rochsioux

I have no problem with scheduling teams in these conferences. Just don't schedule too many in the same year, especially when your own conference SOS is not very good.

The other team in the Lightning showcase was Alabama-Huntsville so it was not a quality tourney. Beating Providence is not impressive, they finished 8th in Hockey East and had a 10-23-3 overall record. Based on their schedule, Jackson should have had a great year, they didn't play very many tough games. That's why I was suspect of them going into the tourney and they did nothing to prove the skeptics wrong. ND had no expectations, no pressure to win, and played a lousy schedule. IMO, for Jackson to get the award he needed to a least make the FF and preferably beat a quality WCHA/HEA team on the way. They made the tourney, won one game (double ot against 13-20-3 Alabama-Huntsville), not good enough for me. I think Hakstol is definitely a deserving candidate and I hope he wins it. He lost his starting goalie, top defenseman, and three of the best forwards in the WCHA, all players that could have returned this year. Were these departures expected ? Some, but I doubt all. With a team comprised primarily of freshman and sophomores, they started slowly but put it together in the second half and made the FF. To me that is the very definition of a great coaching job. This is the third year in a row that Hakstol has taken the team to the FF. Somethings wrong if he can do this and not get the Spencer Penrose Award at least once. People can't keep claiming that UND always gets the talent, blah, blah, blah so anyone could do a good coaching job. If so then no UND, Minn, BC, Wisconsin, Michigan coach should ever win the award.

Notre Dame did have a pretty pathetic schedule but much of it is not their fault or under their control. Like the WCHA, the CCHA has a 28 game conference schedule. Because the league has 12 teams it means that you only play most teams twice (8 teams twice, 3 teams four times), which is the main reason I do not want to see the WCHA expand beyond 10 teams. This year ND played 5th place UNO, 11th place Alaska, and 12th place Bowling Green four times, so they had about as soft a CCHA schedule as you could get. Almost half their conference games were against the 5th, 11th, and 12th place teams. Their out of conference schedule was: Mankato (2) - split BC (1) - won Providence (1) - won Army (1) - won Air Force (1) - won Robert Morris (2) - split Not exactly a schedule to toughen you up for the NCAA tourney. My biggest criticism of the schedule is they should not schedule Army, Air Force, and Robert Morris all in the same season. Maybe replace one of these series with a higher quality opponent (UND, Maine, UNH, etc). They especially need to be sure the non-conference schedule is tough enough given that the CCHA is a weaker conference to begin with. IMO, Notre Dame was a highly suspect #1 seed going into the tourney due to the schedule they played. Not that they might not be deserving, but based on their schedule it was very hard to evaluate how good they were. I think the tournament would have been much better by just swapping Minnesota and Notre Dame in the brackets. Does Jackson deserve the award ? Not IMO, based on the results. For him to win the award he needed to at least make the FF and prove to some extent that the lofty seeding/rankings were justified.

BC Past 15 games: 14-1 (current 12 game winning streak). Scored 4 or more goals 10 times. Allowed 3 or more goals 2 times. Outscored opponents 61-23. Goals for: 4.07 (4.58 during the 12 game win streak). Goals allowed: 1.92 UND Since WJT (20 games): 14-2-4 (current 2 game winning streak). Scored 4 or more goals 10 times. Allowed 3 or more goals 10 times. Outscored opponents 85-48. Goals for: 4.25 Goals allowed: 2.40 As hot as UND has been, BC has been just as hot. UND will need to play a much tighter defensive game than they did last year. The stat that sticks out the most IMO is the GA; UND has allowed 3 or more goals in half the games they have played during this hot streak, while BC has only allowed 3 or more goals just twice in the past 15 games. The winner of this game will probably be considered the favorite to win the title. If the Maine team from earlier this year shows up they will be a formidable opponent. I thought they looked very good at the Ralph early in the season. Not sure what to make of MSU, they finished 4th in the CCHA. They went 1-4 in their last 5 regular season games, won their first round playoffs 2-0, then lost to Michigan 5-2, then squeaked by LSSU 7-6 in ot for 3rd place. Then they win their regional 5-1 over BU and 2-1 over ND. I think the outcome of the Maine/MSU game resides with Maine, if the good Maine team shows, then Maine wins. If the Maine team that went 9-11 down the stretch shows up then MSU plays for the title. Hard to tell from the regional if Maine is back on track. That was a very weak regional and set up nicely for Maine to advance to the FF. Misc: Maine first 19 games: 14-3-2 last 20 games: 9-11 MSU first 20 games: 11-8-1 last 20 games: 13-5-2 KRACH Strength of Schedule UND 4 BC 11 Maine 13 MSU 16 When the Sioux win #8 in St. Louis it will be very well deserved.

