>>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

[PSUChamps2001]

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

Considering there is only one team RIT can't solve when it matters (Air Force) we are a very long way from having a legitimate complaint about the coaches.

Exactly, RIT is doing fine where they are at with what they have. I think there would be a long line of schools salivating if Wilson was let go. Losing to Penn State could be much much worse. Had Penn State dominated RIT I'd say be worried and ready for a long season. A 10 game series, RIT wins probably 7 or 8 with a loss and a tie. While it doesnt have the "moral victory" feeling of losing to a Michigan or BC, sometimes you just can't get that win again a hot goaltender. RIT will be just fine in the AHA this season. Come the end of the regular season the loss to Penn State will be a small blip on the radar.

 

[Scott Biggar]

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

Some have mentioned to me the parallels between Penn State and RIT during their transition year but there is one key difference that folks need to take into account. About two thirds of RIT's team in the transition year were still DIII players who were recruited before DI was even a blip on the radar.

Meanwhile, there are only four ACHA club players remaining on Penn State's team this year. All of the other players are either DI recruits or transfers from other existing DI teams.

So to say that RIT was beat by a "club" team is a bit disengenuous.

Remember how "up" RIT played against some very good DI teams during its transition season?
Remember how many one-goal games there were that year?
Remember how RIT rode a hot goaltender to steal some of those games?

In some ways how people are jumping off of cliffs is a sign of how far the program has come in the last eight years, as long as everyone tries to keep some semblence of perspective.

 

[komey1]

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

Exactly, RIT is doing fine where they are at with what they have. I think there would be a long line of schools salivating if Wilson was let go. Losing to Penn State could be much much worse. Had Penn State dominated RIT I'd say be worried and ready for a long season. A 10 game series, RIT wins probably 7 or 8 with a loss and a tie. While it doesnt have the "moral victory" feeling of losing to a Michigan or BC, sometimes you just can't get that win again a hot goaltender. RIT will be just fine in the AHA this season. Come the end of the regular season the loss to Penn State will be a small blip on the radar.

I totally agree here. Coach Wilson is one of the best in the AHA. With a resume of all the confernece regular season titles and a Frozen Four run, he would not last that long on the open market.

Losses like this happen. I would rather lose this game than the conference games.

On to the next. The team needs to go to work to be ready for RoMo.

 

[blazer777]

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

In some ways how people are jumping off of cliffs is a sign of how far the program has come in the last eight years, as long as everyone tries to keep some semblence of perspective.

It wouldn't be the first few weeks of the season if this wasnt' going on!

 

[LtPowers]

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

Meanwhile, there are only four ACHA club players remaining on Penn State's team this year. All of the other players are either DI recruits or transfers from other existing DI teams.

So to say that RIT was beat by a "club" team is a bit disengenuous.

This is important to remember. It looked to me like Adam Hartley would have been in the middle of the pack size-wise on this Penn State squad. I honestly think they had a good two inches on us, on average. And they were very good at getting to the puck; even if they couldn't do much with it, they got to it and either swept it away, blocked the shot, or at least prevented RIT from getting to it. Every time the puck got close to Musico, there were two or three Nittany Lions standing there ready to push it out of danger.

No question RIT could have played better on defense, and the passing could have been better. But on offense, I think Penn State had a whale of a defensive effort.


Powers &8^]

 

[komey1]

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

This is important to remember. It looked to me like Adam Hartley would have been in the middle of the pack size-wise on this Penn State squad. I honestly think they had a good two inches on us, on average.

That would be an advantage to having the Big 10 as a tool to recruit.

 

[komey1]

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

It wouldn't be the first few weeks of the season if this wasnt' going on!

Weren't we ready to ditch Mads after the Lowell game? He had a pretty good season after than. Hoping the same can happen with Watson.

 

[Bing]

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

Weren't we ready to ditch Mads after the Lowell game? He had a pretty good season after than. Hoping the same can happen with Watson.

I want to see more of MacLean

 

[RIT Winters]

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

Weren't we ready to ditch Mads after the Lowell game? He had a pretty good season after than. Hoping the same can happen with Watson.

Watson has played parts of 3 seasons now. Shane had played part of 1, including a few minutes in the Wisconsin debacle.

Watson has showed us one bad year (freshman), one good year (sophmore) and one thus far undetermined year (junior).

Although I agree in principle with what you are saying, I'm not sure it fits as much here. We have yet to see a whole lot of Ruby (especially in conference play) and MacLean looked really good when we did see him. Ropponen was simply not Madolora, even on Madolora's bad days. I don't think it's saying much to call Ruby better competition than Ropponen.

