2023 NCAA Tournament: Regionals

[George64]

It's too bad the Cornell Sun and Ithaca Journal both have non-existent daily coverage of the hockey team anymore ... because Mike Schafer made a lot of interesting remarks at yesterday's press conference. Unfortunately we weren't able to be there either until today. (it's not just the Sun and IJ, local newspaper coverage is non-existent, student and "pro," all over the country except in scant places these days. It's extremely sad.

The Rochester D&C almost never mentions Cornell sports, although they cover Syracuse.  They did make an exception for Yianni, from nearby Hilton.  I repeatedly emailed them about All-American goalie Lindsey Browning from Penfield, but never a mention!
.

[upprdeck]

The lack of local sports coverage is really what helped the local papers decline,

For so many years you could find stories of local teams/players and often pages of stories..

Now you cant even easily find out if your local HS team wins a game or find a team schedule

[Pghas]

I read the Daily Sun's coverage and they had plenty of quotes from Coach Schaefer - in fact that was the only place I found any quotes after the Harvard loss or for today's game, which I hope is not the last one of the year.

[adamw]

I read the Daily Sun's coverage and they had plenty of quotes from Coach Schaefer - in fact that was the only place I found any quotes after the Harvard loss or for today's game, which I hope is not the last one of the year.

No story on yesterday's news conference. I know no one from the Sun, Journal (or us) were there.

[adamw]

It's too bad the Cornell Sun and Ithaca Journal both have non-existent daily coverage of the hockey team anymore ... because Mike Schafer made a lot of interesting remarks at yesterday's press conference. Unfortunately we weren't able to be there either until today. (it's not just the Sun and IJ, local newspaper coverage is non-existent, student and "pro," all over the country except in scant places these days. It's extremely sad.

Are you able to paraphrase what he said? (Maybe it goes against journalistic code to not be providing direct quotes, though.) Thanks.

Oh it's fine to put the quotes here - I just was rushing before.

We went into the Harvard game; they might have some of the best forwards
in the country and we went into that game and we had two different weird games against them. One where it
was kind of up and down the ice, one game where we were on the road and if it was a COVID year we probably would have all tested positive that point in time at Harvard. We knew we had to control the top line if
they had any success. You asked me one thing that I would change is that probably as a coach I made them
too hesitant and fear them too much and respect them too much, which you know over-coached them basically. We shut them down, but we didn't play our game. I think that's a coaching error. In hindsight it's always
great, we had a great game plan, and we followed the game plan, 0-0 game we went into overtime, but we
lost. The loss left a bitter taste because I didn't think we played our kind of hockey; I didn't think we were as
aggressive as we should have been. I didn't think we played with enough pace in the game, we didn't go for
it. You know one thing that I hate is, and that's why I said it was probably a mistake, is that I don't like playing defensive and sitting there and hoping so we will go for it and I think going into the game we will be a lot
more aggressive, a lot more physical in this course of the game and go after it rather than you know just say
above and control them. So hopefully a different kind of game plan

He is spot on. Which sounds stupid for me to say, since I always admit to knowing next to nothing about Xs and Os ... but I mean I had the same exact impression watching the game, so it was interesting to hear these comments from Coach, and kudos to him for saying it. Cornell had a perfect plan to stop Harvard, but you could tell that Mitchell/Malinski/et al were very passive defensively. Unlike common misconceptions about Cornell, they are not known for sitting back. The D pinch a lot, and aggressively. And they didn't even attempt it against Harvard.

Who knows if this will lead to a Cornell win today - obviously you are taking a risk by being more aggressive - but rather go down guns blazing playing your way, than not putting out your best effort. Strategically there's probably a middle ground, and you also have to just trust your players at some point.

[sah67]

... but I mean I had the same exact impression watching the game, so it was interesting to hear these comments from Coach, and kudos to him for saying it. Cornell had a perfect plan to stop Harvard, but you could tell that Mitchell/Malinski/et al were very passive defensively. Unlike common misconceptions about Cornell, they are not known for sitting back. The D pinch a lot, and aggressively. And they didn't even attempt it against Harvard.

Exactly the same impression I had during the Harvard game: I was shocked at how passive we were the entire game, with barely any extended possession time in Harvard's zone. Harvard's defensive effort definitely seemed much stronger than in the previous two regular season games, but we seemed totally content to just hang on for dear life at 0-0 and then maybe try to get something going in OT (but we never quite got there). It reminded me of our teams from the early and mid 2010's, where if we had a lead or a tie going into the third, they would go into their defensive "shell" and just make like they were killing penalties for the rest of the game.