Wonder if Lucia is feeling some pressure for this w/e ? A loss to Air Force might put him on the hot seat and would invite significant criticism and maybe even demands for a coaching change. Not saying it should but I could see it happening. Back-to-back first round upsets to Atlantic Hockey teams would definitely not sit right with a lot of people.

Skille went in the 2nd round to New Hampshire.

My only hope for Toews coming backup for another year is that he is still only 18 years old, won't turn 19 till after the season. Regardless of talent level, that is awfully young to be in the NHL. I think one more year in college would be very beneficial. For TJ, I think it would be good to stay one more year and get even stonger. Not sure his style of play is conducive to the rigors of playing 80+ games in the NHL. In reality, Towes is almost for sure gone, and Oshie is probably > 50% gone. Who knows, if Duncan wins the Hobey as a free agent, someone may try to sign him too. It sure would be fun to see this line together for one more season, but that is my selfishness as a fan. I also think Chorney is gone and possibly Finley. I think the teams that have their rights may think they will develop better with their AHL team.

U-M draws matchup with North Dakota Does Red even think before he speaks. He talks about the propaganda of the WCHA being the strongest league, then says the CCHA teams aren't winning in the NCAA tourney. Hmmm, maybe the CCHA is getting too many undeserved tourney entries ? Ya, our conference is great we just have one small problem with winning games come tourney time. I have a great deal of respect for Michigan and their hockey program but not much for the rest of the CCHA. I think Notre Dame is overated, Michigan State has little chance, and Miami should probably not be in the tourney. I would much rather face Michigan State or Miami rather then Wisconsin. We'll see how good Notre Dame is, the way the brackets are set up I'm not sure the Irish AD could have done a better job in setting things up for them to make the FF championship. If you look at the top 8 in KRACH and separate the teams by brackets to meet in the championship you get: Midwest/East: Notre Dame (#2), St.Cloud (#3), Clarkson (#7) West/Northeast: Minnesota (#1), BC (#4), NH (#5), UND (#6), Michigan (#8) Of these teams. all the NCAA tourney experience is in one bracket. St. Cloud has never won even once, not sure if Notre Dame has either. Clarkson has but they are not what I would call a threat to win the tourney, maybe with this bracket set up they are.

While the focus of this game (and all Sioux games lately) has been "Can teamx stop the DOT line" my concern is more with the UND defense and goaltending. If the Sioux are to get #8 this year, there is a good chance that there will be a game where the DOT line is held in check (or runs into a hot goalie). The other lines need to continue their strong play and chip in a few goals each game. Michigan is the highest scoring team in hockey. Can the Sioux hold down the Michigan offense ? While Phillipe has play very well the 2nd half of the season, he has not yet be tested in NCAA tourney play in a one and done situation. He did not have his best game against Minnesota, giving up a couple of goals that should have been stopped. He also did make a number of very good saves. The defense was also a bit suspect in that game, getting beat too many times where it looked like we were playing the puck instead of taking the body. If we don't do a better job than we better get 5 or 6 goals cause we are gonna need them to win. This is playoff time, and to run the table we are going to need good defense and gaoltending while taking advantage of offensive opportunities. In the 2004-2005 season we played good defensively but couldn't get a goal and got beat in the regional championship against an inferior Denver team 1-0. Last year we broke down defensively and lost 6-5 to BC, the only time in something like the last 40 games played where we scored 4 or more and lost. I'm not real comfortable with the defensive aspect of our game. We have a lot of offensively skilled defensemen but IMO not enough of the physical, in-your-face, better-keep-your-head-up-or-it-will-get-taken-off defensemen. To win #8 we need to string together our best four defensive efforts of the season. If we do that we can all see banner #8 being displayed at REA in a little over 6 months. Go SIOUX!!!