The jury is still out, but I'm not sure Watson is ever going to pull off Madolora type numbers.

I want to see more of MacLean

This.

 

[TigerFan86-87]

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

I think the two biggest points about PSU's relative performance on Fri. and Sat. are the change in goalie and the motivation to ruin RIT's big party. Even Gadowsky said that.

As for questioning Wilson, I'd say he doesn't deserve too much grief (some is always fair game) until the Tigers don't make the BCA playoffs for 2-3 years in a row.

I'm guessing you are correct that Penn State may have "overlooked" (as much as an expansion team can) Buff State and geared their efforts last week for the RIT game in front of a large crowd. Don't they have over 30 players on their roster? I didn't see the lineups, but I would posit that maybe they started the bottom 20 on Friday and the top 20 on Saturday... maybe. Not that I'm making excuses... RIT's performance was disappointing to say the least. But as was said earlier, Penn State appeared to have a distinct size advantage and I'm sure their recruits are all talented (B1G teams don't recruit from the same pool that AIC does). Youth and inconsistency will obviously be their achilles heel, but they are certainly capable (as we've seen) at competing on any given night with established D-I teams. I know it was "only" AIC, but any team that can come out in its first game and put up 63 shots on goal is certainly capable. RIT did defeat AIC in their independent year as well, but I don't remember them putting up that kind of shot total (and AIC wasn't nearly as good then as they are now). Whether they are ready for the B1G by next year, well that may be a different story. But it looks as though they're starting on the right foot. If I were to draw a parallel between Penn State and another new D-I team, I would lean more towards Niagara (at least in the short term). Obviously, long term Penn State has much higher aspirations than Niagara did. However as we all (those who are old enough) remember, those first two Niagara teams were extremely young (nearly all freshman), but significantly bigger and faster than their ECAC West D-III counterparts. They weren't able to go out and win all their games initially because of their youth, primarily. By the end of their second season, as especially evidenced in the conference tournament, they were really exerting a dominance that their talent deserved to. The D-III opponents that kept up with them at all had to work their a**es off to do so.

 

[TigerFan86-87]

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

But never mind Penn State... as far as RIT's performance goes...
I think the same thing that troubled the 2011-12 team may continue into 2012-13. RIT still has not replaced all the scoring it lost when Brenner / Favot (and Lambert / Smith earlier and later Burt to a lesser degree) graduated. There just don't seem to be any natural scorers or a true # 1 line emerging from this group. For most of the time (unfortunately not all the time - the game is 60 minutes long), they seem to work hard, maintain a possession time advantage, and generate offensive pressure. The problem is that it rarely results in important goals or any real goal scoring spurts like we've grown accustomed to through the years from the Tigers. Look at how many chances and shots the Tigers poured on in the last two periods of Saturday's game. How many of those brought out the "Oh S**t" chant... only a few, really. And far too many of those didn't even get on goal because everyone seemed to be trying to either pick the upper corners for "pretty" goals or follow some scouting report that Musica could be beaten up high (I'm just guessing). Way too many shots were directly at the center of Musica's chest, pads, and even his head once (I think - was kind of far away to tell for sure). I don't remember him going way out of his way to stop too many of the Tigers' shots. That's either a sign that he is excellent at positioning himself or RIT doesn't shoot all that well, or a combination of both. Of course, he also had the advantage of a disciplined collapsing defense in front of him. Every rebound was surrounded by 3 or 4 white jerseys and no Tiger skaters in sight and the only shots RIT could get on him were from tight angles that he was all over, anticipation-wise.
I appreciate the effort this team shows most of the time (40+ shots should be good enough), but it just looks like it did last year with respect to scoring ability.
Also, goaltending like Madolora and DiMichiel gave the Tigers can make up for a couple defensive lapses here and there. But unless Watson can step up to that level like Shane and Jared did after early career so-so performances, RIT will struggle. Let's hope either he or Ruby can continue that tradition or that the freshman might out-shine them both at some point.

 

[Bing]

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

I appreciate the effort this team shows most of the time (40+ shots should be good enough), but it just looks like it did last year with respect to scoring ability.

I don't know, I'm hoping that RIT simply had a bad game. We did manage to score 5 goals on Michigan in the first game and 8 against Ottawa, but granted, both goalie situations were questionable for Michigan and Ottawa. Maybe Jeff Smith will be our savior?

