Polls - Jan 19

USCHO poll is out...

   Team        (First Place)    Record  Pts   Last Week
 1 North Dakota         (39)    17-2-2  599     1
 2 Boston College        (1)    16-3-3  560     2
 3 Maine                        16-5-1  503     3
 4 Michigan                     14-7-1  411     6
 5 Minnesota                    13-8-3  404     7
 6 Wisconsin                    14-6-6  389     4
 7 St. Cloud State              13-8-3  344     5
 8 New Hampshire                14-7-3  323     9
 9 Minnesota-Duluth             15-8-2  316    12
10 Denver                       15-8-3  262     8
11 Ohio State                  15-10-0  189    13
12 Cornell                       7-4-6  111    10
13 Notre Dame                   12-7-3   85    NR
14 Colorado College             11-8-3   84    11
15 Miami                        13-9-2   79    15

Others Receiving Votes: Massachusetts 39, 
Brown 28, Dartmouth 26, Alaska-Anchorage 19, 
Rensselaer 10, Michigan State 9, Bemidji State 5, 
Mass.-Lowell 4, Western Michigan 1

Wow.

I'd have expected us to fall further.

JH

Unfortunately, we have fallen to 22 in PWR, which is the only ranking that really counts. Based upon last year's records, we'll either have to go about 13-3 the rest of the way (including ECAC tourney games) to make the NCAA's or qualify by winning the ECAC championship. Let's hope we can do both.

USA Today Poll...since no one has posted it yet....

(Records through January 19, 2004)

    TEAM                                   PTS   PVS
    ----                                   ---   ---
 1. NORTH DAKOTA (33) (17-2-2)             509     1
 2. BOSTON COLLEGE (1) (16-3-3)            477     2
 3. MAINE (16-5-1)                         428     3
 4. MICHIGAN (14-7-1)                      384     5
 5. MINNESOTA (13-8-3)                     363     8
 6. WISCONSIN (14-6-6)                     338     4
 7. ST CLOUD (13-8-3)                      283     6
 8. NEW HAMPSHIRE (14-7-3)                 276     9
 9. MINN DULUTH (15-8-2)                   240    12
10. DENVER (15-8-3)                        217     7
11. OHIO ST (15-10)                        162    13
12. COLORADO COLL (11-8-3)                 106    10
13. CORNELL (7-4-6)                         98    11
14. MASSACHUSETTS (11-7-5)                  50    NR
15. MIAMI OHIO (13-9-2)                     48    NR

Dropped Out: No. 14 Brown, No. 15 Dartmouth

Others Receiving Votes: NOTRE DAME 42, DARTMOUTH 37, BROWN 
11, RPI 7, ALA ANCHORAGE 1, HOLY CROSS 1, MASS LOWELL 1, 
WESTERN MICH 1.

Gotta hand it to the Gophers... they had a losing record early on, and now they're 5th... this is slightly reminsicent of last year.

I wonder if they're starting to think threepeat?

dss28 wrote:

I wonder if they're starting to think threepeat?

They never stopped thinking it. Just like Schafer and the boys still know that they can get the threepeat Cleary.

dss28 wrote:

Gotta hand it to the Gophers... they had a losing record early on, and now they're 5th... this is slightly reminsicent of last year.

I wonder if they're starting to think threepeat?

Oh, people have been thinking that for some time. Some Gopher fans never lost faith.

I hate them so very much.

Aww... but they loved us last year when we continued to heckle U-H-N during the finals... I heard a few say that because of the Cornell fans that stuck around cheering, they'd cheer for us so long as we weren't their opponents

And I met some over 50 Gopher fans who were among the nicest people at the tournament. It really opened my eyes. I had a negative feeling toward Minnesota that began when their coach Woog(sp?) was bellyaching after every other loss. He left and the program blossomed, eh?

I have to say, I don't mind seeing Wooger as Frank M's color man on the FSNorth broadcasts of Gopher hockey.

Maybe the Ewing Theory can apply to coaches, then

John T. Whelan '91 wrote:

I have to say, I don't mind seeing Wooger as Frank M's color man on the FSNorth broadcasts of Gopher hockey.

I have heard him on the radio and he's fine there. He found his calling.

After the two games played Tuesday, we moved up to 19 in the quirky PWR. The Providence loss dropped them down and the results of the two games played tuesday must have changed some comparisons for other teams.

After last night's game, we moved up to #16 in the Pairwise Rankings.

Several other ECAC teams are "teams under consideration:"

#20: Colgate
#25: Brown
#26: RPI
#27: Dartmouth
#30: Clarkson

...against whom we have a total of 6 games remaining.

Unfortunately, our current record against them is 0-2-2. We'd better win some of those remaining 6 games.

JH

ouch; 1 loss and we go from #18 to #26 in the PWR, and that's without the "west" scores factored in yet.

...then again, I think it might be about time to forget about the PWR.



Post Edited (01-24-04 22:51)

MN beat NoDak tonight, breaking ND's unbeaten streak. Overall they split the series this weekend. Will that have a bearing on us?

dss28 wrote:

MN beat NoDak tonight, breaking ND's unbeaten streak. Overall they split the series this weekend. Will that have a bearing on us?

Probably not, since there's next to no chance of either team falling off the charts anytime soon. Here are the results of the top 15 for the weekend (as of the time of this writing):

 1 North Dakota		Split with Minnesota
 2 Boston College		W over Northeastern
 3 Maine			Split with BU (the loss being a shutout)
 4 Michigan		Swept Western Michigan
 5 Minnesota		Split with NoDak
 6 Wisconsin		Split with CC
 7 St. Cloud State		Split with MSU-Mankato
 8 New Hampshire		W over Merrimack
 9 Minnesota-Duluth	Swept Michigan Tech
10 Denver			Split with UAA
11 Ohio State		Swept by Michigan State
12 Cornell		W over Vermont, L to Dartmouth
13 Notre Dame		Swept by Northern Michigan
14 Colorado College	Split with Wisconsin
15 Miami			Took 3 points from UNO

It's altogether possible that we might leap past tOSU in the polls, since the only teams below us to shake things up are Miami and CC.



Post Edited (01-24-04 23:37)

[preface]This is an odd question[/preface]
But... what is a "dangerous" PWR to us? Like, how low can we go before we should start worrying?

14

14 (with playoff) ECAC games remaining, so it is still possible to run the table and move back into the low teens in PWR, but then again, if they run the table ...

This year's NCAA tournament is the ECAC tournament. Getting to Albany will be on the order of difficulty (obviously, not magnitude) of getting to Buffalo. Right now it's about 50/50 to get to Albany, and then about 25:75, having gotten there, of winning.



Post Edited (01-25-04 09:03)

[q]This year's NCAA tournament is the ECAC tournament. Getting to Albany will be on the order of difficulty (obviously, not magnitude) of getting to Buffalo. Right now it's about 50/50 to get to Albany, and then about 25:75, having gotten there, of winning.[/q]

So if we get a first-round bye, odds are no better than chance that we'll win our 2nd round playoff series, and similarly in Albany.

The 50/50 is as of now -- in other words, it factors in the (IMHO relatively small) chance of finish worse than 4th and having to survive the first round.

The point is to think of Albany in the way in which we thought of Buffalo last year. We had a good chance of winning it all last year -- as good a chance as Minny, Michigan and UNH. In the same way, we are on par with Brown, Dartmouth and (yikes) Colgate. At least, as of today we are. If we blow out the Raiders (or get blown out by them...) next weekend, the perception changes.