Random Comments: 1. MN outplayed the Sioux and deserved to win the the game. 2. Seemed to me the Sioux were a bit slower than usual. I was sitting a lot further away from the action than usual so maybe that was just my perception. Just didn't seem to have quite the same jump in their step. 3. Is Erik Johnson new to hockey or is he just stupid ? How does someone who has played the game his whole life at such a high level and with good coaches over the years, not know that you can't pick up the puck and throw it ? And for the gopher fans to boo the call ? State of hockey, right. 4. The first two MN goals were pretty weak, the last one was just lucky/fluke, but I'll give Wheeler credit for his effort, never been impressed by Wheeler in the past, seemed like a big guy who didn't use his size and played very lazy (like Barry Talleckson). Phillippe did make a number of good saves after some pretty bad defensive plays where we seemed to want to play the puck instead of taking the body. In all, I would give him a grade of B, from now on we need A performances or our season will be over. The defense needs to also play better and we need to keep the SOG to under 30. 5. Because we started the season so poorly, we left little margin for error in the second half of the season. And while we have generally played very well the second half it is very difficult to maintain a high level of performance for a long period of time. I am hopeful that we have not peaked yet and that the best is yet to come. We came back strong after a miserable loss to Denver in OT where the defense played terrible so I expect them to play a strong game against Michigan. Can't throw in any poor performances the rest of the way...to just reach the FF championship we will need to beat Michigan, then MN, then probably BC. A very formidable task but one that this team is capable of doing. After doing all that they would still need to win the final game. 6. No more WCHA refs the rest of the way!!! I'll take the unknown over the known (inconsistent calls) every time in this case. 7. There is no conspiracy in the brackets or who makes the field at selection time. The process is very well known and is almost always predicated correctly prior to the selection show. Why is there even a committee that meets to do this ? Seems like a waste of time. Having said this there is huge problem with the process (PWR). Sometimes it is better to lose a game than win, this should never be the case. Why use top 25 RPI for TUC, why not top 20 or 30 ? Mankato ended at 26th in RPI, .0013 out of 25th. For 13/10,000 of a point we lose a 5-0-1 record for TUC. Too arbitrary of a cutoff. For only 3 WCHA teams to make the tourney when KRACH would put in 7 teams says the system needs to be tweaked. If you really need to keep PWR then only select 14 or 15 teams using auto-bids and PWR. Leave 1-2 teams to be selected using KRACH to help balance some of the major flaws with PWR. 8. Once the field of 16 is selected, there needs to be some room for setting up the pairings so we don't have the situation we have this year. The seedings should take into account how the teams performed all year but should also recognize who the best teams are right now. St.Cloud ended the season poorly and yet got a much better draw then MN, UND, Mich, or BC. If they can't win the East regional this year I have to question if they ever will make the FF. If they get to the FF they will get Notre Dame, BU, or MSU which IMO is a much better draw than facing UND/MN/Mich/BC. 9. I have faith in Hak and the coaches to have this team focused and ready to play. In hindsight, we may realize that losing this game in ot may be more helpful than winning in ot. A win sometimes can mask some problems that need to be addressed. By losing I'm sure the coaches will have the full attention of the team this week. 10. Whoever was keeping track of shots on goal is an idiot. There were a number of SOG recorded that were not shots on goal, not only in the final but in the UND/SCSU semi-final. 11. Booked my flight to Denver where I plan on seeing them celebrate the regional title.

