OT: Miami (NTM) and ND hockey into OT
Tied 5-5 after regulation on CBS college sports (with North Dakota vs. CC to follow). Started out pretty slow but they started getting it going late.
I said earlier a split in this series would be best for Michigan, but thinking about it, a shoot-out sweep for Miami would leave Michigan (assuming a win over State) 3 points and 2 games up on ND and 6 points and 2 games up on Miami. I like those numbers.
Miami's neutral zone play and offensive zone play are great, as always and their transition offense (at least with one of their big lines on the ice) is flat out terrifying. But they aren't great in their own zone and they are less than great in transition defense. So, like last year, the strategy for Michigan to beat them is to make them play our run'n'gun game and limit their possession.
Both goalies have had a couple gems and let in a couple softies, Knapp and Reichard are both very human this year, which bodes pretty well for us.
Miami's scoring line forwards are all pretty good, most of the play making comes from Miele and Camper, with help from Cannone but they have several guys that can finish.
Their team defense is pretty good, but their defense-men as a group seem pretty victimizable.
January 28th, 2011 at 10:10 PM ^
a shootout.
January 28th, 2011 at 10:14 PM ^
Always root against the Domers, regardless of circumstance.
January 28th, 2011 at 10:20 PM ^
the shootout, 3-2 in 4 rounds. I hope Michigan's players were paying attention. Ideally we just win and don't get into any more shoot-outs, but if we do, the extra point might be the difference between first and second in the CCHA.
Hopefully we get the same result tomorrow. Miami scares me too much to let them too close to us. Their remaining schedule, after ND, is us (in Oxford), at WMU and home against LSSU. They are currently 5 points and 2 games behind us.
ND is now 1 point and 2 games behind us.
Game against State tomorrow at the Joe at 8. CC currently up 2-0 at home against the Sioux, about 8 minutes in. If we have a rooting interest, it's for UND to get swept, because of our head to head win against CC and loss in the pairwise to UND, though I do think it will likely take even more than 2 losses against CC for UND to lose their PWR comparison against us.
January 28th, 2011 at 10:48 PM ^
UND has looked pretty solid lately, well so has UM but I do not want to see this team in the tourney. I think a tie is good for Michigan in the Miami-ND game.
January 28th, 2011 at 11:03 PM ^
Even if UND is swept, it will still take a monumental collapse for us to pass them. UND holds a 3-0 lead in the Pairwise with a large advantage in the RPI and common opponent comparisons. In order for us to pass UND, we need to win 2 of 3 comparisons. We could conceivably pass UND in the TUC comparison if they flounder a little and we continue to play well. Passing them in RPI will require us to win out and them to suck a lot for the rest of the season. And winning the COp comparison is almost out of the question because UND has two games against MTU to balance out a series sweep by CC. So if they sweep MTU (almost certain to happen), then we'll need to draw and sweep Alaska and they need to draw and be swept by one of the WCHA teams we've played (or lose the series 2-1 coupled with a Michigan win over Notre Dame in the CCHA tournament).
So yeah, we're not passing UND unless UND turns into a massive pile of suck to close out the year.
EDIT: And immediately after writing this, UND just lost their top defesnemen (Chay Genoway) to a knee injury in the CC game. So if he's out for any length of time, that changes the equation slightly. Also, CC leads UND 2-0 in the second, for those of you who care.
January 28th, 2011 at 11:13 PM ^
we were 0-3 down on them, but I didn't realize it was by quite that much in all 3 comparisons. Regardless, just because we have played CC makes them winning slightly more beneficial to us.
And as the other poster said, it does make them look more mortal. They've had a few games this year (the Friday game against UNO!) where they've looked less than great, but they've mostly looked really good, especially given the schedule they've played. Honestly, in the pre-season, I thouoght it would be Michigan vs. North Dakota in the championship game, based on what they did last season and what was returning. So far, Michigan has underperformed to my pre-season expectations, though they are still having a pretty good season and have picked it up somewhat as of late, whereas NorDak is pretty much where one would expect. Though, of course, one and done hockey tournament also tends to mess with pre-season expectations a little bit too.
January 28th, 2011 at 11:23 PM ^
I'd prefer to avoid road games against Yale or New Hampshire. Fortunately, the NCAA has given up on any semblence of bracket integrity to keep attendence up, so they'll probably keep us west somewhere.
January 28th, 2011 at 11:49 PM ^
I've seen most often have us in either St. Louis with UND as our one seed, or in Manchester playing UNH in the first game. I don't like either of those. At all. Bridgeport against Yale would also be less than fun, but I'd rather face Yale anywhere than UND anywhere and I'd rather have to play Yale in Bridgeport than have to play UNH in Manchester and then (likely) have to still beat a #1 seed in Manchester to get to the Frozen Four.
