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Originally Posted by MicroBob
North Dakota is up to #8 now. Will be pretty hard for them to be anywhere near the bubble when it comes WCHA tourney time.
This isnt really true. They are 8th in PWR right now, which is all that matters, but they could easily lose a couple of those comparisons over the next two weekends. Getting swept in CC would knock them down at least 1, maybe 2, and they would lose the comparison with Minny if they lose to us in the WCHA tournament, which puts them at 14 comparisons. They would probably lose at least a few more comparisons if that were to happen, could easily see them falling to #10 or #11. That is at least somewhat on the bubble, depending on conference tourny upsets, etc. Which is why Minny would need to win the Final Five. Dont get me wrong, this is obv a dream scenario, and not gonna happen, but the outcomes of all the parlays are fairly well correlated. Winning the Final Five is a huge longshot, but winning it and having NoDak knocked out isnt that much more of a longshot.
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Minnesota is up to #24 now at 15-15-2. I can see them climbing within spitting distance of contention if they go 3-1 in their last 4 reg season games against Wisconsin and Duluth. That takes them to 18-16-2. If they make it all the way to the WCHA championship and then fall (and I assume a first round series sweep) then that takes them to something like 22-17-2 which I think might be enough. Pretty unlikely for them but they do have one win against Wisco already this year and are also coming off a sweep of CC so it's not completely impossible.
If this were mens basketball and we got bonus points for "playing well down the stretch" or "having a big name" then maybe, but not really sure that they would make it in with this record.