Looks to me that USCHO pairwise has a bug. Look at the rankings without any bonus, then use a bonus of .0000. Doesn't appear they are including the results of the UND/MN game last night until you specify a bonus of .0000 and then hit the "add bonus" button. I believe the correct results of the basic pairwise are what you get if you use a bonus of 0000.

Any chance for Bucky to still get in ? This is the best I can come up with: CCHA Championship game: Notre Dame defeats Michigan. CCHA Consolation game: Lake Superior defeats Michigan State. ECACHL Championship game: Clarkson defeats Quinnipiac. ECACHL Consolation game: St. Lawrence defeats Dartmouth. Hockey East Semifinal #2: Boston College defeats Boston University. Hockey East Championship game: New Hampshire defeats Boston College. WCHA Championship game: North Dakota defeats Minnesota. WCHA Consolation game: Wisconsin defeats St. Cloud State. Atlantic Hockey Championship game: Air Force defeats Army. This allows the top 14 PWR teams to gain entry. Leaves a 3-way tie for 14th: 14t Denver 14t Mich State 14t Wisconsin The tiebreaker is RPI so Denver would win. No real guarentee the selection committee would have to go that way. They could decide: 1. Denver just got swept at home by Wisconsin, knocking them out of the WCHA. 2. Mich State just went 0-2 in the CCHA playoffs 3. Wisconsin went 2-1 in the WCHA, defending champs, let's give them the bid. Makes as much sense as anything. One BIG factor probably eliminates this chance - the west regional is in Denver. $$$$$ Denver makes the tourney.

Not sure I completely trust the pwr predictor tool on USCHO. I ran a number of comparisons prior to the play-in game that had Wisconsin winning the WCHA tourney, and there were scenerios where UND would just miss the NCAA tourney. Can't seem to find any now. How about this for a conspiracy theory, lets plug in these results in the tool: CCHA Semifinal #2: Michigan State defeats Michigan. CCHA Semifinal #1: Lake Superior defeats Notre Dame. CCHA Championship game: Lake Superior defeats Michigan State. CCHA Consolation game: Notre Dame defeats Michigan. ECACHL Semifinal #2: Dartmouth defeats Clarkson. ECACHL Semifinal #1: St. Lawrence defeats Quinnipiac. ECACHL Championship game: St. Lawrence defeats Dartmouth. ECACHL Consolation game: Clarkson defeats Quinnipiac. Hockey East Semifinal #2: Boston College defeats Boston University. Hockey East Semifinal #1: Massachusetts defeats New Hampshire. Hockey East Championship game: Boston College defeats Massachusetts. WCHA Semifinal #2: St. Cloud State defeats North Dakota. WCHA Semifinal #1: Wisconsin defeats Minnesota. WCHA Championship game: Wisconsin defeats St. Cloud State. WCHA Consolation game: Minnesota defeats North Dakota. Atlantic Hockey Semifinal #2: Army defeats Connecticut. Atlantic Hockey Semifinal #1: Air Force defeats Sacred Heart. Atlantic Hockey Championship game: Air Force defeats Army. UND ends up with the 12th seed and there are 4 auto births below them. The team at #13 is Maine which owns two road wins against the Sioux and wins the head-to-head comparison. Now, in an effort to avoid subjecting hockey fans to the "hostile and abusive" UND name and logo the NCAA selection committee decides to give Maine the last spot instead of the Sioux. Can't happen ? After seeing how the football team dropped from #2 to #3 I wouldn't rule it out. If pwr is strictly used and the predicator tool is accurate I can't seem to find any possibility of the Sioux getting knocked out.

