Heading into Sunday’s NCAA Selection Show, Massachusetts men’s lacrosse coach Greg Cannella thought his team would draw Cornell in the first round. An Ivy League team they got, but it wasn’t the Big Red.

‘ Instead, the Minutemen will head to New Jersey for a meeting with fourth-seeded Princeton in the opening round of the NCAAs. Either way, Cannella knew his team had their work cut out for them.

‘We knew we were going to play someone tough,’ he said with a tentative laugh, knowing no matter who they got it was going to be an elite team.

Princeton certainly qualifies. The talented Tigers have won games over some of the best teams in the country ‘- including Syracuse (No.1), Johns Hopkins (No. 7), UMBC (No. 9), Brown (No. 12) and Harvard (No. 19). Against teams currently in the Top 20, UMass has beaten Harvard, Loyola (No. 15) and Penn State (No. 16), but lost to Syracuse, Brown and No. 10 Hofstra. And the latter two games (both decided by one goal) could have gone UMass’ way.

Those wins were nice for UMass, but there’s a major difference between teams ranked No. 15 and teams in the Top 5 in Division I lacrosse. Take Syracuse for example, which completely dominated the Minutemen, 10-3, back on April 25 at McGuirk Stadium. Princeton is one of the most elite programs in the country, as evidenced by the teams it has beaten this season.

UMass has nine wins, won its conference championship and has a battle-tested coach, one of the best 1-2 combinations at attack and arguably the best goalkeeper in the country, Doc Schneider.‘ The Minutemen can compete with any team in the country because of these factors, and have a better chance than most of the experts are giving them.

The talent is there to pull off that upset, but almost all of the following will have to go UMass’ way come Sunday to do it’hellip;

Win the face-off battle

That has been a problem for UMass this season. And if that problem pops up against Princeton, look out. The Tigers love to run on offense and can score in a hurry after winning a draw.

The key here is Joe Reale. The senior has taken the majority of the face-offs this season, but has had major struggles. He’s won just 106 of his 242 face-offs, which is less than 44 percent. If he struggles early, Cannella will have to make a change.

‘We’re going to stick with Joe to begin with and see how he’s doing and then we can use Anthony Toresco, who proved himself the other day,’ Cannella said before practice Wednesday. ‘And it’s about matchups on the face-offs, too, depending on who’s out there. We’re going to play that as it goes.’

If it wasn’t for Toresco, UMass may not even be in the NCAA Tournament. He won 11 crucial face-offs in the overtime victory over Rutgers, while Reale lost all but two of his seven tries.

Find a third scorer

This has been elusive at times for the Minutemen. Jim Connolly (35 goals) and Tim Balise (30) have accounted for 47.8 percent of the 136 goals UMass has scored this season. It’s good for the team to have two dynamic scorers, but they are often too reliant on them offensively to win games.

‘We are urging some players to step up. And we’re going to need someone else besides Jim and Tim, that’s for sure,’ Cannella said.

Take that to heart Bobby Hayes (11), Art Kell (11), Rory Pedrick (12) and Evan Blum (13) ‘- the four players that are the most capable of taking some of the scoring load off of Connolly and Balise.

They all know how important this will be on Sunday.

‘We’re going to have to have everybody step up and have a big game ‘- just to take some pressure off of Jim and Tim, because Princeton is going to be keying up to stop them because they’ve had such great games the past couple weeks,’ Hayes said.

Check out the production of Balise and Connolly in UMass’ nine wins: 51 of the 99 goals, 5.6 goals per game. In the five losses? They have a total of 14 goals.

They’ll both need hat tricks (at least) with some serious help from their teammates.

Relish the ‘underdog factor’

‘I’m sure Doc will touch on that, he always does,’ joked Connolly. ‘That’s how we got here. We’re the underdogs ‘- that’s why we came to UMass in the first place. We relish the role.’

The Minutemen have been using that motivation all-year long. In fact, that is in many ways the foundation of the UMass men’s lacrosse program.

‘No doubt, [the program] is built that whether you’re a favorite or an underdog, you’re still going to work your tail off,’ said Cannella. ‘Many times this year, we weren’t the underdog, so you feel that a little bit. And now we are so you got to relish that role, take advantage of that and I think that’s what this program is all about.’

Many of the players have talked about how they aren’t as highly-recruited as players from schools like Syracuse and Princeton. They always go out there to prove that they belong on the same field with any team in the country.

Motivation is never a problem for a team coach by Cannella, but a little extra motivation never hurt anyone.

Utilize leadership and experience

UMass’ seniors have been here before. Led by Schneider, the Minutemen made the national championship game in 2006. They haven’t been back to the postseason since. It will be the job of the seniors to lead by example and get the younger kids ready to go.

‘A couple of them have spoke up already about preparation and hopefully some of the younger guys are listening and hopefully they can settle some of the young guys down if they’re too excited on Sunday,’ Cannella said.

Get good goalkeeping

Done.

Eli Rosenswaike is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at [email protected].