After reaching its first national tournament in three years, the Grand Canyon University Men's Lacrosse team rose to No. 12 in the final 2022 New Balance Men's Collegiate Lacrosse Association (MCLA) Division I Coaches Poll. It's a jump of three spots for the Lopes, who occupied the No. 15 slot in each of the previous two polls. More importantly, it showed the increased respect that Lopes have earned over the season, since it's their highest national ranking since March of 2019. 11 of the 12 MCLA Polls in 2022 featured the Lopes among the top 25, and out of the last 96 MCLA Polls (dating back to Week 7 of 2013), the Lopes have been a part of 93 of them.
 
GCU also remained part of the widespread respect their conference has earned nationally, since the Southwestern Lacrosse Conference featured six teams in the national poll (the most from any conference), the others being: Concordia University Irvine (8^th), the University of Southern California (9^th), the University of Arizona (11^th), Chapman University and Arizona State University (tied with each other at No. 17).
 
The Lopes solidified their national standing after ending their longest national tournament drought – four years – by securing an at-large bid to the MCLA National Championships last month. The Lopes put themselves in that position by upsetting top-seeded CUI in the SLC Tournament, then falling one goal short of winning the SLC Championship – losing to USC in the title game. The first-round loss to No. 6 Liberty University at nationals ended the Lopes' season with a 7-7 overall mark.
 
The final New Balance MCLA Coaches' Poll is listed below:

Rank	School	Points	1st-place votes	Prev Rank
1	South Carolina	575	23	4
2	Georgia Tech	550	x	9
3	Brigham Young	518	x	3
4	Virginia Tech	501	x	1
5	Clemson (SC)	480	x	7
6	Liberty (VA)	451	x	5
7	Minnesota	447	x	6
8	Concordia-Irvine (CA)	410	x	2
9	Southern California	391	x	11
10	Florida	374	x	8
11	Arizona	298	x	12
12	Grand Canyon	290	x	T-15
13	Boston College	275	x	17
14	California	270	x	10
15	Cal Poly	240	x	23
16	Northeastern	222	x	13
T-17	Chapman (CA)	192	x	T-15
T-17	Arizona State	192	x	14
19	Texas	144	x	18
20	Colorado	142	x	19
21	Utah Valley	114	x	21
22	Santa Clara	112	x	20
23	Colorado State	104	x	22
T-24	Texas Christian	52	x	NR
T-24	UC-Santa Barbara	52	x	24