What's new
By:
USCHO Fan Forum

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • The USCHO Fan Forum has migrated to a new plaform, xenForo. Most of the function of the forum should work in familiar ways. Please note that you can switch between light and dark modes by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right of the main menu bar. We are hoping that this new platform will prove to be faster and more reliable. Please feel free to explore its features.

General D-I NCAA Tournament Musings

ARM said:
As for the next likely addition, another NEWHA team would seem to be on the horizon. Vermont isn't far away, but can the Catamounts take another step? St. Thomas is on an upward trajectory, but they have obstacles in their path. Predictions? Probably a better off-season topic.
Click to expand...

St. Cloud State with Idalski as coach and the advantages of in-state recruiting seems poised to make the jump. (My parents are both SCSU alums + I'd love to see them in the tournament!)
 
  • Like
Reactions: JRM
ARM said:
I get 27 programs that made the NCAAs. Am I forgetting anyone?
Click to expand...

The wikipedia page for "NCAA women's ice hockey tournament" has a big grid of which teams played in which years, and it shows 27 teams overall.
 
Last edited:
PSUfan said:
St. Cloud State with Idalski as coach and the advantages of in-state recruiting seems poised to make the jump.
Click to expand...
The Huskies are definitely on the rise. The problem figures to be getting through the WCHA pack if multiple teams are improving.

Factors that would work to the advantage of a new WCHA team (presumably SCSU or St. Thomas, but can't completely rule out MSU right now) getting into the NCAAs:
+ ultimately to improve your finish and reach the NCAAs, you'll need more wins; UMD, tOSU, and UM all take huge hits to graduation and would figure to be more vulnerable to those teams pushing up the standings
+ having gotten a team to the NCAA Tournament twice before, Idalski can point to successes, as can J. Johnson with U-18 Worlds titles, in a way that previous SCSU bosses could not, which should help recruiting, particularly in a talent pool that is aware of these achievements

Less advantages factors include:
- when you have multiple teams fighting for the same thing, they can "split the vote," or wins in this case, and leave both short of the needed milestone
- if it becomes a matter of getting a fifth team into the field, the WCHA has more games devoted to its round robin -- WCHA=28, HEA=27, ECAC=22, CHA=20, NEWHA=24 (to lazy to verify). If you need to get 5 of 8 teams into the field, there aren't many non-conference games to push them all up the PairWise; might be more likely to take advantage of a dropoff from one or more of the current NCAA-qualifying teams.
 
PSUfan said:
St. Cloud State with Idalski as coach and the advantages of in-state recruiting seems poised to make the jump. (My parents are both SCSU alums + I'd love to see them in the tournament!)
Click to expand...

The issue for any other wcha team is 4 teams are already making tourney. I don't see UW, UM or OSU not making it anytime soon. Maybe UMD will be overcome by St. Cloud or St. Thomas in the next couple years. Can a 5th team from the wcha make it? I just don't see it.
 
Timothy A said:
The issue for any other wcha team is 4 teams are already making tourney. I don't see UW, UM or OSU not making it anytime soon. Maybe UMD will be overcome by St. Cloud or St. Thomas in the next couple years. Can a 5th team from the wcha make it? I just don't see it.
Click to expand...

St Cloud this year finished 13th in the NPI and Pairwise, but just "inches" behind #12 Cornell and #11 Vermont. Maybe one more win somewhere along the way, and St Cloud would have been #11.

The problem is #11 doesn't get you into the tournament. And St Cloud was significantly farther back behind Penn State; and even passing Penn State and getting to #10 would not have gotten them in, because of auto-bids.

The optimist says "look how close St Cloud got", the pessimist says "that's about the closest they can get without winning three or four more games somewhere along the way".
 
robertearle said:
The optimist says "look how close St Cloud got", the pessimist says "that's about the closest they can get without winning three or four more games somewhere along the way".
Click to expand...

And if they win 3-4 more games somewhere, it may be against UMD and that could knock them out. Is there any way to give them a win against OSU and MN in computerland and see how it impacts their pairwise spot?
 
Why is the title game at 4pm ET? Why not at noon like any other big sporting event and give travelling fans some more time to get home Sunday? If I go I get home after 1am Sunday night. Not optimal for a guy who gets up at 5am for work.
 
Timothy A said:
And if they win 3-4 more games somewhere, it may be against UMD and that could knock them out. Is there any way to give them a win against OSU and MN in computerland and see how it impacts their pairwise spot?
Click to expand...

There is, or at least Grant intends there to be.

If I did it right, I changed a 3-2 OT loss to Ohio State to a 3-2 OT win. It moved St Cloud up to #11, and closed the gap between St Cloud and Clarkson, but not nearly enough. They still weren't particularly 'close'.

So my guess of "three or four more wins" might need to be more like seven or eight (and maybe even more, depending on the 'quality' of the wins).

(And once more, many thanks to Grant for making these things both possible and even easy to do.)
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top