1988 NCAA Division I men's lacrosse tournament

The 1988 NCAA Division I lacrosse tournament was the 18th 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 1988 NCAA Division I men's lacrosse season.

Hosts Syracuse defeated Cornell in the final, 13–8, for the first of three straight NCAA titles for the Orangemen.

The championship game was played at the Carrier Dome at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York, with 20,148 fans in attendance.

Overview
Syracuse's 1988 team is noted for finishing undefeated, 15-0, and featuring the Gait brothers, Paul and Gary Gait. Syracuse was ranked number one in the nation for most of this year, averaged just under 18 goals a game, and had only one close game—an overtime win over North Carolina—during the regular season. They had also defeated the second seed in the tournament, Johns Hopkins, 19–7 early in the season.

This NCAAs is also notable for being the tournament where Gary Gait took his famous "Air Gait" shot in a close semi-final game against Tony Seaman's Penn team. Penn played a tough zone defense to try to contain the Gaits and Syracuse. Gary Gait saw a way around the zone, by running directly at the goal from behind and slam dunking the ball into the goal past the shocked goaltender. At that time, a player was allowed to both touch the goal and land in the crease, provided the ball had first crossed the goal line. Gait scored on two "Air Gait" plays in that game. The NCAA outlawed that type of play a short while later. Syracuse won this semifinal game against Penn on a goal by Paul Gait with three seconds left in the game.

In a 23–5 quarterfinal win over Navy, Gary Gait scored a tournament record 9 goals.

Bracket

 * (i) one overtime