 

[Zyklon]

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

I don't know, I'm hoping that RIT simply had a bad game. We did manage to score 5 goals on Michigan in the first game and 8 against Ottawa, but granted, both goalie situations were questionable for Michigan and Ottawa. Maybe Jeff Smith will be our savior?

I'd like to think that Hamburg is a pretty good shooter (although hopefully he is ok), and I think when Colavecchia returns whatever line he is on will be the top line and very scary. He was always the playmaker and seemed to bring everyone around him together. Also, remember that lynch was part of that great favot-brenner line.

 

[cplinford]

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

I guess I don't see the questioning of Watson and what Maclean has done to earn any starts yet? Last year everyone was getting all hyped up about Rudy...

As someone mentioned some people (me included) were calling for Madalora's head after his BCA game against Colgate cause he frankly let in some very soft goals in that game. I didn't think any of Watson's goals were soft. Any time you make a cross crease pass, to an open player, the goalie has very little chance. I put nothing on Watson in this years BCA game. I'm not really worried about RIT's goaltending.

I think more than anything the Tigers feel a huge amount of pressure to perform well at the BCA. Maybe they were a little overconfident or there was some let down after beating Michigan. Maybe its because the team is pretty young this year, especially on defense. I've jumped off the cliff in years past after the first couple of games, I am going to hold out judgement this time

 

[Downstate_RIT_Fan]

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

I couldn't tell from my vantage point (showing up short before the puck dropped and having GA tickets can do that ) but the television time out's (not to use them as an excuse) could of only helped Penn State as they could get away with rolling three lines instead of four, and it also seemed that any momentum RIT may have been gained by tilting the ice towards the Penn State goal in the 3rd period was squashed by the breaks in action. TV seems to always help the less deeper bench.

 

[LtPowers]

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

As someone mentioned some people (me included) were calling for Madalora's head after his BCA game against Colgate cause he frankly let in some very soft goals in that game. I didn't think any of Watson's goals were soft. Any time you make a cross crease pass, to an open player, the goalie has very little chance. I put nothing on Watson in this years BCA game. I'm not really worried about RIT's goaltending.

I'm not worried about Watson by any stretch, but at least one and maybe two of the goals were soft. The one I remember in particular, he'd reached out to freeze it but failed, and so he was down and out when the puck was centered and Penn State banged it home.


Powers &8^]

 

[lmg6841]

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

Based on the highlight reel, all of those goals were awful defensive plays, and I think it's fair to say that two of them were soft on Watsons part.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS1gDVTTx8g

 

[Zyklon]

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

Based on the highlight reel, all of those goals were awful defensive plays, and I think it's fair to say that two of them were soft on Watsons part.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS1gDVTTx8g

Me watching it:

1st goal: clearly he screwed up and shoulda gotten his glove on it. because he didn't that created the opportunity, and got himself confused and wayyy out of position.
2nd goal: defensive mistake, but he can't be giving up a second big rebound like that and then getting himself mentally out of it to manage the rebound he gave up.
3rd goal: a little more forgivable, but clearly lost the puck and didnt see it even though it was right in front of him

 

[cplinford]

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

Me watching it:

1st goal: clearly he screwed up and shoulda gotten his glove on it. because he didn't that created the opportunity, and got himself confused and wayyy out of position.
2nd goal: defensive mistake, but he can't be giving up a second big rebound like that and then getting himself mentally out of it to manage the rebound he gave up.
3rd goal: a little more forgivable, but clearly lost the puck and didnt see it even though it was right in front of him

Watson was out of position but again the Penn state player was left all alone in front and Watson had to try to slide across the crease to make the save. You could argue the penn state player was given a little too much time to poke at it after Watson went to cover. I'm not sure how Foote still had his eye on the puck on the far side of the net

On the 2nd goal the Penn State player smacked the rebound out of the air after he was allowed to walk in alone

3rd goal was a shot through what looked like a little bit of a screen, could argue it was stoppable.

I went back and watched the highlights of Madalora's BCA game (it was umass not colgate) and you could argue the first umass goal and the last were weak but really I didn't see much difference other than the RIT highlights in general were better that game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fES2Xxv7ss

 

[komey1]

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

Re: >>>>> RIT TIGERS 2012-2013 - Locked, Loaded, And Ready To Roar <<<<<

It will be interesting to see who gets the start between the pipes for the Robert Morris game. Whomever does not get the start between Ruby and Watson will start the game at Colgate.