UND could be a #1, #2, #3, or #4 seed or be out of the tourney based on a handful of games this w/e. Crazy! To get knocked out of the tourney, basically I think all of the following need to happen: 1. Lake Superior St. wins the CCHA tourney 2. Wisc or MTech wins the WCHA tourney. Would be the first time the play-in game winner does so. 3. Umass beats UNH in the first HE semi-final. 4. St. Lawrence wins the ECACHL tourney. 5. UND loses the semi-final to St. Cloud and the 3rd place game.

Dec 29/30 is a terrible time to play a big series due to the WJT. Toews will be at the WJT again and will miss the series. Right now I don't think there is anyone on the current roster that would play in the WJT (with the exception of Toews who is 99.99% gone after this season). Any incoming recruits that might make the WJ team ?

There are 28 league games, that leaves 6 other "counter" games that can be scheduled for next year since we don't go to Alaska. I am pretty sure on: (2) at home with Bemidji (1) at BC, (1) at Northeastern. My guess on the other 2 would be New Hampshire at REA. Can you confirm if this is true ? Also, are there any exempt games we are involved with such as Hall of Fame game, Alaska tourney, Ice Breaker ? I thought I saw a post somewhere that we were going be in a tourney in Alaska. In the recent past we seem to schedule some exempt games to make up for the AA road series. Finally, I assume we will play Manitoba and possible the US under 18 team in exhibitions. If you feel you can''t divulge anything I understand.

http://siouxsports.com/forums/index.php?sh...=7905&st=51# http://siouxsports.com/forums/index.php?sh...=7905&st=52#

In looking at the current PWR, UND is #5 before the bonus and #6 after the bonus. Why ? After all, UND is one of the few teams that get a RPI bonus bump due to Dartmouth being #15 in RPI. Well, the bonus causes the Clarkson comparison to be flipped back to Clarkson due to Niagara beating St. Lawrence. St. Lawrence is a top 15 RPI team so this gives Niagara an estimated .0030 RPI bonus which moves them from 26th in RPI to 25th. That makes Niagara a TUC. Clarkson has a win against Niagara so this adds to their TUC record which then allows them to win the TUC category against UND. So, UND was winning the PWR comparison 2-1, by changing the TUC now Clarkson wins 2-1. PWR is a very poor method of selecting teams for the tourney. It can create situations where it might be better to lose a game so the team you are playing does not fall out of the TUC (the exact situation UND is in this year). Wisconsin faced this a few years ago when play AA in the first round. Any system that can create a situation where it is better to lose needs to be scrapped. KRACH is a much better method.

FWIW, If MSU was not a TUC right now, the Sioux would lose the following comparisons that they currently are winning: BU, BC, UMass. That would drop them to 8th in pwr (tied with Mich, win the tie on RPI).

Upon further review: If MSU can stay as a TUC if the Sioux sweep them (or drop Wisc out), then it is possible to flip the SCSU comparison also. Would probably take UND winning the WCHA tourney and SCSU losing the 3rd place game against a TUC. To flip the Notre Dame comparison, UND needs to win the WCHA tourney and keep MSU as a TUC (or drop Wisc out). Notre Dame would also probably have to lose 2 games in their tourney to TUCs. MN is the one comparison I can't see any way of flipping.

