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Playoff Results 2021

Timothy A said:
Yes.
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No. It was a tougher season to play when you factor in trying to avoid covid and staying healthy. You play the teams that showed up and wanted to play. The rest are irrelevant. Whoever wins deserves it without an asterisk or with one saying this season was tougher.
 
Offsides Guy said:
UMD is going to win by 1 goal in a game highlighted by the goaltenders. If Soderberg plays as well as she did yesterday, Frankel will have nothing over her. The 1-goal difference will be some crazy, gritty goal by Hughes for the Bulldogs.

And OSU beats Wi - bank on it. The worst thing Wisconsin could’ve done was to beat Ohio State for the WCHA championship. Nobody motivates her players like Muzz and that’ll be top of her list of reasons for her players to get their butts moving.
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Well I agree with half that. Soderberg played well but Aerin Frankel is within reach of Desbiens' NCAA records for GAA and sv. .969 for Frankel to .963 for Desbiens for sv and .708 for Desbiens vs. .713 for Frankel for GAA.
 
Offsides Guy said:
And OSU beats Wi - bank on it. The worst thing Wisconsin could’ve done was to beat Ohio State for the WCHA championship. Nobody motivates her players like Muzz and that’ll be top of her list of reasons for her players to get their butts moving.
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From our perspective a key factor that worked to Wisconsin's advantage was we lost two girls in our last game with them and had to go with a shortened bench and line combinations thrown together on the fly.
They were back playing yesterday. Unless someone goes down again we won't have that impediment tomorrow.
 
TitleIXHockey said:
Well I agree with half that. Soderberg played well but Aerin Frankel is within reach of Desbiens' NCAA records for GAA and sv. .969 for Frankel to .963 for Desbiens for sv and .708 for Desbiens vs. .713 for Frankel for GAA.
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Frankel is definitely the better goalie this season. But in 1 game, Soderberg could be her equal.
 
I think that UMD's biggest advantage is that it's last four games were versus: UW, UW, OSU, Colgate.
By comparison, Northeastern's last four games were: UNH, UConn, PC, RMU.
 
zambonidriver said:
I hope they don't legalize weed in MN because what you are smoking is laced with hallucinogens. THere are 4 teams in the CHA that would pound the two lower WCHA teams on a regular basis. Penn state pounded RMU during the regular season.
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How do you figure that 4 teams in the CHA would pound SCSU? Going back just to last year, I see SCSU swept RIT by a score of 7-1 in total for the 2 games. They went 2-0-1 vs Lindenwood outscoring them 13-3, and kept Mercyhurst from getting the sweep by tying them in one of their games. So that is a record of 4-1-2 vs the CHA in 2019-20, and last year was sort of a down year for SCSU. In 2018-19, SCSU went 2-2-2 vs Lindenwood, won both games vs RIT, but also split vs UMD, and had 5 games vs OSU/MN/Conn that were only 1 goal losses.

Just looking that far back, seems to me SCSU would probably do well playing in the CHA. Not claiming they'd have beat PSU this season, but they definitely wouldn't get pounded by 4 of the CHA teams. And with a far better chance of getting an autobid, that would improve SCSU's recruiting, so even if they didn't dominate the CHA their first year, they probably would within a few years.
 
Offsides Guy said:
Question: regardless of who wins the tournament, does their national title deserve an asterisk due to the shortened season and lack of full participation of all programs across the country?
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Since it's a good chance a WCHA team will win title, and all of the normal top favorites to upset them, Clarkson, BC, BU, Colgate, Northeastern did play, I'd say No, no asterisk is needed for the reasons you posted, unless you want to take into account that Minnesota was left out of the field, lol. THAT more than anything else would deserve the champ getting an asterisk. ;)
 
ARM said:
I think that UMD's biggest advantage is that it's last four games were versus: UW, UW, OSU, Colgate.
By comparison, Northeastern's last four games were: UNH, UConn, PC, RMU.
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It would be an interesting statistical analysis to figure out if it's better to play a bunch of strong opponents, a bunch of weak opponents or a mix. Not sure you could get enough of a sample size (or agreement on what constitutes strong or weak) to draw a meaningful conclusion.

I have often wondered if playing a bunch of medium opponents (most of WHEA & ECAC schedules) is tougher than we think.
 
TitleIXHockey said:
It would be an interesting statistical analysis to figure out if it's better to play a bunch of strong opponents, a bunch of weak opponents or a mix.
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I've always thought that one of the most important qualities in an opponent is a team that forces you to speed up. If you play an opponent that shows you a different style, you can scheme around it, often with little preparation. Of the opponent is passive, sags back around it's own net, and blocks shots, there are different tactics you can try. Reverse the puck, move it low to high, get shots to the net and crash for rebounds, etc. As long as the opponent is passive and you have 60 minutes, you can eventually find a way to have success, even if it is an unfamiliar defense.

However, if the opponent is more aggressive at taking away time and space and forechecks harder than you've seen before, it takes a while to adjust. The puck movement and decisions have to happen faster. If you're accustomed to playing with the speed dial at 7 or 8, it's a big difference to try to play at a 9 or 10. Everything becomes harder: passing, shooting, even skating with the puck. Colgate was a fast team, but UMD had seen speed before, and recently. When Ohio State came at BC hard in the second period, it had been a long time since the Eagles had been forced to play at that tempo.

IMO, you improve most when you play opponents who force you to get better, because your usual level is no longer sufficient.
 
ARM said:
Yes, but the VB game will be rematched on Sunday, which makes it less do-or-die.
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(Thursday VB match Wisconsin vs Minnesota cancelled due to COVID concerns in the Minnesota program. So my Thursday viewing is entirely hockey; I *hate* the reason that is now the case. As I said Big Ten volleyball is having a God-awful time with COVID. Counting this coming weekend, for example, Northwestern will have played six matches, and had twelve cancelled. For the moment, Sunday UW vs Minnesota not cancelled, but that likely won't last long.)
 
Madison and Minneapolis are close enough that midweek matches on short notice will be an option. In terms of NCAA prep, playing the version of UM that played Illinois won't do UW any good.
 
ARM said:
Madison and Minneapolis are close enough that midweek matches on short notice will be an option. In terms of NCAA prep, playing the version of UM that played Illinois won't do UW any good.
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Unless the "14 day pause" announcement comes. NCAA VB 'selection Sunday' is (currently scheduled to be) April 4th. A 14 day pause announcement for the Gophers,say, tomorrow would mean they could *maybe* play already scheduled matches on April 2 and 3. But they would do so missing players.

(I wonder how much worse it has to get fro the NCAA to push back the national tournament. I know other conferences are having big problems, but maybe not as bad as B1G.)

Be happy women's hockey is about to cross the finish line!
 
Offsides Guy said:
The worst thing Wisconsin could’ve done was to beat Ohio State for the WCHA championship. Nobody motivates her players like Muzz and that’ll be top of her list of reasons for her players to get their butts moving.
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This is 100% true. The Muzzinator is an all emotion motivator. Don't pour more fuel on the fire.
 
Offsides Guy said:
The worst thing Wisconsin could’ve done was to beat Ohio State for the WCHA championship. Nobody motivates her players like Muzz and that’ll be top of her list of reasons for her players to get their butts moving.
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A heartbreaking loss in a game you felt you should have won is the greatest motivator in all sports. Look at the difference when Ohio State lost in FB to Clemson two years ago and then last year. That was a team hungry and on fire! Regardless how bad OSU wants it Wisconsin is definitely a team to be reckoned with and if OSU wants the win they'll have to play their butts off and earn it! (and a few lucky bounces and rebounds wouldn't hurt!)
 
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