UMass Lowell 2024-2025 Season: Expectations are.....Expectations

[UMLFan]

We all know the Lowell "tradition" of playing down to opponents, so it's interesting to note that we have 9 games left and all are against teams below us (except one game against UConn).

I have three clusers of teams in HE at this point:

1. BC, BU and Maine. They'll all get home ice, have to be the teams to beat. I don't see any of these three slipping out of the top spots.
2. Lowell, PC, UConn. Fighting for home ice. Lowell is 1-0-1 against PC, and 1-1 against UConn. We play both of them once each (both on the road), so the tie-breakers are huge. Lowell currently is in fifth, but only one point behind UConn with 2 games in hand.
3. Everyone else. I don't take teams against any one of these for granted, and we have 2 against UMass, Northeastern, and UNH and a single against Vermont. If someone here gets hot, I can see them jumping into my second grouping.

If we can somehow win 6 of these 9, we should still have a shot at home ice in the quarterfinals.

If I'm correct in my groupings and PC and UConn are similar to us, UConn's remaining schedule includes two games against BU and Maine, and strangely they only have one Home/Home left (Lowell has three), but 6 of their last 8 (including a non-conference game) are at home. Lowell only has 4 of their last 9 at home. Providence has the toughest schedule of the three, with 5 games still left against Maine and BU. They do have 5 of their last 9 at home, but their last three are all on the road.

 

[ScottK]

We all know the Lowell "tradition" of playing down to opponents, so it's interesting to note that we have 9 games left and all are against teams below us (except one game against UConn).

I have three clusers of teams in HE at this point:

1. BC, BU and Maine. They'll all get home ice, have to be the teams to beat. I don't see any of these three slipping out of the top spots.
2. Lowell, PC, UConn. Fighting for home ice. Lowell is 1-0-1 against PC, and 1-1 against UConn. We play both of them once each (both on the road), so the tie-breakers are huge. Lowell currently is in fifth, but only one point behind UConn with 2 games in hand.
3. Everyone else. I don't take teams against any one of these for granted, and we have 2 against UMass, Northeastern, and UNH and a single against Vermont. If someone here gets hot, I can see them jumping into my second grouping.

If we can somehow win 6 of these 9, we should still have a shot at home ice in the quarterfinals.

If I'm correct in my groupings and PC and UConn are similar to us, UConn's remaining schedule includes two games against BU and Maine, and strangely they only have one Home/Home left (Lowell has three), but 6 of their last 8 (including a non-conference game) are at home. Lowell only has 4 of their last 9 at home. Providence has the toughest schedule of the three, with 5 games still left against Maine and BU. They do have 5 of their last 9 at home, but their last three are all on the road.

Lowell already has the tiebreaker against PC, having taken 5 out of 6 points with only 3 points left. Lowell just needs a win (regulation or OT) against UConn for the tiebreaker.

Last season, 38 points was enough for 4th place and home ice in the quarterfinal. Assume that is the case again, then Lowell needs 13 points from the remaining 9 games.

 

[Patman]

I know we aren’t on the bubble but oh boy does it feel like we are. I hate this 10-13 range in the pairwise. So little margin for error in these next few weekends. No more easy games. I just need to see one convincing win this weekend to put my mind at ease.

Two wins would go a long way to ending the season (edit: ending it in the ncaas). Two wins would effectively put us four losses up instead of 3.

Edit: man i getting way pessimistic in my outlook. Maybe it's the playing goaltender or other things but I've been viewing everything as hazard prevention... winning is to prevent the hazard of losing. I gotta find another outlook, I think this isn't healthy on my part

 

[UMLFan]

Lowell already has the tiebreaker against PC, having taken 5 out of 6 points with only 3 points left. Lowell just needs a win (regulation or OT) against UConn for the tiebreaker.

Last season, 38 points was enough for 4th place and home ice in the quarterfinal. Assume that is the case again, then Lowell needs 13 points from the remaining 9 games.

Thanks Scott. The HE site doesn't really clarify that point since it only states that they use shootout wins for the extra point in the standings: "While nearly every Division I college conference now uses shootouts to break ties after overtime is played, the NCAA uses W-L-T for record keeping and does not recognize shootout "wins" as wins. A game is considered a "tie" for both team and coach historical records after overtime ends without a goal scored. Shootouts are used only to determine points in league standings. For this reason, records will continue to be displayed as W-L-T with OW-OL-SW following to display total point calculations. The OW-OL-SW records are accounted for in the W-L-T record."

 

[UMLFan]

Barry Scanlon pens a nice piece noting that Friday will be Coach Bazin's 500th game in charge of Lowell. His career record is 276-177-46.

 

[UMLFan]

Season isn't over for Lowell basketball, but for all the talk about this extremely experienced roster (15 players on the roster, 5 redshirt/actual freshmen and the rest all seniors or grads) ... and coming off the hope of 2 straight years of making the AE Final ... this team is in trouble. Now 4-5 in league play after today's loss, this team is lacking something. And with so much talent leaving after this season, Lowell's future isn't bright unless they absolutely nail the transfer portal. I desperately hope they can figure things out the remainder of this season.

 

[Patman]

Season isn't over for Lowell basketball, but for all the talk about this extremely experienced roster (15 players on the roster, 5 redshirt/actual freshmen and the rest all seniors or grads) ... and coming off the hope of 2 straight years of making the AE Final ... this team is in trouble. Now 4-5 in league play after today's loss, this team is lacking something. And with so much talent leaving after this season, Lowell's future isn't bright unless they absolutely nail the transfer portal. I desperately hope they can figure things out the remainder of this season.

Losing oconnor to Mason didn't help but I think he was always moving on

 

[boblav1]

Season isn't over for Lowell basketball, but for all the talk about this extremely experienced roster (15 players on the roster, 5 redshirt/actual freshmen and the rest all seniors or grads) ... and coming off the hope of 2 straight years of making the AE Final ... this team is in trouble. Now 4-5 in league play after today's loss, this team is lacking something. And with so much talent leaving after this season, Lowell's future isn't bright unless they absolutely nail the transfer portal. I desperately hope they can figure things out the remainder of this season.

Let's hope Somerville sticks around.

 

[UMLFan]

Season isn't over for Lowell basketball, but for all the talk about this extremely experienced roster (15 players on the roster, 5 redshirt/actual freshmen and the rest all seniors or grads) ... and coming off the hope of 2 straight years of making the AE Final ... this team is in trouble. Now 4-5 in league play after today's loss, this team is lacking something. And with so much talent leaving after this season, Lowell's future isn't bright unless they absolutely nail the transfer p

Let's hope Somerville sticks around.

NIL money will be involved I'm sure. And if he wants to be a leader in just his second year (albeit, I know they'll bring in older players through the portal).