On Sun, 10 Mar 1996, John R. Nash wrote: > Now that the WCHA goes into an off-week before the tournament > selections, it's time for the pundits to look at the league's chances in > the tourney. No matter how I look at it, it seems to me that the WCHA will > only get two bids this year -- CC and MN. This is dead on. With Bowling Green moving on to the Joe, it virtually eliminates Denver, the WCHA 3rd place team and seeming lock a month ago. > How did this situation come about? As I see it, the WCHA this year > was the Big Two (CC and MN), the Middle Six, and the Bottom Two (UAA and > NMU). In fact, except for the Gopher's February swoon, it was all but impossible for a team in the bottom eight to beat either the Gophers or the Tigers during the regular season. Prior to February, the record of the bottom eight against the top two was 37-3-4. The season ended with the two a combined 44-8-4 against the rest of the league. This disparity made the league top heavy, and that combined with the fading Denver University (who made an early exit from the playoffs) leaves you with only two teams. > As for the Big Two in the NCAA's, I am concerned at how they will > fare... CC has explosive offense and strong goaltending, but they are > showing their traditional tournament-time letdown. If they regain their > form for the tourney, however, they will contend for the title. The > Gophers, on the other hand, always play well in the playoffs (until the > end, that is :-). Don't count the Tigers out too early. They have only lost four games all year, and all four of those were one goal games. Minnesota has the experience, but they have to be questioning themselves after the late season skid (2-6 in Feb). The biggest fear, I think, has to come not from lack of teamwork, choke factor, or even difficult opponents, but the extra week layoff. In any regular season, I would give both the Gophers and the Tigers excellent chances for Cinci, but the double whammy of not facing a team above .500 in the playoffs and the extra week layoff will hurt both of them, taking the extra edge off their play -- the extra edge that you need in the NCAAs. Actually, with the first rounds over in all the conferences (MSU 3-1 over Ferris, Harvard 8-4 over StLaw) we can reasonably pick the field of 12: Automatic bid: Minnesota Courtesy bids: Vermont Boston University Colorado College Lake State Michigan At large: Clarkson Cornell Mass Lowell Western Michigan Michigan State Bowling Green Remaining Monkey Wrench: Harvard With the loss to Harvard, St. Lawrence has almost certainly eliminated themselves from the tournament. Harvard's only hope lies in winning the ECAC Tournament, getting by Vermont and the winner of Clarkson/Cornell. Very tough. So by conference: HE 2 ECAC 3 CCHA 5 WCHA 2 -Lee-nerd [log in to unmask] "It is not written in the stars that I will always understand what is going on - a truism that I often find damnably annoying." -Robert Heinlein HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.