BC's OT winner last night vs. Boston Univ in the finals of the Beanpot had a negative impact on UM's pairwise standing. The win allowed BC to move ahead of UM in the RPI - which broke a tie with Michigan and thus won a comparison. Long story short, UM is tied for 5th with UMass-Lowell for 5th (a #2 Seed in NCAA's).
Bottom line, take care of business vs. NMU this weekend and the RPI should raise back up. If you are interested, here is the current Pairwise Ranking.
Go Blue!
exactly
No one's going to remember what seed we were
once we lift the championship trophy in april
Note on Ferris
Waaaay to early to say this, but if they end up winning the NCAA tournament, they will be the 6th (6th!) college team from Michigan to win the NCAA Men's Hockey National Championship joining Michigan(9), Michigan State(3), LSSU(3), Michigan Tech(3) and Northern Michigan(1). Just an interesting (in my mind) note.
"A flute with no holes is not a flute. A donut with no hole is a danish"
Ferris State
is the current tourney favourite.
Let's hope that we stay hot through the NCAA tourney. It'd be sweet to get a #1 seed though.
Historically, the #2 seeds do
Historically, the #2 seeds do better than the #1 seeds. Also, after reading Blue Ice for Bacon's class, I don't want to have a 1 seed. We do better when we don't. He refers to it as the Terrier's curse - when we are favored to win, we don't. When we are an underdog, that's when we perform better.
If we don't win it all, I
If we don't win it all, I want it to be Ferris (or Western/LSSU/Northern) lifting the trophy. I have a soft spot for the smaller Michigan CCHA schools. It'd be awesome to see one of them win a title in my opinion
Still Too Early
Just like the polls that have been picking the Republican Presidential frontrunner since last summer, the Pairwise probably will continue to fluctuate until the final weekend. But last night's Beanpot championship game probably gave us the new frontrunner.
Boston College easily could jump to the top spot in the polls, and they have the talent to return to the Frozen Four as they've done often in recent years. Yet, they're not invincible, and as last night hinted, if they're up against a hot goalie and a team with some offensive firepower (something that Boston University has been lacking since their top two forwards left the team in December and they lost a key defenseman to an injury last month), they can be beaten. (The Beanpot takes a lot of bashing, but that was a pretty exciting game last night.)
BU has been highly ranked lately in the Pairwise, but they're only 7-5-1 (2-4 against ranked teams) since December 10 and have a home and home series with Hockey East leader UMass Lowell this weekend that might find BU out of the top four in Hockey East and missing home ice in the playoffs when the weekend is over. BC also has a tough home and home series this weekend with one-time "frontrunner in the Pairwise," Merrimack.
we really do control our destiny.