Scott BrownPerhaps it’s fitting that in the wildest, most unpredictable NCAA tournament in recent memory, one of the steadiest programs of the last several years reached its first Frozen Four. Under head coach Enrico Blasi, the Miami RedHawks have been transformed from an afterthought in the CCHA to a conference and national contender. Until Blasi took … Read more
Minnesota Duluth’s incredible 5-4 overtime win Friday against Princeton defies easy categorization. For each team, the game’s script had elements both of the familiar and the fantastic. Winning games they weren’t supposed to was nothing new for the Bulldogs, who did that three times last weekend in the WCHA Final Five. UMD, the seventh-seeded team … Read more
Upset (up’-set), n.: a game or contest in which the favorite is defeated. No. 4 seeds went two-for-two Friday in the NCAA regionals. After Air Force a rode a 43-save performance by Andrew Volkening to a 2-0 win over Michigan in the East Regional, Miami — not to be outdone — dominated top-seeded Denver in … Read more
Even after the afternoon games, Minnesota is still 14th in the PairWise Rankings by itself, leading some to ask how we can claim the Gophers are out of the NCAA tournament. The answer lies with the Hockey East championship game between Boston University and Massachusetts-Lowell. The way it works out, no matter which team wins … Read more
In the wake of Wisconsin’s 4-1 victory over North Dakota in the WCHA third-place game, Minnesota can still make the NCAA tournament, but the chances are slimmer than slim. It was known last night that a UW win was bad for the Gophers because it caused the Wisconsin-Minnesota head-to-head pairwise comparison to flip. Minnesota still … Read more
Since Jayson has done an admirable job of evaluating the current state of affairs, I thought I’d tack on a little summary. Everyone loves to talk about bids by conference as a measure of strength, so here’s the breakdown of likely NCAA tournament bids by league: Hockey East: Four or five bids (Boston University, Northeastern, … Read more
Friday afternoon’s games didn’t produce any monumental shifts in the PairWise, though one game came close. St. Lawrence held a 3-2 lead over Yale in the final minutes of regulation before the Bulldogs scored a pair of goals in bang-bang fashion to win the game. That sudden reversal did two things: it locked Yale up … Read more
For much of the season, the penalty kill had been a weakness for Minnesota Duluth. At the WCHA Final Five that has changed, helping carry the Bulldogs to the title game. Scott Brown reports.
Defending NCAA champion Boston College has been fighting for its life in the PairWise Rankings since Feb. 21, when the Eagles lost to New Hampshire to complete a four-game winless streak. Since then, BC has won five of six to get back in the picture, but there’s still work to be done. Let’s take a … Read more
On Sunday, 16 teams will find themselves in the NCAA tournament, which means that for 42 the season will officially be over. Some of those 16 are obvious without using any mathematical skill or PairWise predictor tools, and so are some of the 42. It’s the ones in between that are interesting — and among … Read more
The WCHA play-in game starts in just over 48 hours, followed by a raft of games Friday and Saturday and, of course, Selection Sunday to cap it all off. That means that beginning today we’ll be throwing the Bracketology blog into high gear, with daily and more-than-daily updates on the current topics of interest. Keep … Read more
The Minnesota Golden Gophers are headed to the WCHA Final Five and possibly the NCAA tournament. And after Saturday’s 3-0 win over St. Cloud State, Huskies head coach Bob Motzko wasn’t shy about explaining why. “They swept one team all year,” Motzko said of Minnesota. “Us. Three times.” The Gophers (17-12-7) compiled a 6-0 record … Read more
This weekend, the Minnesota Golden Gophers and the St. Cloud State Huskies know they are playing to keep their seasons alive. With both teams in precarious situations in the all-important PairWise Rankings, their first-round WCHA playoff series will also serve as an NCAA tournament eliminator. In Game 1 Friday night, the Gophers (16-12-7) took the … Read more
Scott Brown guests this week for Bracketology, with the tournament still in flux as the season winds down. That means that multiple bids are still at risk while perennial contenders lurk outside the bubble.
Thanks to the vagaries of the WCHA’s unbalanced schedule, Minnesota Duluth and Minnesota did not meet for the first four-plus months of the season. Friday night at Mariucci Arena, their first matchup of 2008-09 settled nothing as the Gophers and Bulldogs skated to a 2-2 draw. For Minnesota, the tie was hard-earned; the Gophers rallied … Read more
Scott Brown is a fan of the PairWise Rankings, but that doesn’t mean the system is perfect. In fact, some things about the PairWise don’t make much sense at all.
I started out a couple of days ago to write a blog post about how the “record against Teams Under Consideration” PairWise criterion doesn’t work the way it should, but the article got too long for the blog. It’s over here instead. I’ll follow up with more commentary on what should be done in this … Read more
For Minnesota, Saturday’s matchup with Alaska-Anchorage at Mariucci Arena was a welcome change from recent results. After having been held to two goals or fewer in four of their last five games, the Golden Gophers tallied a quartet, pulling away from the Seawolves for a 4-2 win. Jordan Schroeder and Jay Barriball each had a … Read more
When the nation’s fourth-best power play meets its third-worst penalty kill, you might be tempted to make assumptions about which team would do most of the scoring, and how. Friday night at Mariucci Arena, you would have been wrong. Host Minnesota scored its first goal on the power play, but Alaska-Anchorage twice rallied from one-goal … Read more
The NCAA selection criteria have been altered repeatedly over the years. Some changes have been mega-obvious (the institution and removal of the “Colorado College rule” giving autobids to both regular-season and tournament conference champions); some have been well-publicized though less dramatic (the .500 rule for NCAA tournament eligibility); and some have flown largely under the … Read more