Ideally, we just snag a 1 seed ourselves, then we avoid UND, Yale and (hopefully) at UNH in our regional and as long as they don't grab a 3 seed, we won't have Miami in our regional either (no first round intra-conference match-ups). And other than that, the only teams I'd really like to avoid would be BC and ND. Though nightmare situation as a 1 seed:
Manchester regional:
1 Michigan vs. 4 UNO
2 BC vs. 3 UNH
Ideal situation:
Green Bay Regional:
1 Michigan vs. 4 AHA champ
2 RPI vs 3 Union
January 29th, 2011 at 12:46 AM ^
I know you said ideal, but that GB scenario is really ideal, as in almost impossible, they will put a WCHA team there, Wisc is the obvious one but one will go. And they won't have two eastern teams there. If you want that draw you'd have to send UM out east, which I think isn't a bad place to be this year.
January 29th, 2011 at 1:06 AM ^
RPI and Union are both in the ECAC, so that match up is an absolute no no from that standpoint. I really didn't put much thought at all into those, it turns out... That's fine, I wouldn't mind playing Wisconsin, even in Green Bay. That was another game we should have won at their place and now we're playing better.
I agree somewhat about UNH and Yale. But UNH is playing better now, too and Manchester is close enough to home for them to cause me worry. And especially since it's one and done, there are teams I think would need more bounces to beat us than UNH would and I'd prefer ot play them. I would definitely rather face Yale anywhere than UND anywhere, though I might prefer Denver in a neutral site to Yale in CT, I haven't followed either of them closely enough to really say for sure, though if you think so, I'll take your word for it. My problem is just generic going out east. Red has made 10 Frozen Fours. Only one of those has come from either Eastern regional and that was 2007-2008 against such powerhouses as Niagara and Clarkson. That's 1/5 in Eastern regionals and 9/15 in the West, advancing to Frozen Fours. Of course, if we're a one seed out west, we almost automatically avoid both Denver and UND :-)
January 29th, 2011 at 4:53 AM ^
If we're a 1-seed in the west, I'm betting they put us in St. Louis because they need a team that will draw there (as Green Bay will draw by virtue of having Wisconsin). And even if they get Michigan, St. Louis is still the only regional that has no easy way to guarantee attendence, so there's a fair shot that the NCAA will put as many potential draws there as possible without removing Wisconsin from Green Bay (as Wisconsin is the only sure-draw in Green Bay). Furthermore, we'll be deposing a WCHA team to take a 1-seed, which will leave either Denver, UMD, or NoDak as a 2-seed.
Given this situation, I would guess that if Michigan gets a 1-seed, they'll stick us in St. Louis with 4 other teams that could potentially draw support. That'll probably give rise to something like this:
1) Michigan
4) UNO
2) Denver/UMD/NoDak
3) Notre Dame
Of course, there's a lot of room here for teams to move up and down. For instance, this issue disappears if Notre Dame can climb up to the 2-seed grouping, in which case they'll definitely be put in St. Louis over one of the current 1-seeds. But unless the rankings undergoes a humongous shift (which is definitely possible), this is what I'd consider to be pretty much the best we're going to get:
1) Michigan
4) ECAC team (Dartmouth?)
2) Notre Dame
3) ECAC team (Merrimack?)
January 29th, 2011 at 2:10 AM ^
Using today's Pairwise rankings and conference standings, I come up with the following bracket:
Bridgeport
1 (1) Yale (ECAC champ, Host)
4 (14) UNO
2 (6) Boston College
3 (10) Merrimack
Mancester
1 (2) Denver (WCHA champ)
4 (16) RIT (AHA autobid)
2 (7) Rensselaer
3 (9) UNH (Hockey East Champ, Host)
Green Bay
1 (3) Minnesota-Duluth
4 (15) Dartmouth
2 (8) Wisconsin
3 (11) Notre Dame
St. Louis
1 (4) North Dakota
4 (13) WMU
2 (5) Michigan (CCHA champ)
3 (12) Union
This isn't terrible, but isn't exactly ideal either. If Michigan can pass either North Dakota* or UMD**, we'd be in great shape Of course, there's almost certainly going to be massive changes to the Pairwise, as there's still a fair amount of time left in the regular season and conference tournaments always wreak havoc with the Pairwise, so we'll see what happens.
*Passing North Dakota is slightly more doable than I originally anticipated. When I ran my calculation, I failed to account for 2 Michigan wins against competition that North Dakota hadn't faced yet. Taking these into account, Michigan and North Dakota both have 7-4-1 records against common opponents. North Dakota still has one game with CC and 2 games with MTU, plus a strong chance of playing 1-2 games against a common opponent in the WCHA tournament. Even worse, they could potentially pass Denver and draw another 2 games with Michigan Tech in the WCHA playoffs. Michigan could face Alaska or ND at some point, but has no remaining regular season games against common opponents.
**This would be a hell of a lot easier if we never played Michigan Tech. UMD swept MTU twice and could still draw them for another series in the WCHA playoffs.*** However, the comparison could still swing either way, as both teams will face a significant number of common opponents and TUCs that will determine who wins the comparison. UMD does have the RPI advantage, however.
