Star goalie Marc Cheverie, making a save against Michigan Tech this season, will lead DU into the East Regional on Friday. (Jack Dempsey, AP )The best scouting report on the University of Denver hockey team's first-round NCAA Tournament opponent is coming from Air Force coach Frank Serratore.I stand by my argument that the AHA is a brutal league that some of the bottom teams would lose to the power house teams of Division III. This year the AHA went an impressive 8-41-4 against the big four conferences. Thanks for playing. The funny thing that caught my attention this week on the INCH Podcast, was one of the participants (I think it was Gladdy) said that 'since there is only going to be 5 leagues in the NCAA next season the NCAA should give the regular season league champion of each league an auto bid.' This inclusion would give the horrible to mediocre AHA an auto bid as well, their logic was because the AHA was now going to be a 12 team league, they now deserved two bids for the NCAA tourney. I am going to say not.
Serratore's Falcons played the Rochester Institute of Technology Tigers four times this season.
"They have good, competitive depth, and they're an older team," Serratore said of the Tigers, who went 2-2 against Air Force during Atlantic Hockey Association games. "They're plenty good enough to go up and down the ice with Denver, but I would be shocked if Denver doesn't penetrate and get more quality shots than teams from our league."
Top-seeded Denver (27-9-4) and fourth-seeded RIT (26-11-2) meet Friday in the East Regional opener at the Times Union Center in Albany, N.Y. The Tigers, who have won 10 consecutive games, are making their first NCAA Tournament appearance — just five years after becoming a Division I program.
RIT, seeded 15th overall, and 16th-seeded Alabama-Huntsville of College Hockey America are the only teams in the 16-team field that would not have qualified for the NCAA Tournament without an automatic bid as a conference tournament champion.
Air Force won the three previous AHA playoff championships and entered the NCAA Tournament as a No. 4 seed. The Falcons came close to upsetting Minnesota in 2008 and Miami (Ohio) in 2009 before beating Michigan 2-0 a year ago. Serratore, whose 2009 team came within an overtime goal of advancing to the Frozen Four, expects RIT to pose a similar threat, but he's picking the Pioneers because of goaltender Marc Cheverie. The junior starred in DU's 2-1 overtime win at Air Force last month.
"(RIT's) goalie, Jared DeMichiel, was our first-team all-conference goalie. But I don't know how much he was tested in our league, and they never won a nonconference game (0-6)," Serratore said. "If Denver takes them lightly, which I know they won't, RIT is more than capable of knocking them off. But if everything else is equal,
I'd take Cheverie over DeMichiel."
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I am sorry but that league does not deserve two bids because they put 12 teams in the AHA, if an AHA team wants to make the tourney they should have to earn their way to an at large bid based on their Pairwise Rankings and by beating teams from the big four leagues like NU did back in the early days of the CHA.
Anybody could beat St Cloud in the first round.
ReplyDeleteThey are not a very good team, they are skilled on two lines and have couple of defenseman that I think are good but they are very soft and don't like to hit. They are a more skilled version of the Gophers.
ReplyDeleteyou really have that little respect for the huskies? I guess...why would you have any respect for a team that was higher in the standing and had a far superior record against the top teams in the wcha. Not to mention a team that beat your beloved Sioux twice during the season. I would definitely say that sioux fans should definitely feel there team is far superior to the lowly huskies!
ReplyDeleteYou mean the team that finished lower in the PWR ranking than the Sioux and went 2-3 against UND.
ReplyDeleteI don't have to be a fan of SCSU or respect them, I am not required. I notice a lot of SCSU fans dissing BSU and they have won more NCAA hockey games than the SCCC Huskies.
Seriously, I don't mind SCSU fans but your coach is a major whiner. I am not sure how you say that you have a better record against the Top teams in the WCHA, your team lost to MTU, UND won when it mattered and I will be cheering for NMU this weekend. 0-9 sound awesome, this is a rivalry not some love feast.
Not saying you have to respect them goon! I get it...you dont like SCSU. I just wish you had a realistic basis for saying they are not as good as your squad.
ReplyDeleteSCSU vs. Denver 1-1
SCSU vs. Wisconsin 3-2
SCSU vs. ND 2-3
ND vs. Denver 1-4
ND vs. Wisconsin 0-1-1
ND vs. SCSU 3-2
By the way Denver and Wisconsin are much better teams than both SCSU and ND.
and overall I actually believe that ND is a good team in a good conference...but if you say that then any reasonable person would have to say the same thing about SCSU as well. Either way though...I have come to realize that you don't take much of reasonable approach to any team other than ND. Good luck to your squad this weekend.
Really much better team eh? UND never had a full team when it played DU this season until the Final Five. The refs for the series in Denver were suspended after their reffing job the second night. UND was a couple of bad calls away from being in third place.
ReplyDeleteHere is how I will leave it Goon! You call Motzko a whiner...but I constantly hear both yourself and redwing constantly saying that refs either cost you games or were terrible when you lose. That sounds like whining to me. Refs f up calls for everyone not just UND. I will give you this much though, ND is a nightmare match up for SCSU because of how physical they are. Bigger stronger teams are definitely the type of teams that give SCSU a problem. From a frontline skill standpoint though SCSU can match up with any team in the country. The question for the huskies is going to be very simple. Will there goaltending show up or be non-existent?
ReplyDelete