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Midwest Regional: Minnesota State, Nebraska-Omaha, Harvard, RIT

Red Cows said:
I am, too, but only in the context of how everyone seems to have forgotten that our Hobey Baker candidate senior goalie is going to be back in goal this weekend and our senior captain is also, apparently, going to play, too.

The two of them have combined to miss 18 games since the beginning of the year.

With as many underclassmen as UNO has (17), coupled with the loss of these two players, in particular, for as much of the 2nd half as they have, I thought our guys held their collective heads above the water fairly well given that Zombo and Massa's disappearance(s) coincided with the meat of the conference schedule getting under way. A reminder, we are an NCHC team, in case anyone forgot. We weren't exactly playing chopped liver since January 1st or so. UNO has played the 4th toughest schedule in the nation this season.

Leading up to when those guys started missing games, UNO was #2 in Pairwise and led the NCHC. We didn't exactly suck. We went 6-5-3 against the 7 teams ahead of us in the final Pairwise this season.

We might lay an egg come Saturday but at least it looks like we might have our full compliment of guys on the ice again, finally.
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I think it may have less to do with UNO and more to do with how attractive Harvard is.
 
Re: Midwest Regional: Minnesota State, Nebraska-Omaha, Harvard, RIT

MavHockey14 said:
I think it may have less to do with UNO and more to do with how attractive Harvard is.
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I just hope we play well with a full compliment, finally, and let the chips fall where they may. I think UNO has better defense and goaltending than Harvard does, but Harvard is a better offensive team. My late father always used to say "Good defense beats good offense every time". UNO just set a school record this season in fewest goals allowed, by a ton, at 85, which was also the fewest in the NCHC. I think the Harvard game isn't likely to be a high scoring affair. I predict this is a one goal nail biter.
 
Re: Midwest Regional: Minnesota State, Nebraska-Omaha, Harvard, RIT

Red Cows said:
I just hope we play well with a full compliment, finally, and let the chips fall where they may. I think UNO has better defense and goaltending than Harvard does, but Harvard is a better offensive team. My late father always used to say "Good defense beats good offense every time". UNO just set a school record this season in fewest goals allowed, by a ton, at 85, which was also the fewest in the NCHC. I think the Harvard game isn't likely to be a high scoring affair. I predict this is a one goal nail biter.
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Harvard beat the best defense in the country on the road to South Bend - just not every time.

Good defense does beat good offense, except all those times when it doesn't.

And Harvard doesn't often win by one, there is usually an empty net goal or two near the end.

If Harvard had had the good fortune to have only 2 top players miss only 18 games total, they would probably be a top 4 seed today.
 
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Re: Midwest Regional: Minnesota State, Nebraska-Omaha, Harvard, RIT

Stauber1 said:
If you don't acknowledge that the PWR's reliance on RPI creates a bias against individual teams within AH, then I would suggest you are either being disingenuous or don't fully understand how the rankings are formulated.
It's the same reasoning used when it is suggested that not all the NCHC teams may be as good as their PWR indicates, and fans of the NCHC just stick bananas in their ears while humming My Country Tis Of Thee.
When it is suggested that not all the teams in AH are as bad as their PWR indicates, fans of the WCHA stick bananas in their ears while either humming the Copper Country Anthem or ringing their cowbells.

That being said, RIT went 1-5 in non-conference play this year, so it is reasonable to assert that they helped to exacerbate the AH problem rather than falling victim to it.
I don't care what conference you are in, if you go 1-5 OOC your PWR is going to take a serious hit and your conference-mates are going to be cursing you.

And Harvard fans are ugly.


How's THAT for offending all corners! :p
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Actually, that's pretty accurate. Let's add to it that Atlantic Hockey hardly ever gets home OOC games. RIT is a rare exception as they had 2 (3 if you count the Blue Cross Arena game).

The problem with any ranking system is that there are too few OOC games to get good data. When there are less than 70 OOC games for a conference, that severely limits opportunities to compare teams. That St. Cloud State was on the verge of being in the tournament in spite of barely being over .500 should show that. I will admit - maybe they are that good but their record is hampered by playing in strong conference, but I suspect they should not have been in any serious discussion of at large berths, yet the only thing that stopped that was the discussion of if they would be over .500.
 
A few days left. I'm excited, even the 6 to 7 hour drive will be awesome as it's with old college friends. Our mode of transportation used to be a Chevy beretta. Now with khakis, jobs we have upgraded to a nicer ride. This is going to be a great trip!!

Warning: my tune will change if we lose
 
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Re: Midwest Regional: Minnesota State, Nebraska-Omaha, Harvard, RIT

Stauber1 said:
If you don't acknowledge that the PWR's reliance on RPI creates a bias against individual teams within AH, then I would suggest you are either being disingenuous or don't fully understand how the rankings are formulated.
It's the same reasoning used when it is suggested that not all the NCHC teams may be as good as their PWR indicates, and fans of the NCHC just stick bananas in their ears while humming My Country Tis Of Thee.
When it is suggested that not all the teams in AH are as bad as their PWR indicates, fans of the WCHA stick bananas in their ears while either humming the Copper Country Anthem or ringing their cowbells.

That being said, RIT went 1-5 in non-conference play this year, so it is reasonable to assert that they helped to exacerbate the AH problem rather than falling victim to it.
I don't care what conference you are in, if you go 1-5 OOC your PWR is going to take a serious hit and your conference-mates are going to be cursing you.

And Harvard fans are ugly.


How's THAT for offending all corners! :p
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This is probably the most well thought out comment I've ever read about college hockey. Congratulations.