***This is yet another example of how utterly stupid the Pairwise is. Michigan is being punished for beating MTU because every WCHA team we're competing against gets a bump against us for beating MTU more times. The idea of common opponents factoring into the Pairwise is dumb, but what's even worse is how they do the comparison. The COp comparison basically rewards whoever played the weaker common opponents more than the stronger ones. For example, let's take two hypothetical teams with common opponents Boston College and Michigan Tech. Team A faces BC twice and MTU four times. Team B faces BC four times and MTU twice. Team A loses to BC once, ties BC once and sweeps MTU. Team B splits with BC and sweeps MTU. Team A would win this comparison with a 4-1-1 record vs. Team B's 4-2-0 record, despite Team B playing a tougher set of games and outperforming Team A against BC.
January 29th, 2011 at 2:41 PM ^
Couple things, I think it's too early to guess where Michigan is going to be in the tournament when there's a solid chunk of the season left and the CCHA tournament, unless you're speculating on buying plane tickets or whatever. However, it's awesome that both of you are discussing these things into the wee hours of a Friday night/Saturday morning. I love the passion for Michigan hockey.
I'm a little conflicted as to where we'll play. The east coast could work well because I might be able to fly home (I'm from Boston), but I probably wouldn't be seeing the games with friends. Also, I haven't made the trip up to Manchvegas in a while. The midwest locations would be a fun road trip, but be very taxing from a time perspective and also, I don't want to listen to 8 hours of my friend rapping to Hip Hop Nation.
There's no really close location which is going to make attending these games difficult for us. Last year really was the year for us. I like this team's chances better and I feel good about us against anyone.
+1s to both of you for the discussion though.
January 29th, 2011 at 12:49 AM ^
Recall that UM tied UNH this year at their home rink, not Manchester, a game UM should have won, they're playing better now and really UM has owned UNH in the tourney. And really no problem with playing Yale even in Bridgeport. Those are easier draws than playing UND or Denver in St. Louis if it comes to that.
January 28th, 2011 at 10:45 PM ^
January 28th, 2011 at 11:58 PM ^
January 29th, 2011 at 12:27 AM ^
Seriously though, we have a pretty good shot at the regular season championship (can we just call it the "Berenson Cup" already? It's gotta be named after him when he retires in another decade or two (if they name it after Comley instead, I'm going to flip out, he has 3 of them in 30-some years compared to Red's 10 in 26) and it's too long as is) and as long as we keep improving, have a chance at the Mason Cup and the NC, too (rabble rabble, single-elimination blah blah blah). Honestly, we're kind of lucky we still have a shot, much less a really good one, at the Berenson Cup, considering how we began the season. Luckily Miami has stumbled a decent amount too and ND has cooled off some. Actually, if we don't win the regular season this year, it will be the longest space between Berenson Cups for Red, since he won his first in 91-92.
I'm not sure it's possible to underestimate Red and everything he's done for the program, but everytime I look up some random statistic (like he has never gone 3 straight seasons without a Berenson cup since 91-92) on a whim, it just puts even more into perspective just how good he is.
But then, of course, we don't have 3 first round draft picks in our recruiting class for next year, it's probably time for some new blood, Red's gotta go./s
January 29th, 2011 at 8:52 AM ^
It's (YTM).
January 29th, 2011 at 1:17 PM ^
As does everybody else on the board who follows hockey, especially since the University of Miami doesn't have a (varsity) hockey team. But for the sake of clarity for those who don't, I used the more common convention for Miami University. Besides, how confusing would it get if we used "Miami (YTM)" for both Miami's at different times and one had to look for context to figure out which Miami it was anyways? Then we may as well just use "Miami" for both and drop the parenthesis all together. I would just use "(OH)" but my friends that go/went there absolutely freak out on me whenever I reference the fact that their school is in Ohio. Not that I can really blame them.
January 29th, 2011 at 9:13 AM ^
what are the chances of Minnesota-Duluth dropping from a 3 seed overall to like 5
I can really see ND in St Louis and Michigan in Green Bay
If Michigan goes to GB , I will be up their for those games !
Notre Dame and North Dakota in st louis seems ideal for both schools
Wisconsin alone could draw in GB, which is perfect for us
I was at that game in the Kohl Center in Madison, they got very lucky off some shift changes to get goals on us, Doubt that happens again
I'd hope for Michigan and Wisconsin to somehow be in the same regional
doubt it, but hope for it
I don't like that st louis regional at all !
my ideal GB regional would be
1 (3) Michigan
4 (15) Dartmouth
2 (8) Wisconsin
3 (11) Union
with St louis looking like this
1 (4) North Dakota
4 (13) WMU
2 (5) Minnesota-Duluth
3 (12) Notre Dame
They do that, both places would be packed for sure !
January 29th, 2011 at 3:24 PM ^
Putting North Dakota and Notre Dame in the St. Louis regional does not guarantee attendence. Grand Forks is a 14 hour drive from St. Louis. Ann Arbor is about 9 hours away and South Bend is 6.5 hours away. Getting attendence in St. Louis is going to require multiple high-drawing schools, and Michigan is one of those. You are going to get higher attendence in St. Louis by sticking Michigan and Notre Dame there than by sticking North Dakota and Notre Dame there and the NCAA demonstrated last year that attendence is the overriding bracket concern so long as the rules concerning bracketing are followed. That, incidentally, is why we played in Fort Wayne against overall 8-seed Bemidji State, rather than a much harder matchup in Minnesota or out east.