There is still an outside chance at a #1 seed. Right now the Sioux have 19 pwr wins, they probably need at least 21 to get a #1. They are losing five comparisons: MN, Notre Dame, St.Cloud, New Hampshire, and Clarkson. The first three are pretty much lost no matter what, the other two could be flipped. Clarkson/UND: RPI: .5550 / .5525 TUC : .6071 / .5893 Cop: .6111 / .6667 H2H: 0 / 0 Clarkson wins 2-1. The RPI is very close and could easily be flipped in the upcoming weeks. New Hampshire/UND: RPI: .5613 / .5525 TUC: .6000 / .5893 COP: .8571 / .5000 H2H: 0 / 0 New Hampshire wins 3-0. Since COP is out of reach, UND needs to flip both RPI and TUC which would then flip the comparison to UND. The TUC is so close that one UND win or one NH loss could change this. While RPI is a bit apart, it can change quickly. The UND win tonight bumped the RPI from .5482 to .5525, an increase of .0043. The NH loss tonight dropped their RPI from .5660 to .5613, a drop of .0047. So in one night UND gained .0090, another similar change would put their RPI above NH. The biggest problems in overtaking NH in TUC will be MSU. Sweeping MSU next w/e would probably drop them from TUC so the Sioux would lose the 3-0-1 record against them. Not sure if there is any chance of Wisconsin dropping out of TUC if DU were to sweep, that would help UND by removing the 1-3 record vs. Wisconsin. In RPI, the Sioux are clinging to a .0030 bonus because Dartmouth is in the top 15 RPI (15th place, just .0012 ahead of CC). If the Sioux can sweep MSU, then win the WCHA tourney I think they have a chance at a #1, depends on how NH does.

1st, 2nd, 9th, and 10th places have been determined. 3rd, 4th, and 5th are between UND, DU and CC. 6th, 7th, and 8th are between UW, MT, and MSU. Here are the possible outcomes. Outcome of UND/DU games Sat and 3rd, 4th, 5th place: W/W DU, UND, CC (W/W - means UND and DU both win) W/L UND, CC, Denver W/T UND, DU, CC L/W DU, UND, CC L/L CC, DU, UND L/T DU, CC, UND T,W DU, UND, CC T/L CC, UND, DU T/T DU, UND, CC Outcome of UW/MT games for 6th, 7th, 8th place: W/W UW, MT, MSU W/L UW, MSU, MT W/T UW, MT, MSU L/W MT, UW, MSU L/L UW, MSU, MT L/T MT, UW, MSU T/W MT, UW, MSU T/L UW, MSU, MT T/T UW, MT, MSU W=Win, L=Loss, T=Tie

PCM, thanks again for the recap, much appreciated.

Here is the breakdown as I see it: If Denver goes 2-0 then Sioux cannot get 3rd If Denver goes 1-1 then the Sioux need a Sweep If Denver goes 1-0-1 then the Sioux need a Sweep, goes to tiebreaker (d) If Denver goes 0-2 then the Sioux need at least a win and tie, one win only would give CC 3rd based on tiebreaker (b) If Denver goes 0-1-1 then with one Sioux win it goes to tiebreaker (d). Anything more than 2 points gives UND 3rd for sure. If Denver goes 0-0-2 then a Sioux win and tie goes to tiebreaker (d). A sweep gives UND 3rd for sure. In all likelyhood, if it goes to tiebreaker (d) then the Sioux have the advantage (goal differential: UND +13, DU +3). So if UND only gets a split, then the only way to get 3rd is if DU goes 0-1-1 with CC. A Sioux sweep will probably give them 3rd as long as DU does not sweep. (b) tiebreaker is most conference wins (d) tiebreaker is conference goal differential.

I think either team is preferable to Mankato State. Right now Mankato is just sneaking in as a TUC and do not play again till the WCHA first round. If we play them in the first round and happen to sweep we would be 5-0-1 against them. Unfortunately they would most likely drop out as a TUC and we lose all the wins. So sweeping them might actually hurt our NCAA chances. I would rather play someone else and be able to cheer for Mankato to win. UW seems to have our number recently and with Elliott, well, a hot goalie can take you a long way. The benefit of playing them is there could be a chance to knock them out of being a TUC and removing the 1-3 record we have with them. This might be the best for UND if they could sweep them. My preference is for a matchup with MTU at the Ralph, would like to even up the season record with them. Two wins against them would help the TUC and I don't think it would cause them to drop out of the top 25 RPI...if it does, that's even better cause it would eliminate two losses on our TUC record. As long as our TUC record is above .500 then eliminating two losses is better than adding two wins.