, Johns Hopkins and Cornell.

And it’s much more than just a storied past for these five programs.

Last year, three of the five teams made the final four. Syracuse and North Carolina didn’t get there because Maryland knocked them out in the first two rounds. The Terrapins then beat Duke in the national semifinals before falling to Virginia in the championship.

All in all, the NCAA tournament was another ACC tournament.

‘You really can’t describe it,’ former SU longstick midfielder Joel White said. ‘You’d leave something out. I think that lacrosse is still growing, and I think there’s some other teams that could come about and make a power conference. But right now, it’s the ACC.’

Once the superconference is officially created, its members could play each other two or possibly three times per year if they meet in the ACC and NCAA tournaments.

And that should make for a lot of the high-intensity, highly skilled lacrosse Syracuse has seen when taking on ACC opponents in the past.

‘I think it’s always been a playoff type of game,’ Orange head coach John Desko said. ‘All the schools recruit against one another. They’re usually highly ranked when they play against one another, so it’s a very meaningful game.

‘It seems like every time we play one of these teams, it’s an exciting game, and it’s an important game for both schools involved.’

And even though the teams have to come out every week in conference play ready to take on one of the nation’s top teams, the coaches don’t seem too worried about their players getting beat up before the NCAA tournament.

In fact, even losing in the ACC hasn’t hurt its members in recent years. In 2010, Duke finished last in the conference before winning its first national title that season. And although Virginia won the NCAA tournament last season, it also finished last in the conference standings.

‘These games guarantee that if you lose, it’s OK because you’re playing great competition that’s preparing your kids for the end of the year,’ Duke head coach John Danowski said. ‘If you win it’s good, but either way, your program continues to grow during the course of the year.’

And for Syracuse, that could be a major factor come NCAA tournament time.

In the last two years, the Orange has dominated its lesser Big East opponents en route to perfect conference records and only two losses each season. But both years, SU suffered early postseason exits — losing to Army in the first round in 2010 and Maryland in the second round last season.

Playing in the ACC raises the level of competition in conference, but it could also allow Syracuse more room to schedule tougher nonconference opponents.

The Orange will play four conference games as part of the ACC as opposed to the seven it would play this year in the Big East, in addition to Marquette.

And then the regular season would be capped off by the ACC tournament rather than the Big East tournament. The winner of the ACC tournament won’t get an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, but they likely will get an at-large bid anyway. As will a few, if not all, of the league’s other members.

‘It’s a brutally tough conference championship to win,’ UNC head coach Joe Breschi said. ‘But you wouldn’t want to be in any other conference.’

Once Syracuse joins its new conference home, it will start a new chapter in its storied history. The North Carolinas and Marylands of the lacrosse world will replace the mediocre lacrosse programs from Providence and Rutgers that are currently on SU’s schedule.

And while that could lead to more regular-season losses as a member of this superconference, it could ultimately help the Orange in the long run.

‘Now that we’re going to be playing these teams and playing them once or twice or three times every season,’ Marasco said, ‘it gives an opportunity for us to see where we really stand. We’ve been the No. 1 team for a while in the country. To stay up there and beat those teams would be a big accomplishment.’

zjbrown@syr.edu

Published on October 12, 2011 at 12:00 pm