Michigan Hockey: Got a Question from the Message board — Part II
Posted at 7:00pm — 3/8/2013
Michigan Hockey: Got a Question from the Message board — Part II
Covering the Big Ten Hockey Conference
So what about the B1G Ten???
Minnesota is a clear #1 in the country right now. They will have a bye in the conference tourney (which is in St. Paul, BTW) and await the winner of the 4th seed (OSU) and the 5th seed (MSU) in the first round of the tourney in two weeks. Wisconsin, the presumed 2nd seed in the conference, sits #5 in the PWR and is playing for a #1 seed in the NCAA tourney. They will also await the winner of the Michigan (3rd) -PSU (6th) first round match-up.
Michigan not only has to get past a team it has struggled with this season (PSU) but then face Wisconsin (they are 1-2-1-1 against them) and then probably would face Minnesota. I suspect that Michigan could reach the final, but realistically, they will lose to Wisconsin and await their NCAA fate. If they make the tourney final against Minnesota, they should safely avoid the 13-15 scramble. If not, hold your breath. I don’t see an upset in this conference from a non-at large team. OSU, MSU and PSU are not NCAA eligible unless they win the B1G Tourney.
So this is what you have to hope for:
1. Michigan wins out, or beats MSU and takes points (split, ties, win/tie) from Minnesota next weekend-as long as they don’t get swept.
2. Michigan beats PSU and Wisconsin to reach the B1G Conference tourney final. If they upset Minnesota, they are in regardless.
3. No other conference upsets occur- by Minn State, Cornell, Vermont (or other non-qualifying HEA teams) and by no other NCHC teams other than SCSU or UND.
The whole idea is to just make the tournament. Anything can happen as witnessed last season when a non-descript, yet talented Yale team barely made the NCAA tourney as the 15th team (4th seed) and would not have made the tourney had Michigan beaten Notre Dame in last season’s CCHA tourney final. Yale was put into the Grand Rapids Midwest regional and upset Minnesota and North Dakota to go to the Frozen Four. They then beat U-Mass Lowell to meet conference foe Quinnipiac who was the tourney’s #1 seed. They had lost all four meetings that season. They didn’t, though. They soundly beat Qu.
Does any of this make stuff make sense?
Thanks for the interest. And if anyone cares to look back to what I wrote in the pre-season, this is exactly the position I thought this team would be in. Hopefully they will prove me wrong by getting in this season.
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Written by GBMWolverine Staff — YostMeister
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