Dick Tuthill wrote:
> Interesting thread that Jason started. Most folks seem to feel
>that the
>MAAC should have to prove itself in some way before it gets a bid ... like
>in basketball. Yes, I agree. They should prove themselves against the
>established hockey conferences in the same way that the Ivy League, the
>Patriot League, and the NEC basketball conferences have proved themselves
>against the Big East, the ACC, and the Big 10. Which is to say ... they
>haven't. Not even close. And yet they still get auto bids. And every
>once in awhile they give someone a very unpleasant upset in the tournament
>which we all get a charge out of.
>
> JMHO. Flame away all you want.
>
> -- Dick Tuthill
>
Dick, I am not going to flame you but your analogy is off base. First of
all, the lower level basketball leagues you mentioned - Patriot, Ivy and
NEC - all have teams that have scheduled regular season games against the
Dukes, UConns and Indianas of the world. The MAAC has not done this in
hockey yet.
Secondly, the reason the above mentioned leagues get bids is because it is
a 64 team tournament, the NC$$ has to fill the brackets out with somebody.
The NC$$ hockey tournament has only 12 teams. If one of the top level
teams in the country should lose in their league playoff quarterfinals,
should (could) they be left out to accomodate Quinnipiac or UConn? Please,
your thesis defies logic!
Finally, except for Princeton (and Penn, 15-20 years ago), none of the
basketball leagues you cited has won an NCAA tournament game that I can
recall. The champion of the Patriot League is routinely the 60-64th team
in the tournament and gets routed in a first round game. Conversely, the
hockey final 12 is competitive, 3 of the 4 semifinalists last year were not
bye teams. Do we want to diminish the product just so that emerging
programs can say they went to the big dance? Let them earn it first.
Greg Ambrose
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