Wisconsin Hockey Recruiting Vol. XXXIV: Go pick me out a winner, Strand

[Chuck Schwartz]

DU is a very good school, but acceptance rate is about 77% and as a private institution they can actually accept anyone they want to. Admissions at DU specifically take a "holistic" approach and I'd guess being a world class Lacrosse or Hockey player is, on it's own, given some strong consideration. Public schools generally have to apply standards more uniformly.

Not saying your wrong though. But really my understanding has been that Fabbro has been very interested in UW all along and really the fact that he and Jost are good friends and team mates is more of what connected Jost to UW than anything Jost has done or said. I think we were really just hoping to somehow manage to steal a big extra bonus there. Always thought it was a bit of a long shot with Jost. Too bad though, kid is a great player from what I've seen of him.

I think this sums it up nicely.

 

[Bonin21]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey Recruiting Vol. XXXIV: Go pick me out a winner, Strand

How did Heatley get in?

 

[Wisko McBadgerton]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey Recruiting Vol. XXXIV: Go pick me out a winner, Strand

How did Heatley get in?

Be serious. Heatley had 126 pts in 60 gp as a 17 yr. old in the AJHL. That gets you in anywhere.

 

[Bonin21]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey Recruiting Vol. XXXIV: Go pick me out a winner, Strand

Be serious. Heatley had 126 pts in 60 gp as a 17 yr. old in the AJHL. That gets you in anywhere.

Based on the current squad, you should be treating Fabbro like a Heatley then.

 

[WiscTJK]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey Recruiting Vol. XXXIV: Go pick me out a winner, Strand

Wisko can try to justify it anyway he wants, but the bottom line is the best recruits aren't coming to Wisconsin right now and haven't been for years, leading to 4 wins.

MM might have poisoned the waters so much that the program can't recover while he remains the head coach. I hope Strand and Bittner can help turn things around. That's all we got at this point....

 

[IndianaBadger1995]

Just goes to show the ship is no where near turned around.....

Gotta play some games before anything is going to change...

 

[Gandalf the Red]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey Recruiting Vol. XXXIV: Go pick me out a winner, Strand

Gotta play some games before anything is going to change...

I don't think the authorities in Italy are saying that for the boat captain who ran his cruise liner into the shore killing several people...."hey just get out there and captain another boat to see if you aren't a **** up anymore...."

While Eaves hasn't killed anyone (that we know of), other than the program, he is still the same captain in charge of the same ship.

At this point, the ship has to turn around (to some degree) because getting 4 wins again would be nearly impossible unless the team employed no goalie the entire season. This strategy would surprise me, because Eaves is incredibly reluctant to pull the goalie when down anyway until there is only one or two chances left in the game to tie. I would say I'm glad he plays it safe, if that was a successful mantra which didn't lead to immense fan disappointment, too many seasons on the wrong side of the PWR bubble, and snagging defeat from the jaws of victory when up by 2 or 3 goals w/ regularity.

 

[Chuck Schwartz]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey Recruiting Vol. XXXIV: Go pick me out a winner, Strand

Mahtomedi (MN HS) forward Jack Becker has finally committed. I alluded to a team friendly offer being made to him a while ago (although I don't think I mentioned his name). Eaves went and saw this one personally before an offer was made. Almost positive that's who he was watching with Butters earlier this spring. It would be an odd coincidence otherwise.

 

[solovsfett]

Gotta play some games before anything is going to change...

I'd say they've got to win quite a few recruiting battles for elite talent and then do that year over year to be successful again, and I define success as 22-26 wins annually, ncaa's 80% of the time and making FF's 50% of the time that they get in the tourney. Winning ncaa titles: 1 every 6-7 years. Standards lower than that are not UW hockey standards imo

 

[Almington]

I'd say they've got to win quite a few recruiting battles for elite talent and then do that year over year to be successful again, and I define success as 22-26 wins annually, ncaa's 80% of the time and making FF's 50% of the time that they get in the tourney. Winning ncaa titles: 1 every 6-7 years. Standards lower than that are not UW hockey standards imo

Are you high? While I agree that UW should be held to high standards, those are outrageously impossible to sustain over the long term.

Minimum of 20 wins per season and NCAA appearance every season. Anything beyond that is great, anything less than that is a failure.

 

[Bonin21]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey Recruiting Vol. XXXIV: Go pick me out a winner, Strand

20 wins is meh to me. I couldn't find my post about when I thought Lucia could go, but my standards for good are something like:
NCAA appearance ~80-90%
Big Ten regular season title (tougher and more important than conf tournament) ~50%
Big Ten tournament title ~33%
National championship ~10%

With some wiggle room. Hanging banners is important regardless of how weak the Big Ten is. Even I don't expect an NCAA appearance every year in the weak Big Ten.

 

[solovsfett]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey Recruiting Vol. XXXIV: Go pick me out a winner, Strand

Are you high? While I agree that UW should be held to high standards, those are outrageously impossible to sustain over the long term.

Minimum of 20 wins per season and NCAA appearance every season. Anything beyond that is great, anything less than that is a failure.

Uhm, what's the difference between your standards and mine? I mean 20 wins vs. 22? Let me clarify my position slightly. 20-26 wins each year should be the rule. Anything less should be an exception and a once in every 7-9 years exception. I WON'T lower my standards for UW Hockey ever. I don't care how much people whine about changing landscapes, Red Berenson is what, 497 years old and what has he done?
Michigan had what, 20? 22? consecutive NCAA Tourneys? UW should be held to that type of standard.

