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Tough break for the Sioux/Gophers and the WCHA.


SiouxForever

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The West Regional is for sure the hardest bracket in this tournament. I think the National Champ is the team that wins the West, but I don't want it to be Michigan. Here is something that I have been bothered by in the past week or so; In the past few years, the Sioux have been the team that has flown under the radar, and "overachieved" in the media's mind, at least. When Doug Woog, and ESPN commentators start giving the nod to ND, I get nervous. There was nothing better than seeing the Sioux win when they weren't SUPPOSED to win, and now, I fear they have the target on their backs.

This team, and Coach Hakstol, don't really give out "bulletin board" material for the other team. None of them run their mouth, or say something that gets quoted as bashing the other team. The Wooger comes out and says on the radio that he thinks UND takes the Broadmoor, and suddenly the Gophers have something to prove. You could even tell in their postgame comments, things like "We wanted to show we could play with anybody", etc...

I guess what I am saying is, will somebody PLEASE COME OUT AND SAY THAT THE SIOUX HAVE NO CHANCE OF WINNING IT ALL THIS YEAR?!? ;) Then, maybe I'll feel better. :blush:

Well...I hate to break it to ya, but the Sioux definitely won't win it this year...

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I have taken off the rose-colored glasses and will put it simply like this (and this was echoed on the selection show today). The Sioux will go as far as goaltending will take them. They probably only need "average" goaltending but anything less and they are sunk. ;)

And, although I love the whole Toews is better than Johnson "fact or fiction" part of the show today - and I think Toews is the prototypical career NHL type - the "best" player in the country right now is Curry or Duncan and I wish Duncs would have at least gotten a little press on the national show since I am sure he will get the shaft for the actual Hobey Baker Award...

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Any stat types out there know Duncan's shot percentage this year? He is so deadly from the bottom of the circle with that quick wrister to the near upper corner. It seems like if he gets a clean look from down there he is about 50%+

Clearly not all of his shots are from there.

As for it being a tough draw; every draw is tough from here on out. Every team in this tournament can beat you if you don't bring it. Case in point Holy Cross. MN clearly had superior talent last year and got beat.

Interesting thing on Air Force, they sure seem to put the shots on goal. Even though they got beaten by CC by a goal and Notre Dame by 2 goals, they outshot them in both losses. I didn't see the game; and I have not seen them play, but they are riding a 6 game winning streak that got them to the dance.

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Good draw for the Sioux.

Question though - the Sioux ended #7 in the Pairwise and Michigan ended #8 in the Pairwise. How did Michigan end with a #2 seed and the Sioux with a #3 seed?

Good question. I think that we by far have the toughest road to St. Louis. But I am not afraid of any teams they why we have been playing. If we play like we did friday we will win it all.

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Good draw for the Sioux.

Question though - the Sioux ended #7 in the Pairwise and Michigan ended #8 in the Pairwise. How did Michigan end with a #2 seed and the Sioux with a #3 seed?

According to USCHO when I checked yesterday, after factoring in the loss to Minnesota, our Pairwise dropped to #10.

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Good question. I think that we by far have the toughest road to St. Louis. But I am not afraid of any teams they why we have been playing. If we play like we did friday we will win it all.

I tend to agree. In a way, the loss to Minnesota was hopefully a nice kick in the pants for the team. If they keep their heads in the game and they play hard for a full 60 minutes, I like our chances of getting to St. Louis.

Hell, I'll be there regardless, but it would be great if the team could make it too. ;)

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I tend to agree. In a way, the loss to Minnesota was hopefully a nice kick in the pants for the team. If they keep their heads in the game and they play hard for a full 60 minutes, I like our chances of getting to St. Louis.

Hell, I'll be there regardless, but it would be great if the team could make it too. ;)

St. Louis is going to be fun. I am looking forward to it. But if I get to watch the Sioux win it all. I will be really glad my hotel is only 7 blocks away

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Good draw for the Sioux.

Question though - the Sioux ended #7 in the Pairwise and Michigan ended #8 in the Pairwise. How did Michigan end with a #2 seed and the Sioux with a #3 seed?

