After
reaching its first national tournament in three years last May, the
Grand Canyon University Men's Lacrosse team will open the 2023 season in the No. 11 spot in the 2023 New Balance Men's Collegiate Lacrosse Association (MCLA) Division I Preseason Coaches' Poll. It's one notch higher than the
No. 12 ranking they finished last season with, and this year's ranking is the highest the Lopes have enjoyed since the
first regular season poll of the 2019 season. There have now been a total of 97 MCLA Polls released since Week 7 of the 2013 season, and the Lopes have been ranked in all but three of them.
As usual, the Lopes' home conference, the Southwestern Lacrosse Conference, is represented better in the poll than any other league. Including GCU, six SLC teams dot the MCLA Top 25: Concordia University Irvine (7
th), defending SLC champion University of Southern California (9
th), the University of Arizona (12
th), Arizona State University (17
th) and Chapman University
(18th).
The national expectations of the Lopes are bolstered by the fact that they
reached the SLC Championship Game a year ago, earned the at-large bid to the national tournament, and return 10 starters from last year's squad. The Lopes will open up the regular season schedule in Los Angeles, California February 25 for a rematch of the conference championship with USC. They'll commence the home side of their 2023 schedule on Friday, March 3 as they host 3
rd-ranked BYU at 7PM at
GCU Soccer Stadium.
The full New Balance MCLA Preseason Coaches' Poll is listed below:
| Rank |
School |
Points |
1st-place votes |
2022 Final Rank |
| 1 |
South Carolina |
645 |
24 |
1 |
| 2 |
Georgia Tech |
621 |
2 |
2 |
| 3 |
BYU |
590 |
x |
3 |
| 4 |
Virginia Tech |
575 |
x |
4 |
| 5 |
Clemson (SC) |
523 |
x |
5 |
| 6 |
Liberty (VA) |
508 |
x |
6 |
| 7 |
Concordia-Irvine (CA) |
483 |
x |
8 |
| 8 |
Minnesota |
451 |
x |
7 |
| 9 |
Southern California |
427 |
x |
9 |
| 10 |
Florida |
403 |
x |
10 |
| 11 |
Grand Canyon |
345 |
x |
12 |
| 12 |
Arizona |
323 |
x |
11 |
| 13 |
California |
318 |
x |
14 |
| 14 |
Boston College |
308 |
x |
13 |
| 15 |
Cal Poly |
270 |
x |
15 |
| 16 |
Northeastern |
242 |
x |
16 |
| 17 |
Arizona State |
233 |
x |
T-17 |
| 18 |
Chapman (CA) |
226 |
x |
T-17 |
| 19 |
Texas |
191 |
x |
19 |
| 20 |
Colorado |
164 |
x |
20 |
| 21 |
Utah Valley |
155 |
x |
21 |
| 22 |
Santa Clara |
140 |
x |
22 |
| 23 |
Colorado State |
107 |
x |
23 |
| 24 |
Texas Christian |
46 |
x |
T-24 |
| 25 |
UC-Santa Barbara |
37 |
x |
T-24 |
