BCI has a great explainer on the NCAA's selection process via Pairwise. The Heights also put things in perspective. This team was very young. Not much was officially expected in the preseason. It is just at BC, we expect York to pull out a miracle every year. It is news when we don't make the postseason. I know this makes me sound a bit optimistic, a bit ungrateful and a bit entitled, but I expect BC to bounce back next year.
Sunday, March 19, 2017
Why BC is out of the NCAA Hockey Tourney
For a minute, I thought BC was going to do it. I thought the Hockey team was going to earn an auto-bid into the NCAA Tournament by winning the Hockey East Tournament. UMass-Lowell won, so BC is now home. To those who don't pay much attention to college hockey, this might not make sense. BC playing well in the HE Tourney should make them more attractive. But unfortunately it was too, little too late. BC's struggles in February proved too costly and so the Eagles are the first team out.
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17 comments:
Just depressing our signature sports can't even make the tournament. Kentucky never misses March Madness. Alabama never misses the BCS. I'm just tired of the "they're young" excuse.
Signature sport
Kentucky has missed the tournament twice since 1997. Alabama has not played in a major bowl in 10 of the 20 seasons since 1997. BC has missed the tournament now three times since 1997. Fire everybody!
ATL, in this case, your optimism around the hockey program is totally warranted. We have a coach at the helm that is a professional and a leader of young men who knows how to "coach up" even his younger or less talented teams. He does so without much fanfare or ego, offers no excuses when his teams falter and just maintains focus and discipline year after year. Embodies "Ever to Excel" in every way.
You catch heat from your audience by trying to project optimism onto the clowns we have leading our other programs (and athletics as a whole) that don't get this. This is not a University community that expects championships -- we expect leaders who inspire others to strive to be champions day in and day out by their actions, not just their words.
I think we all would support coaches that miss their post-seasons from time to time but operate in the same manner as Jerry York.
7 players from last year's team went pro early. Some pundits picked BC 6th in Hockey East. The team tied for first and lost in the championship game by one goal. Maybe not quite what we're used to, but for a team with 5 seniors and 0 juniors, not bad.
Joe, Bama has been in the championship playoff for years, same with Kentucky in March Madness. Going back to 1997 is absurd. They are both 2 and done or one and done programs. So the argument about no seniors is spurious.
I went with 97 because that's when York arrived. To miss only 3 times in that span is absurd. The only team in more often is North Dakota. Minnesota, BU, Denver and Michigan, the other blue chip programs, have all missed 5-8 times during that span.
If you just want to look at the last 9 years, Kentucky missed once in hoops, BC twice in hockey. Not a huge difference.
That said you really can not compare the two sports. You can't just bring in 2-3 studs every year and compete in hockey. You need 15-20 solid players and a good structure to compete. Some of the winningest programs of the last few years have never recruited a single elite, first round type player - Union, Quinnipiac, Lowell, etc. That level of consistent success without blue chip prospects is not attainable in basketball.
We got incredibly lucky from 2004-2013 to not have any of our players leave before three years in school. As a result we had the best stretch any program has ever had in the history of college hockey, and possibly in the history of any men's college sport. That was never going to last forever.
We all wanted to get in. The killers were 4 games. Both Holiday Tournament games and losing to Merrimack at home and NU at the Beanpot consolation. Win those 4 and all of a sudden we are probably an 8 or 9 seed. My hope was to get in, maybe win one game and get some experience. The Hockey East Tourney games will help in the future. The sense of urgency was finally there. The program is in a good place. I wish we had or get one natural goal scorer. Its always nice to count on one guy when you need a goal. I thought we needed to get an offensive D, but the progress made by McInnis was impressive. He could be that guy. I hope Joe Woll improves a little too.
ATL, this Marian appears to be a Nigerian scammer - bad news and dangerous. It's your blog but I would block him in a heartbeat.
Yeah. Kentucky was decent with Gillespie and pretty bad(relatively speaking) for 10-15 years before him. Bama was garbage between Stallings and Saban.
Hockey has been dominant/ the most consistently high level program in the ncaa since 1997. I agree.
If Tuck or Sanford, one of them, stayed we would have won 5 more games this season.
The penalty kill was bad this year.
In Mike Cavanaugh's final four seasons at BC, we went 22-3 in the postseason and won 3 Hockey East tournament titles and 2 national titles.
In the four seasons since Cavanaugh left, BC has gone 11-10 in the postseason and has not won any championships.
And the overrated ACC is out of the Big Dance, except for UNCriminals.
This is going to be the results until the school upgrades facilities. There are too many options (PSU, ND, BU, etc) who have brand new facilities and quite frankly make the decision difficult (even when factoring in academics and the reputation of York). BC is not immune to falling behind, even in hockey. We've seen how it's effected FB and BB, it's going to happen in hockey unless facilities are upgraded quickly
I see that little Clarkson University from Potsdam, NY and an endowment of around $180MM just upset Wisconsin 3-0 for the WIH national championship. Their roster is dominated by Canadian players.
kash, you are such a doom's-day commenter.
Better facilities would be a plus, a big plus, but the fundamental problem is horrible coaches - who can't recruit talent, can't/don't develop talent or can't win.
Are you still selling you bs about the OL and blaming Spaz. or have you now switched to facilities... I guess it is never the current coaches' fault.... its Spaz's fault, its facilities etc etc.. Wake up.....
I'm referring to hockey in re: to facilities, a sport that I think everyone would agree has an ok coach. Look at other schools and see what kind of simple things they offer their NCAAH athletes. BC will never have space for a hockey only facility (practice rink, weight room, etc) but they could at least make an effort to upgrade the current facilities to at least pretend to try and compete with schools with brand new facilities.
BC is a total second rare operation. It's a total joke. Whether you want to accept the facts or not is on you. Just because you're too stupid to realize that everything else I've said about football is 100% true, don't come here and be a snarky a-hole.
yes, hockey. the new focus. i think they did ok this year no crisis there
but what you said about blaming Spaz was false and misguided. Daz was always the cause of his teams failings . Truly the Master of his own domain.
what you said about OL was wrong. The daz recruits have not been good yet and won't be good next year either we can only hope for adequate. maybe.
but your style of peppering your rebuttal remarks (EO style, i know) with shitty, unnecessary personal remarks has always been consistent - indeed it is one of your signatures.
but I think your over statements, faux certainty and don nickels jr routine detract from the comments of an otherwise smart guy... you so fear your arguments can not stand on their own merit (many can'T) that you resort to nonsense We can call it the EO syndrome
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