How did you look at the rankings? Did it include the bonus? The NCAA can still tinker since the "pre-set" bonus isn't revealed.

As for the seedings, I think what makes me frustrated, as a Gopher fan, is that there doesn't seem to be any common sense. Yes, the Sioux are where they are because of the overall body of work over the season, but it doesn't seem to really take into account "who's hot" like the basketball committee does. I think the pariwise is the right way, but I think they should use a little common sense in terms of setting the brackets and who's hot & who's not. There really isn't any debate that the top 4 teams in the country right now seem to be Minnesota, Notre Dame, North Dakota & Boston College, in any particular order. That two are in the same region and three are in the same side of the bracket seems to lack common sense. Yes, conference tournament games matter in terms of pwr, but they are somewhat ranked the same as early season wins. Maine is living off of it's win over the Gophers at Xcel the first game of the season, where about 50% of the Gophers were playing their 1st college game.

It is what it is, though......bottom line is that the West Region is a total coin flip and a matter of who plays better on Saturday & Sunday.

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How did you look at the rankings? Did it include the bonus? The NCAA can still tinker since the "pre-set" bonus isn't revealed.

As for the seedings, I think what makes me frustrated, as a Gopher fan, is that there doesn't seem to be any common sense. Yes, the Sioux are where they are because of the overall body of work over the season, but it doesn't seem to really take into account "who's hot" like the basketball committee does. I think the pariwise is the right way, but I think they should use a little common sense in terms of setting the brackets and who's hot & who's not. There really isn't any debate that the top 4 teams in the country right now seem to be Minnesota, Notre Dame, North Dakota & Boston College, in any particular order. That two are in the same region and three are in the same side of the bracket seems to lack common sense. Yes, conference tournament games matter in terms of pwr, but they are somewhat ranked the same as early season wins. Maine is living off of it's win over the Gophers at Xcel the first game of the season, where about 50% of the Gophers were playing their 1st college game.

It is what it is, though......bottom line is that the West Region is a total coin flip and a matter of who plays better on Saturday & Sunday.

I looked at the Pairwise on this site which adds the .003 bonus - I wonder if it maybe isn't updated - I noticed USCHO does have us #10 with that bonus. USCHO gives us 15 comparisons and SiouxSports gives us 17 comparisons.

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I think the Gophers have reason to be miffed at the regional pairings. They are the #1 seed into the tournament and they get the UND-Michigan winner if they get by Air Force? This is arguably the toughest region in the playoff. Whoever wins the West wins the whole show.

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I think the Gophers have reason to be miffed at the regional pairings. They are the #1 seed into the tournament and they get the UND-Michigan winner if they get by Air Force? This is arguably the toughest region in the playoff. Whoever wins the West wins the whole show.

Mike, you going to Denver?

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Mike, you going to Denver?

Kinda doubt my divorce attorney's (or my not-quite-ex's attorney) gonna want to see me flying to Denver. ;) (Unless they could be assured my plane will go down and they can collect my life insurance.) :blush:

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I think this is a great Regional for us to be in. Even if we were in a different Regional, we'd have to beat Michigan or Minnesota at some point to win the NC, so it might as well play them in Denver. If I had my choice, the only thing I'd change is the sequence we play them. I wish we were playing Minnesota on Friday. The sooner we play them the better. If I had my way, we would have played them again yesterday. :blush:

I've heard lots of Minnesota fans say that the Gophers played one of their best games of the season on Saturday. They scored 3 goals. One was a very weak goal that we haven't seen scored on Lammy for quite some time. Another was a "one in 30 years" goal we won't be seeing anytime soon again. If those types of goals happen again this weekend, then the "hockey moons" aren't lined up for us this year. So we might as well see what we're made of in Denver.

I haven't looked at the bracketing, but I'm hoping for either a Fighting Sioux vs Fighting Irish final, or else a Fighting Sioux vs BC final. If we get to the finals and play Notre Dame, I think Tim O'Keefe should form a protest of the Fighting Irish nickname, logo and mascot. ;)

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