NCAA Hockey Tournament Open Thread
With Boston University and North Dakota already having booked their tickets to Boston, there were/are two games today to decide the other two teams that will make the Frozen Four. #4 seed and #15 overall seed Providence beat #2 seed Denver 4-1 in Providence to advance to the Frozen four. Currently, #4 seed and #16 seed overall RIT is losing to Nebraska-Omaha 1-0 with just 8 minutes remaining in South Bend. This is Providence's first Frozen Four since 1985 and would be RIT's first FF appearance since 2010/Nebraska-Omaha's first FF ever (they started in 1997.)
Also of note, with Providence advancing to the Frozen Four, this is the third straight year that the last at-large team in the tournament (Yale in 2013 and North Dakota last year) made the FF and tournament because Michigan failed to win it's last game.
March 29th, 2015 at 10:09 PM ^
GO UNO REP OMAHA
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March 29th, 2015 at 10:12 PM ^
Had to turn off second game in favor of the Walking Dead season finale. Glad to see it was another good game.
March 29th, 2015 at 10:12 PM ^
Nebraska-Omaha scores to make it 2-0 with 4:30 left.
March 29th, 2015 at 10:21 PM ^
They played great. 4-0 doesn't tell the story.
Congrats to UNO though. First frozen four. I'll have to pull for them or Providence to get their first championship (and keep BU and NoDak off our heels)
March 29th, 2015 at 10:29 PM ^
That was the closest 4-0 game I've ever watched. UNO with 3 goals in 2:06 (one an empty-netter) to ice it (no pun intended). As a current grad student at UNO, hell yeah!
March 29th, 2015 at 10:33 PM ^
UNO has come a long way from when we scored 10 on them a few years ago.
March 29th, 2015 at 10:49 PM ^
Dean Blais is a good coach.
March 29th, 2015 at 11:28 PM ^
Dean Blais was on the All-Tournament Team in the 1971 NCAA Hockey Tournament when only four teams were in the tournament (two from the East and two from the West.) His Minnesota team lost 4-2 to Boston University in the championship game.
March 29th, 2015 at 10:53 PM ^
It is definitely quite remarkable. I for fun went back and watched our 2011 game vs them in the first round of the tourney.
March 29th, 2015 at 11:14 PM ^
College puck neophyte here with a stupid question. Could Nebraska-Lincoln somehow absorb or merge with Omaha and create another Big Ten team?
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March 29th, 2015 at 11:18 PM ^
If that is possible might as well invite Minnesota Duluth over to the B1G too.
March 29th, 2015 at 11:35 PM ^
And Bimidji State to replace one of the other State schools. Take your pick.
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It'd be like Wisconsin, Wisconsin-Green Bay or UC-Berkeley, UC-Irvine. Totally different schools, totally different athletic departments.
However, the existence of UNO plus the USHL teams in Nebraska make it a little more likely that Nebraska will join up someday. Their new basketball arena can be used for hockey too so they have a foundation a lot of other schools lack.
NO
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March 29th, 2015 at 11:15 PM ^
Nebraska Omaha... has a hockey team?
What the hell.
March 29th, 2015 at 11:40 PM ^
Are you new to college hockey?
March 29th, 2015 at 11:44 PM ^
Yeah never really followed it until this year. So it is perplexing to me lol.
I did watch the championship in 2011, but other than that I was bandwagonish on hockey until now.
Still learning many teams. Kinda weird to me how these small schools have really good hockey programs.
March 30th, 2015 at 10:30 AM ^
most of the Power 5 conferences don't have hockey. The Big Ten is the only power 5 conference that has hockey. Most of these smaller schools are in areas where hockey is big (the northeast, midwest and the upper part of the great plains).
March 30th, 2015 at 10:55 AM ^
And it'll be decades before another Big 5 conference supports hockey, if ever. The only other big 5 schools are BC (ACC), Notre Dame (ACC), and Arizona State (Pac-12). And even if the ACC did magically get four more teams, I'm not sure BC would want to leave Hockey East. I wouldn't if I was a BC fan
Miami (NTM) pulls their goalie with 13 minutes left... scores 3 goals. Watch the video of this defenseman turning away an empty net bid:
Is that something Miami is known for...? Didn't they pull their goalie with 10 minutes left the other night?
Pretty ballsy.
No, but Miami is a bit known for collapsing in the tournament. A lot of great teams they've had in the last decade and only two frozen fours, no titles. So on that theme, they were down 6-2 to Providence after 2 because they gave up 4 straight goals and really had no choice. They pulled the goalie with about 13 mins left and actually got 3 extra-attacker goals to get it to 6-5 but couldn't finish the deal and lost 7-5
Given that every game is win or go home, you'll see crazier stuff like that. RIT pulled their goalie with 4 minutes left yesterday because they were down 3-0
Miami is 1-5 in their last 6 NCAA tourney games. In all 5 losses, Miami was the better-seeded team.
Miami, up 3-1 in the NCAA Championship game, got burned by a team that pulled its goalie for most of the final 3:32 to play in regulation . . . and then lost in overtime 4-3 to Boston University.
On the Boston University team were nine players who would play at least one game in the NHL (Nick Bonino, Colby Cohen, Matt Gilroy, Eric Gryba, John McCarthy, Brian Strait, David Warsofsky, Colin Wilson and Brandon Yip.)