Norwich 2020-2021 - We Will Try

[West Texas Wolverine]

Nice work, Cadets!

[PuckVoice]

Final at Kriezberg
Cadets 4 NEC 2
Norwich goals Cowlthorp, List, Rickett, and Swanson
Albano 17 saves
Next Game Saturday vs Stonehill
4 pm at Krietzberg

[PuckVoice]

Final at NEC
Cadets 2 NEC 1
Goals1Korol and Rickett
Atherton 20 saves
Same two teams tomorrow
4 pm at Krietzberg

[Fishman'81]

I've been watching March Madness and even jumped on my old Fighting Illini bandwagon (that train didn't last long). It's fun and exciting. But I also think it's incredibly unfair and ridiculous. No, I"m not talking about Loyola beating Illinois - that's what the tournament should be. I'm talking about Syracuse (or UCLA) having an incredibly mediocre regular season and then getting hot or getting a bounce and finding itself competing for a national championship.

Syracuse/UCLA/Loyola would all have very easily made the the top 64, if not for the many weak-sister AQ's who take up space "just because".

Don't be facetious here; there all always participation-berths in March Madness, and, sure some of the giftees win a game or two by dint of the ridiculous 3-point shot rule. (Imagine if there was a two-goal line in hockey, but I digress.)

We see a very small field in D-3 hockey, though... Too small a field to hand-out free passes purely on the basis of conference affiliation.

(And, FWIW, I used to live on Rantoul, had the Illini losing to Gonzaga in the NC, and am thus out $20, American... I feel your pain.)

[NU Pastime]

Funny how this is the time of year when any given day you can watch an AQ from a weak conference knock off a better team. How many times has it already happened in the hoops tourney? Winning a league championship comes with a reward, that reward (under the current system) is an AQ. It is what it is. Specific to Norwich and Plymouth, but a different sport, a few years back Norwich football pummeled Plymouth in a preseason exhibition. That year, Norwich went 1-9 in the very competitive NEWMAC, while Plymouth went 9-1 in the MASCAC and made the tourney. Oh well, Norwich did not deserve to be in the tourney that year (obviously), while Plymouth earned their way in.

No system is going to be perfect. I think the current set up is just fine.

One area we agree, Fish, is the conference tourneys. I wish either A: “regular season championships” didn’t exist (just call it the #1 seed if you’re holding a tourney) or B: award the title to the team with the best record during the season and don’t hold a tourney. I hate the term “regular season champion” and I can’t stand seeing two different teams put up a banner for the same league in the same year.

There, that’s my “get off my lawn” for the day haha.

I've been watching March Madness and even jumped on my old Fighting Illini bandwagon (that train didn't last long). It's fun and exciting. But I also think it's incredibly unfair and ridiculous. No, I"m not talking about Loyola beating Illinois - that's what the tournament should be. I'm talking about Syracuse (or UCLA) having an incredibly mediocre regular season and then getting hot or getting a bounce and finding itself competing for a national championship.

My ideal world is much like yours - no tournaments, regular season champs from each conference get an AQ, and only champs get an AQ. I can live with a handful of at-large bids who have had a strong season, so I actually think the current DIII system is pretty ideal. DI football fails in that at larges can get in while conference champs are excluded, and half the teams will never get a chance to get in. But, in a way I prefer the exclusivity over basketball's royal rumble.

[Fishman'81]

Another way to look at it is this: how do you encourage parity in D3 overall. Without AQs in weaker conferences you relegate them to perpetual weakness. Recruiting is no easy task for D3 coaches. A few in top programs have their pick of D1 transfers and have junior players and their advisers contacting them. How do other programs, trying to build, compete with that? Whatever you want to say about AQs, they are a recruiting tool and in the right hands they can allow a program to grow and develop which seems to be the case with Plymouth. Too bad 2 successive NCAA tournaments have been scrapped, maybe the cannon fodder could have suprised a few people.

Pretty sure that the last two times that Plymouth was gifted a bid, they were (roughly) #43 and #27 in the PWR/KRACH... And they were one and done in both NCAA's. Apparently, getting those berths hasn't done much for recruiting.

We all know how it works: almost nobody aspires to play at the D-3 level; they end-up there because they weren't ever considered D-1 talent, or have washed-out of D-1. There has never been a midget player who went to bed dreaming of putting on a Plymouth sweater. The better players will go where there is actually some local interest, and a shot at a bit of hardware. Plymouth offers neither.

They are the class of a conference that clearly doesn't deserve an AQ, not that any conference does.

[Fishman'81]

[QUOTE=KrbFlint

One area we agree, Fish, is the conference tourneys. I wish either A: “regular season championships” didn’t exist (just call it the #1 seed if you’re holding a tourney) or B: award the title to the team with the best record during the season and don’t hold a tourney. I hate the term “regular season champion” and I can’t stand seeing two different teams put up a banner for the same league in the same year.