[BearLover]

... but I mean I had the same exact impression watching the game, so it was interesting to hear these comments from Coach, and kudos to him for saying it. Cornell had a perfect plan to stop Harvard, but you could tell that Mitchell/Malinski/et al were very passive defensively. Unlike common misconceptions about Cornell, they are not known for sitting back. The D pinch a lot, and aggressively. And they didn't even attempt it against Harvard.

Exactly the same impression I had during the Harvard game: I was shocked at how passive we were the entire game, with barely any extended possession time in Harvard's zone. Harvard's defensive effort definitely seemed much stronger than in the previous two regular season games, but we seemed totally content to just hang on for dear life at 0-0 and then maybe try to get something going in OT (but we never quite got there). It reminded me of our teams from the early and mid 2010's, where if we had a lead or a tie going into the third, they would go into their defensive "shell" and just make like they were killing penalties for the rest of the game.

I agree with the general premise that Cornell was not taking risks on offense and therefore never getting set up in the o-zone to possess and cycle the puck. With that said—while Cornell's chances were extremely limited, they similarly gave up almost zero chances to Harvard. Not only did Harvard have almost no good scoring chances the entire game, but Harvard had almost no sustained possession or pressure either. So I wouldn't say the game looked like our shells from the mid-2010s where we'd be pinned in our zone for long periods of time. Also, we don't know what the counterfactual looks like—if Cornell presses more, maybe Harvard pots an early goal and then Cornell has to take more risks to come from behind and we end up losing 4-1. As it happened, the game turned into a slog and Cornell got a PP at the end to win it. It's not like the game wasn't close. Remember, Harvard is better than us overall, and particularly on the PP and in transition (yes, I know technically Cornell has better PP numbers, but there is no way we are better than Farrell/Coronato/Lafferiere on the PP). So we are at a disadvantage in a "normal" hockey game. Turning it into a defensive slog wasn't clearly wrong to me.

As I say above, notwithstanding the above I agree with you guys and Schafer that Cornell was too tentative overall. But other than D-men jumping into the play a little more (and forwards covering for them), I wouldn't have changed much about the strategy.

[BearLover]

Also, to add to the above, remember, Cornell got one PP the whole game. I don't think cutting down on the chances 5x5 and trying to score on the PP was a bad strategy. As it turned out, that didn't work because we only got one PP. The counterargument, which Schafer notes, is that without sustained possession it's hard to draw penalties.

[sah67]

For anyone not watching/following live stats: BU is up 4-1 on WMU at the end of the 2nd. A lot of the big guns for BU are on the board already (Brown, Skoog and both Hutsons).

[Trotsky]

BU wins 5-1.

[RichH]

CHN's Manchester Regional preview:

https://www.collegehockeynews.com/news/2023/03/22_NCAA-Tournament-Manchester.php

Love this part:

"All four teams are going to go in there and think they're going to win this thing," Schafer said. "The pressure is on the one seed. Everyone's expecting them to win. They didn't even mention us on ESPN. They assumed that BU and Denver were going to play the next night."

He's right, we got mentioned in a little more than 3 sentences in the Selection Show.  I LOVE BEING OVERLOOKED.

The problem for the QF is that BU has already played us and had to make an amazing comeback. They know us too well and won't be making the same mistakes in the January game. I only hope CU uses any residual anger/frustration about letting that game slip out of our hands.

[jtwcornell91]

To set the mood for Minnesota-Canisius:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnRfpcc3LZA

[Scersk '97]

To set the mood for Minnesota-Canisius:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnRfpcc3LZA

I absolutely, never, ever get tired of this.

[Scersk '97]

This is just, wow:

"It's weird just watching all the games. Obviously you're watching the probabilities, and you're dropping every week. Even up to the last day you still feel pretty good with the two games you need to have happen. And good for Coach (Don) Vaughan and Colgate, but unfortunate for us, right? It's kinda one of those things — every time there's a sad story, there's a really good one too. We were just on the short end of it."

I was happy Colgate took that championship away from Harvard, but I was pretty disappointed it didn't work out for Alaska. They were really quite good when they came to visit last year, and I hope they can keep making a go of it and that, someday soon, we'll finally get another visit to the tournament from our far-flung compatriots to the northwest.

[ugarte]

Canisius up 2-1 on an incredibly pretty goal