I wholeheartedly agree with your second point. RIT had a down right miserable first half of the season and didn't do our conference any favors with our OOC record. I think if you would have flipped our first and second half schedules we'd be in the 20s for PWR.
 
Re: Midwest Regional: Minnesota State, Nebraska-Omaha, Harvard, RIT

With bananas in my ears....

Hmmm hmm hmm hmmmmmm hm hm
Hmm Hmm Hmm Hmmm hm hmmmmm
hmm hmm hmm hmmmm
 
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Re: Midwest Regional: Minnesota State, Nebraska-Omaha, Harvard, RIT

lmg6841 said:
I wholeheartedly agree with your second point. RIT had a down right miserable first half of the season and didn't do our conference any favors with our OOC record. I think if you would have flipped our first and second half schedules we'd be in the 20s for PWR.
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True, but we also wouldn't have finished as the third seed in the conference tournament.


Powers &8^]
 
Re: Midwest Regional: Minnesota State, Nebraska-Omaha, Harvard, RIT

komey1 said:
Actually, that's pretty accurate. Let's add to it that Atlantic Hockey hardly ever gets home OOC games. RIT is a rare exception as they had 2 (3 if you count the Blue Cross Arena game).

The problem with any ranking system is that there are too few OOC games to get good data. When there are less than 70 OOC games for a conference, that severely limits opportunities to compare teams. That St. Cloud State was on the verge of being in the tournament in spite of barely being over .500 should show that. I will admit - maybe they are that good but their record is hampered by playing in strong conference, but I suspect they should not have been in any serious discussion of at large berths, yet the only thing that stopped that was the discussion of if they would be over .500.
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One thing of note is that RIT took Minnesota (not to be confused with Minnesota State :D) to overtime on January 3rd which seems to be where the RIT started to turn their season around (14-5-2 since)
 
Re: Midwest Regional: Minnesota State, Nebraska-Omaha, Harvard, RIT

Anybody know if the arena at Notre Dame is "cold"?

Some are a lot colder than others and Mrs. Red Cows was asking me to ask if anybody here knows since she is coming with me.

The CenturyLink Center here is quite tolerable, for example. Ralston Arena, here in Omaha, where the USHL Omaha Lancers play, is absolutely brutal, the coldest rink I have ever been in.

She wants to "dress right" if its colder than hell in there.

Further, will O'Brien's (the club in the arena) be accessible (with, we presume, a $20.00 guest membership that it appears are usually available) for this event? We are sitting right by it, it appears, too.
 
is any other university having a arranged location for their fans to meet? It will extremely humorous if all 4 schools pick the same bar.
 
Re: Midwest Regional: Minnesota State, Nebraska-Omaha, Harvard, RIT

UNO arrived today in South Bend via charter aircraft. The team hotel is the Doubletree by Hilton downtown. Omaha television news media have arrived with them and have been running stories on the local news. Here's one, replete with some words from the gap-toothed wonder, himself. Scroll to the 1:30 mark of the video:

http://www.ketv.com/sports/ketv-spo...=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=ketv

UNO's bus junket to the Regional this weekend, that wasn't even announced until Monday, sold out today.

For all the talk about supposedly how many empty seats there are going to be at this Regional, there are now NO tickets for sale on Stubhub for it, under 20 ads on Craigslist in South Bend or Omaha for tickets, and 6 eBay listings. I don't know about other schools but I am hoping than we can get upwards of 1,000 or so of our fans in the place. It's gonna be in excess of 400, that's for sure.

Piece on former long time Omaha Lancers Head Coach and now Minnesota State Mankato Head Coach Mike Hastings in the Omaha World Herald from today:

http://www.omaha.com/uno/hastings-w...cle_1290f793-1679-532f-8d4a-621380c08949.html
 
Re: Midwest Regional: Minnesota State, Nebraska-Omaha, Harvard, RIT

MavsFan19 said:
is any other university having a arranged location for their fans to meet? It will extremely humorous if all 4 schools pick the same bar.
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My wife asked me this same question at dinner tonight.

I don't know of any UNO function at this writing. It/one happened in St. Louis in 2011 when we played in the Regional there but I haven't heard anything about this weekend. I have to call the UNO ticket office about something else tomorrow and I'll ask about this as well.

We're headed to South Bend tomorrow.
 
Red Cows said:
My wife asked me this same question at dinner tonight.

I don't know of any UNO function at this writing. It/one happened in St. Louis in 2011 when we played in the Regional there but I haven't heard anything about this weekend. I have to call the UNO ticket office about something else tomorrow and I'll ask about this as well.

We're headed to South Bend tomorrow.
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On the road in 8 hours! Can't wait!
 
Re: Midwest Regional: Minnesota State, Nebraska-Omaha, Harvard, RIT

Red Cows said:
UNO's bus junket to the Regional this weekend, that wasn't even announced until Monday, sold out today.

For all the talk about supposedly how many empty seats there are going to be at this Regional, there are now NO tickets for sale on Stubhub for it, under 20 ads on Craigslist in South Bend or Omaha for tickets, and 6 eBay listings. I don't know about other schools but I am hoping than we can get upwards of 1,000 or so of our fans in the place. It's gonna be in excess of 400, that's for sure.
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I'm glad at least one school is bringing a decent crowd. That's good to hear. I wish Notre Dame would have offered a refund to season ticket holders for tickets to sell to other fans. Perhaps that would have been one way to get a few more people in. I really hope there aren't a bunch of people looking for tickets and getting shut out since nearly half the arena was sold last summer to season ticket holders. Notre Dame missing the tournament has the potertial to make the university look bad for a completely different reason if that happens.
 
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