So making the NCAA's 80% of the time and the FF 50% of those 80% should be (imo anyway) a standard that can be achieved by a great coach.

 

[Almington]

So making the NCAA's 80% of the time and the FF 50% of those 80% should be (imo anyway) a standard that can be achieved by a great coach.

Expecting 4 F4 appearances per decade and winning the NC in 1/3 of those years isn't reasonable given the parity in that exists, the cyclical nature of conference strength and the unpredictable nature of a one-and-done tournament.

No program has ever maintained that level of success for more than about a decade.

Win 20+ games and make the NCAA tournament and the peices will be in place to make a run every year. The expectation going into every season should be that this could be the year, With Eaves everyone know what years might be "the year"

 

[ExileOnDaytonStreet]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey Recruiting Vol. XXXIV: Go pick me out a winner, Strand

This is starting to be a common complaint across the board for Wisconsin athletics: Unlike other state schools, we seem we seem to be unwilling to bend On academic standards for admissions.

It obviously sucks for recruiting, but it's worth asking whether or not this is actually a bad thing.

 

[markwojo]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey Recruiting Vol. XXXIV: Go pick me out a winner, Strand

This is starting to be a common complaint across the board for Wisconsin athletics: Unlike other state schools, we seem we seem to be unwilling to bend On academic standards for admissions.

It obviously sucks for recruiting, but it's worth asking whether or not this is actually a bad thing.

It is a bad thing when a high end first round draft pick level talent can get into DU (a high quality school) and not Wisconsin. Let's not pretend that there is not some softening of admission standards for athletes all across the board in college athletics from the Ivy league, to Stanford, to Notre Dame, throughout the Big 10, and right down to Wisconsin. EVERY school bends what is required for an athlete to attend it's school relative to non-athletes. The issue with Wisconsin is has the arbitrary line being drawn in the sand comparable to the competition been drawn at a level where the program competes on a somewhat even playing field? The last two football coaches left to lateral (at best in Bielema's case) or backwards (Andersen can not be spun as anything but a significant step backwards) positions and cited the academic standards for enrollment as one of the reasons.

 

[Chuck Schwartz]

It is a bad thing when a high end first round draft pick level talent can get into DU (a high quality school) and not Wisconsin. Let's not pretend that there is not some softening of admission standards for athletes all across the board in college athletics from the Ivy league, to Stanford, to Notre Dame, throughout the Big 10, and right down to Wisconsin. EVERY school bends what is required for an athlete to attend it's school relative to non-athletes. The issue with Wisconsin is has the arbitrary line being drawn in the sand comparable to the competition been drawn at a level where the program competes on a somewhat even playing field? The last two football coaches left to lateral (at best in Bielema's case) or backwards (Andersen can not be spun as anything but a significant step backwards) positions and cited the academic standards for enrollment as one of the reasons.

Let's pump the brakes just a bit on the academic stuff. Kid is too young to even apply to schools yet. Let's not blow this out of proportion. All I said was he didn't have the academic pedigree of Fabbro and may not have been able to get into UW down the road.

 

[drop_the_puck]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey Recruiting Vol. XXXIV: Go pick me out a winner, Strand

Let's pump the brakes just a bit on the academic stuff. Kid is too young to even apply to schools yet. Let's not blow this out of proportion. All I said was he didn't have the academic pedigree of Fabbro and may not have been able to get into UW down the road.

You just put gas on a football/basketball fire that everyone is already worked up about in the state. You mention academic requirements these days and all he** breaks loose.

 

[Wisko McBadgerton]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey Recruiting Vol. XXXIV: Go pick me out a winner, Strand

This is starting to be a common complaint across the board for Wisconsin athletics: Unlike other state schools, we seem we seem to be unwilling to bend On academic standards for admissions.

It obviously sucks for recruiting, but it's worth asking whether or not this is actually a bad thing.

I don't think it's a bad thing. If you want academic excellence at your school I think that you have to apply that across the board for the most part. And I really don't believe in running a "win at all costs" program in college athletics. In the long run there are very few real winners in the programs that have gone that route in the past.
In the hypothetical situation markwojo brings up, I agree that most schools do some bending, including the Ivies, but if they bend, it's probably more relative to their standards. For example if a regular student has a 1600 SAT they would be academically acceptable at schools like Marquette and DU, but they would be effectively ineligible to attend UW. Now maybe admissions bends a bit for an exceptional recruit and squeezes a 1600 in to UW.
Score 1350 as a student and you can get in at UMD and possibly UND. Maybe they bend and take a great player with a 1320. A kid that has a 1320 SAT just really can't go to UW no matter how great a player he is. He is probably going to have a very difficult time in keeping up with the academic load not to mention remaining eligible. If a #1 pick like that comes to UW he might score 40 goals before Christmas, but he's going to be sitting if he can't keep up in the classroom. And that is doing nobody any good, especially that player. Unless we're going to just cheat in the classroom. Then it will all be ok...

It is very hard to be a Badger, which is part of why it's also an honor. I like it that way.

 

[Bonin21]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey Recruiting Vol. XXXIV: Go pick me out a winner, Strand

I guarantee you there are some absolute rock heads on the football team.

 

[solovsfett]

I guarantee you there are some absolute rock heads on the football team.

Absolutely