2012 NCAA tournament

[gerbe3:16 19]

Brackets are out. No real surprises.

Some interesting regions; some strong, some weak. Bridgeport looks incredibly weak (UML/token ECAC 1 seed/MSU). St. Paul/Worcester brackets look tough. Green Bay somewhere in between.

I like Miami to come out of Bridgeport. BC to come out of Worcester. Denver out of the Green Bay. And Minnesota to come out of their home regional (tough to pick against UND).

Sidenote: North Dakota will no longer be called the Sioux and will have new jerseys for the tournament as the NCAA bent them over and gave them a few pumps over their "hostile and abusive" nickname/logo because 1 part of the Sioux tribe doesn't like it.

Here is a look at the bracket:

http://www.insidecollegehockey.com/6History/ncaa_12.htm

[wrangler 157]

I sympathize with the ND folks. Marquette changed from the "Warriors" to the "Golden Eagles" years ago. The complaining started with one Indian student with political ambitions, and eventually the school caved in to the PC movement. BTW, we had 4 other Indian students at the time, and we heard that they didn't care.

[MyBoxersSayJoe 133]

Is there a TV schedule anywhere?

[EBondo 233]

Go BC! I played with Johnny Gaudreau a little bit when he was still playing travel, good guy. Great player

[gerbe3:16 19]

Go BC! I played with Johnny Gaudreau a little bit when he was still playing travel, good guy. Great player

Gaudreau is phenomenal; unbelievable that he fell into BC's lap after the coaching staff fell apart at Northeastern and Ulf Samuelsson's kid bolted early to free up the scholarship. Beanpot MVP and Hockey East tourney MVP. And somehow the clowns that vote on the season awards didn't give him Rookie of the Year. It says a lot when you're 5'6" 150 lb soaking wet and get drafted as early as he did by Calgary and then he goes out and proves it by having the year he's having as a D1 freshman at that size.

This is the most wide open season I've seen in D1 in the last 15 years. Should be a great tournament. A shame it got kicked to the curb by ESPN and it's basically on ESPNU and ESPN3. Even the title game got booted off of ESPN to ESPN2 and semifinals got booted from ESPN2 to ESPNU. Pathetic. NBC Sports would do a wonderful job with this event if ESPN is going to blow it.

[MyBoxersSayJoe 133]

Go BC! I played with Johnny Gaudreau a little bit when he was still playing travel, good guy. Great player

The high school team I coach for played against him a few years ago. Our 18UAAA players were sure they could shut him down. No such luck, the kid's the real deal.

[JR Boucicaut 3803]

Anyone going to the Frozen Four? I'm not planning on it but you never know.

[goblue9280 33]

My frozen four: Michigan, Miami, BC and Minnesota. Michigan versus BC for the title, with Michigan winning. Go Blue!

That west region is brutal... any of those teams could make it out, but I'll go with the host. I like Michigan out of the midwest, especially with the injuries that Denver has to overcome. Michigan has been playing some of the best hockey in the country the 2nd half of the year... lets not forget they we're barely in the top 20 before Christmas, and now have the #2 overall seed. BC is obviously the hottest team in the country right now... anything can happen, but I'd be surprised if they aren't playing for the championship. Miami out of the east simply because they have the most NCAA experience in that region.

[Apes44 7]

Anyone going to the Frozen Four? I'm not planning on it but you never know.

Not this year (at least not unless something crazy happens and i luck in to tickets) but for sure next year!

My frozen four - Air Force (just a crazy hunch) North Dakota (feel like they are a great all around solid team and now have the chip on their shoulder with the whole name thing) Miami and Ferris State

[gerbe3:16 19]

Anyone going to the Frozen Four? I'm not planning on it but you never know.

Usually go every year whether BC is in or not but with a new baby a few weeks old I'm not even goign to try to convince the wife.

Trying to get rid of my ticket on ebay at the moment. Are you still down in that area JR? If I can't get rid of it as we get a little closer after the field is set, I may just overnight it over to you.

[mnpucker 33]

I got sucked into filling out a bracket last year and it blew up the first game and the chain reaction continued until I had no teams left. No predictions this year but I am cheering for the Minnesota team that played all year up until the end of the 2nd period last week against UND.

[chippa13 1844]

I sympathize with the ND folks. Marquette changed from the "Warriors" to the "Golden Eagles" years ago. The complaining started with one Indian student with political ambitions, and eventually the school caved in to the PC movement. BTW, we had 4 other Indian students at the time, and we heard that they didn't care.

Lowell used to be the Chiefs but some similar kind of political posturing changed that.

Gerbe, don't count Lowell out in the Bridgeport bracket. They stumbled in the Hockey East playoffs but that is a pretty strong team.

[greech 4]

Lowell is good, I haven't seen them play any non-hockey east competition this year so it'll be interesting to see how they fare. I think it's hard to argue with BC at this point, but we must remember the CC game from last year before we get overzealous. That being said, Jerry York is the kind of person who will make sure the team doesn't overlook AFA this time around.

[gerbe3:16 19]

Lowell used to be the Chiefs but some similar kind of political posturing changed that.

