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HOCKEY TALK, PART ONE: MINNESOTA NOT SNUBBED
My colleague Jesse Borek commented about possible snubs his preview of the in D1 men’s hockey tournament, the field of which was announced Sunday afternoon.
Let’s start with the regular season champions who were left out of the field.
Yes, BR-23 Robert Morris had some quality wins over the course of the season, including splitting a two-game series at BR-4 Michigan and a win over BR-9 UMass-Lowell in the Three Rivers Classic. The Colonials, however, also lost to both BR-27 Dartmouth and BR-30 Union (N.Y.), plus their league opponents in Atlantic Hockey (Median BennettRank: 55) aren’t exactly a murderer’s row of hockey programs.
Of course, laying a 7-4 egg in the Atlantic Hockey championship to BR-45 RIT isn’t exactly going to impress the committee, even if the Colonials had a stronger strength of schedule.
As for the WCHA co-regular season champions, both BR-17 Michigan Tech and BR-22 Minnesota State-Mankato could’ve easily been in the field had either one of those teams won the Broadmoor Trophy in Grand Rapids on Saturday night.
Instead, BR-31 Ferris State captured the crown with a 2-1 win over Mankato and secured the WCHA’s lone NCAA tourney bid.
Why only one bid? Well, the WCHA’s only slightly better than Atlantic Hockey, but that’s not saying much (WCHA Median BennettRank: 36).
And then, there’s BR-14 Minnesota, who won a share of the Big Ten regular season title with Michigan, but had no answer for Kyle Cooper, whose goal and three assists allowed Big Blue to punch their tickets to the tourney with a 5-3 win over the Golden Gophers.
Minnesota’s case for an at-large bid was hindered by a less-than-stellar out-of-conference slate, which saw the Golden Gophers go a combined 1-7 against their “little brothers” in the Land of 10,000 Lakes: BR-1 St. Cloud State (0-2), BR-10 Minnesota-Duluth (0-2), Minnesota State-Mankato (1-2) and BR-33 Bemidji State (0-1).
