University of Michigan in NCAA Tournament
The Michigan Wolverines will play the Wisconsin Badgers, ranked No. 11 overall, on Friday at 8:35 pm. Michigan head coach Red Berenson was pleasantly surprised to find that his team was playing close to home where friends and family could come out and support their Wolverines unlike last year when they had to head out east.
"I think if they went by the book, we would have went to Worcester to play BU," said Berenson, alluding to what might have happened had the committee ranked the 16 teams and had No. 1 play 16, and so on.
The Badgers are 3-7-3 in the last 13 games and lost to North Dakota in the WCHA conference tourney, 3-2. On the other hand, Michigan is unbeaten in the last 12 games with only two ties. They also have recently received the regular season CCHA title with a record 48 points in the conference and then winning the CCHA conference over Ohio State at the Joe. "We’re pretty comfortable with the draw," senior alternate captain Brandon Rogers said to The Michigan Daily. "We have some good teams in our region, but you have to beat the best teams to get to the end anyways."
To determine where each team goes in the NCAA tourney, pairwise rankings is used. Michigan is the No. 6 team overall through this system even though they have the best record in the country. Many of their CCHA opponents have had weak seasons and that hurt Michigan in gaining bonus points in the pairwise rankings system. "This year, the CCHA might be on a little bit of a downer, and that hurts us when we win a lot of games," senior captain Eric Nystrom said. "But this is the way it works, and, if this is the only way they can figure it out, so be it."
If the Wolverines defeat Wisconsin Friday, they will go on to play the winner of Colorado College vs. Colgate Saturday at 5pm.
Berenson believes Colorado College was the best team in the West and will be difficult for any team to beat this weekend. "Colorado (College) has a lot of offensive skill," Berenson said. "When you look at the schedule they've played, the teams they beat, they're just a fine team."
So where is Michigan ranked? Inside College Hockey and USA Today puts the Wolverines at No. 5 with Cornell, Denver, Boston College, and Colorado College above them. U.S. College Hockey Online placed Michigan tied in fourth with Boston College. Colorado College, Denver, and Cornell are ranked highter than the Wolverines in the USCHO.com poll.
"Expectations are high anyway," Berenson said to The Detroit Free Press. "We're going to Grand Rapids knowing we're playing a real good team in Wisconsin. And if we have a good game, we're going to play a real good team the next night. The games just get better and tougher, regardless of the expectations."
Other NCAA hockey tournament news
FOXSports.com conducted an interview with senior Brendan Cook of the Bemidji State University Beavers. Cook was named to the CHA All-Tournament and has led his team in scoring. In 135 games, he has 54 goals and 47 assists. The Beavers won the College Hockey Tournament to win an automatic bid into the tournament. The CHA champ will face the No. 1 ranked team, Denver. Here's what Cook had to say about playing the top seed in the tournament and their goal in this tournament.
FOXSports.com: Assuming you could play whatever team you wanted in the NCAA tournament, is there a team that you would like to face?
BC: No, not really. There are pluses and minuses to facing each team. Most likely, we will play Colorado College or maybe Denver and it's a case of picking your poison with those two teams. So, we haven't really thought about any of the teams in particular. We don't really have a preference. We're going in with the mindset that we are representing the school and moving the hockey program forward and we want to win a game in the NCAAs.
I recently discovered Inside College Hockey and their INCH Newstand which "will share links to the best coverage from around the world of college hockey – highlighting the great (and occasionally not-so-great) writing that has us talking. It’s meant to be part web log and part links page, with constantly updated content so you can keep checking back for the latest college hockey news." I found it really useful in finding relative links to webcontent in the NCAA tournament and other college hockey news.
Plymouth Whalers 1st Round of Playoffs
The Plymouth Whalers finished sixth in the Western Conference of the Ontario Hockey League (2nd in the West Division) and will play the No. 3 seed, Owen Sound Attack, in the first round of the playoffs. Like the NHL, the OHL series is best four out of seven games. Here are playoff game dates:
Game 1 – Fri. Mar. 25 – Plymouth at Owen Sound, 7:30 pm.
Game 2 – Sat. Mar. 26 – Owen Sound at Plymouth, 7:30 pm.
Game 3 – Tues. Mar. 29 – Plymouth at Owen Sound, 7:00 pm.
Game 4 – Thur. Mar. 31 – Owen Sound at Plymouth, 7:30 pm.
* Game 5 – Sat. Apr. 2 – Plymouth at Owen Sound, 7:30 pm.
* Game 6 – Sun. Apr. 3 – Owen Sound at Plymouth, 6:00 pm.
* Game 7 – Tues. Apr. 5 – Plymouth at Owen Sound at 7:00 pm.
* if necessary.
Tickets are available for all playoff games at the Compuware Sports Arena. Call (734) 453-8400 to order by phone. Ticket prices range from $10 for Executive Reserved to $15 for VIP. The box office is open Monday through Friday from 9:00 am to 7:00 pm and is open this Saturday at 11:00 am until the end of the second period of the Plymouth-London game.
The other Western Confrence playoff pairings are set:
#1 London vs. # 8 Guelph
#2 Sault Ste. Marie vs. #7 Windsor
#4 Kitchener vs. #5 Erie
Unfortunately, I'm in Florida for vacation during all of those games except the first one and I don't have any internet access over that period of time to fill you guys in on the outcomes. I hope they can move on to the next round so I can see some games at Compuware but it will be a challenging series for the Whalers to defeat the Sound Attack.
Update (3/22/05): Like I mentioned in the previous paragraph, the Whalers are going to have a hard time in this series since they're seen as huge underdogs against the Sound Attack. At the start of this season, it was expected to be a rebuilding one with 10 rookies this year. And for that, they did well finishing with 69 points but against the Sound Attack, who ended with 90 points, it will take a lot of effort. Owen Sound won the season series 2-0-1-1.
"All the pressure is on Owen Sound, it's expected to win this series," Whalers coach Mike Vellucci said. "We're going in with not as much pressure. We'll have fun, we'll play hard and we'll see how it comes out."
Owen Sound has a deep bunch of talented offensive forwards, so the Whalers will look to clamp down defensively and depend on goalie Ryan Nie. Having led the Whalers into the second round of the playoffs last spring, Nie has an edge on Attack goalie Mike Brown, who has yet to compete in the OHL playoffs.