Gerbe, don't count Lowell out in the Bridgeport bracket. They stumbled in the Hockey East playoffs but that is a pretty strong team.

Not necessarily a big believer in Lowell. The problem is the Bridgeport bracket is so freakin terrible even if they win it, I honestly couldn't use those results to validate whether they are good or not. Nice record against a pretty bad strength of schedul, but they seemed to catch the top teams in the league during their slumps (Maine, BU, BC all lost to Lowell during their rough patches).

Like I said, it's wide open this year. Every bracket is wide open.

Greech, that CC game didn't happen. Don't know what you're talking about.

[JR Boucicaut 3803]

Usually go every year whether BC is in or not but with a new baby a few weeks old I'm not even goign to try to convince the wife.

Trying to get rid of my ticket on ebay at the moment. Are you still down in that area JR? If I can't get rid of it as we get a little closer after the field is set, I may just overnight it over to you.

Yeah, i'm still In Central FL.

[chippa13 1844]

Not necessarily a big believer in Lowell. The problem is the Bridgeport bracket is so freakin terrible even if they win it, I honestly couldn't use those results to validate whether they are good or not. Nice record against a pretty bad strength of schedul, but they seemed to catch the top teams in the league during their slumps (Maine, BU, BC all lost to Lowell during their rough patches).

Like I said, it's wide open this year. Every bracket is wide open.

Greech, that CC game didn't happen. Don't know what you're talking about.

Come on, now. Finishing second in Hockey East is finishing second in Hockey East. You can't be discounting wins against quality opponents because said opponents were "slumping".

[gerbe3:16 19]

Sure I can. I just did.

I see three possible issues with Lowell aside from the fact they beat a lot of decent teams in Hockey East during slumps (I really do think this is legitimate, these weren't isolated losses for BC, MAine, BU, etc)

1. No experience in the big environment

Choking in the 1st Rd of Hockey East definitely didn't help as they missed a chance to play in the Garden. Didn't go into many tough road environments that you don't get out East (Wisconsin, North Dakota, etc). They are completely new to this NCAA thing as well. Miami has guys that played in 2 FFs, some that played in 1 FF, and a few others that at least have last year's NCAA loss under their belts. For Lowell it's all new to every one of these guys in D1 even their 1st year coach.

2. Strength of Schedule

Aside from playing 27 games in the league, a pretty good league this year, their strength of schedule was only 29th in the country per their Ratings Percentage Index.

OOC Schedule

Uconn x 2 (loss and OT win)

Mankato x 2

Rensselaer

All three of these teams were 48, 49, and 50 in RPI. There's only 58 teams in D1.

3. (Not cumulative from the season like the other 2 points) Possible hand injury to Wetmore. He will probably play I assume but he likely won't be 100%.

It's an interesting team. Certainly capable of doing damage but so are the other 15 teams. But you could say that about St Norbert if they were in this bracket too. I'm afraid it's just too terrible of a bracket to draw any conclusion about the team that wins it.

More than anything it will tell us a lot about their goalie Carr. Is he a big game goalie?

[greech 4]

^Is Carr a good goalie? I mean, he beat my 1-loss team singlehandedly in the state semi-finals back when, he's a damn good goaltender.

[goblue9280 33]

Sparty NO!!! 1st team out.

[Gummer12 134]

Sparty Goalie was BRUTAL!!! Too Nonchalant with his play... Dropping into the B-Fly way too early, not controlling his rebounds, and just a total lack of effort in between the pipes. MSU didn't deserve to win that game.

[ArrogantOwl 7]

Gaudreau was local to my area, saw him once or twice at Hollydell.

[gerbe3:16 19]

Great action on Day 1. Michigan just lost to Cornell in overtime to end Day 1. UML/Miami game tonight was particularly crazy. Denver, Michigan, MSU, and Miami all eliminated on Day 1. That's pretty nuts. Serious programs right there. UML, Union, Cornell, and Ferris State move on to Rd 2.

6 games on the slate tomorrow. I'll be moving my butt to Worcester for the East regional.

0 for 4 on my picks so far. Ahahahahahaha.

[hunterphfr 12]

Anyone going to the Frozen Four? I'm not planning on it but you never know.

My son keeps asking if we can go. Tracking down reasonable tickets has been a bear. Florida used to have an anti-scalping law, dropped it a few years ago. Tickets that have a high demand can get pretty pricey on eBay and Stubhub. Have friends with Lightning season tickets, even they can't get there hands on face value tickets. I think we may pick a promising game and go down and see if we can get something after the puck has dropped.

[greech 4]

Yeah, FF tickets are hard to come by but the best way is to scalp after one of the more-followed teams bows out, have taken many fair valued tickets off of Maine, UNH and Minnesota fans in my day.

[epstud74 24]

UND is not the UND of old..They're a rather depleted team this year

The Gophers should not have any excuses to make it to the final game IMO

They're the most talented team in the country. Hopefully they've gotten away from recruiting smurfs (5-9 guys) who have no business playing defense for a WCHA team