There, that’s my “get off my lawn” for the day haha.

[/QUOTE]

Totally agree. Clearly, basing an AQ on 18 results makes more sense than basing it on 2-3 results.

It's obvious these silly side-shows are a financial gold-mine for the top D-1 hoops/FB conferences (which is why they exist in the 1st place) but what is to be gained at the level of D-3 hockey..? The whole concept is ridiculous at that level, and unfair, and very likely a money-loser at 90% of the sites.

Asinine, any way you slice it.

[802Hockey]

Season presses on into uncharted territory ... April!
Home and home this weekend with NEC
.. then April games with Stonehill and Trin-Trin.

Wow and here I was thinking the season was over. April hockey sounds good to me!

[PuckVoice]

Season presses on into uncharted territory ... April!
Home and home this weekend with NEC
.. then April games with Stonehill and Trin-Trin.

[MELIN27]

Another way to look at it is this: how do you encourage parity in D3 overall. Without AQs in weaker conferences you relegate them to perpetual weakness. Recruiting is no easy task for D3 coaches. A few in top programs have their pick of D1 transfers and have junior players and their advisers contacting them. How do other programs, trying to build, compete with that? Whatever you want to say about AQs, they are a recruiting tool and in the right hands they can allow a program to grow and develop which seems to be the case with Plymouth. Too bad 2 successive NCAA tournaments have been scrapped, maybe the cannon fodder could have suprised a few people.

[KrbFlint]

Doesn’t every NCAA postseason, with the exception of DI FBS football, grant automatic qualifiers to weaker conferences? And isn’t FBS football routinely criticized for having a playoff format that half the times are structurally locked out of?

And it’s funny how the same schools can be on different sides of the equation in different sports since there’s no Big Ten or SEC in DIII. Norwich plays in the NEHC in hockey which means some years it has to hope for an at-large while a weaker conference champ gets an automatic bid. But then when it won the ECFC in football I had to listen to Liberty League fans complain about the ECFC getting an automatic bid.

Funny how this is the time of year when any given day you can watch an AQ from a weak conference knock off a better team. How many times has it already happened in the hoops tourney? Winning a league championship comes with a reward, that reward (under the current system) is an AQ. It is what it is. Specific to Norwich and Plymouth, but a different sport, a few years back Norwich football pummeled Plymouth in a preseason exhibition. That year, Norwich went 1-9 in the very competitive NEWMAC, while Plymouth went 9-1 in the MASCAC and made the tourney. Oh well, Norwich did not deserve to be in the tourney that year (obviously), while Plymouth earned their way in.

No system is going to be perfect. I think the current set up is just fine.

One area we agree, Fish, is the conference tourneys. I wish either A: “regular season championships” didn’t exist (just call it the #1 seed if you’re holding a tourney) or B: award the title to the team with the best record during the season and don’t hold a tourney. I hate the term “regular season champion” and I can’t stand seeing two different teams put up a banner for the same league in the same year.

There, that’s my “get off my lawn” for the day haha.

[NU Pastime]

Doesn’t every NCAA postseason, with the exception of DI FBS football, grant automatic qualifiers to weaker conferences? And isn’t FBS football routinely criticized for having a playoff format that half the times are structurally locked out of?

And it’s funny how the same schools can be on different sides of the equation in different sports since there’s no Big Ten or SEC in DIII. Norwich plays in the NEHC in hockey which means some years it has to hope for an at-large while a weaker conference champ gets an automatic bid. But then when it won the ECFC in football I had to listen to Liberty League fans complain about the ECFC getting an automatic bid.

[PrezdeJohnson09]

I actually knew that, but they still have been gifted a couple of AQ's just the same, and for no good reason.

D-3 has come a very long way via the PWR, but the Plymouth States of the world have just served as cannon-fodder for far too long now. One and done teams from weak conferences shouldn't garner berths simply by dint of winning a weak-sister league, IMO.

Plymouth State is far from cannon-fodder in its current state. I was very impressed with the Panthers last weekend. They had Norwich on the ropes at times in both of those games last weekend. Both games could have gone either way.

[Fishman'81]

No, Plymouth has never won an NCAA game. That's what they're building towards. Imagine it will be easier to recruit once that happens.

I actually knew that, but they still have been gifted a couple of AQ's just the same, and for no good reason.

D-3 has come a very long way via the PWR, but the Plymouth States of the world have just served as cannon-fodder for far too long now. One and done teams from weak conferences shouldn't garner berths simply by dint of winning a weak-sister league, IMO.

[jerrynu26]

Unsure, but I was at the 2012? first round game when they lost 3-1 at home to Wentworth. Winner went to Norwich later that week.

2011.... and that was a great drive over..... with GREAT friends....