Until last weekend the Falcons hadn't played anyone that was good or even remotely good or ranked in the top twenty. When the Falcons finally played two ranked teams this past weekend they went 1-1. Yet some want to fawn all over Air Force like they were world beaters. Personally, I am not convinced that Air Force beating C.C. was that big of a deal as well because the Tigers have struggled early this season on Fridays. When Air Force makes the NCAA tourney and wins an NCAA tourney game or two then I will be impressed. Until then I am not drinking the Air Force Kool-Aide.
But we’ve seen that mostly against a collection of teams that won’t come close to sniffing the teams under consideration criteria. My guess — the best that I’m able to offer — is that they wouldn’t be 13-1 if their schedule had a few more games against Miami, Notre Dame, Michigan, Boston College, Boston University, Minnesota and the like.
The Falcons have, for the most part, hammered their Atlantic Hockey foes. A good team should.
Atlantic Hockey has the worst record against the other five conferences. It’s 2-2 against the CHA, 5-8-1 against the ECACHL, 2-9 against the CCHA, 1-5 against the WCHA and 0-5-1 against Hockey East for a 10-29-2 non-conference record.
Maybe it’s unfair for Air Force to pay for the rest of the league’s shortcomings. But in the world of subjective rankings, that’s one of the factors.
The issue is not whether they would be 13-1 against a schedule like that - but whether they would be, say, 10-4. If they were 10-4 against that kind of schedule, they would still be No. 1 in KRACH, or close to it. ... so that is the discussion that should be had. No one believes they would be 13-1 against higher competition.
ReplyDelete-adam w. (CHN)
There is no doubt that Air Force is a nice story but I think Todd did a good job of refutting all of the people that want to put Air Force higher. just saying.
ReplyDeleteAs a general Air Force Academy sports fan I'll agree with you, it's too early to call them world beaters.
ReplyDeleteStill, the last couple of seasons have shown they certainly have the potential, they were pretty close to upsettting Miami last year and Minnesota the year before.
The win over CC also points to Air Force getting better, even if CC is a little down this year. They're still a WCHA team afterall.
They've shown consistency the last couple of seasons, but we'll see what happens come NCAA time.
I think its actually quite funny that Air Farce is wanting the #1 spot. How many teams hold the #1 spot in the polls from early december all the way to the end? I'm sure it's happened, but in reality I don't think it's ever happened to any team in the AHA.. That being said, untill they play good teams (most likely that will take untill NCAA tourney time, unless they choke hard, and don't make it) I'll wait to give them credit. They kind of remind me of that Miami team a few years back that was undefeated, and the whole world was talking about how great they are, and then they failed to make it anywhere because they went undefeated against the bottom of the weaker leagues..
ReplyDeleteNorth Dakota beat CC once. Doesn't that make us #1?
ReplyDeletea) No it doesn't.