Michigan Swept by Nebraska-Omaha, Out of PairWise Top 25

By Sean · Monday, February 15, 2010 · 7:22 PM |  Share | Leave a Comment 

Michigan followed up its 4-3 loss to Nebraska Omaha on Friday night with an even more frustrating loss on Saturday.  The Wolverines dropped the second game of the series by a score of 4-1 and played absolutely terrible from start to finish, picking up stupid penalty after stupid penalty and really just getting outworked by the Mavericks.  UNO scored a power-play goal in the first period and added an even-strength goal in the second.  Then, in the third period the Mavericks put the game away by scoring two more even-strength goals.  Michigan did manage to stop the shutout thanks to a late goal by Louie Caporusso (he has now scored 4 goals in the last 3 games), but by then this game was already over.

Going into the weekend, Michigan really needed a sweep to bolster its NCAA tournament resume and to move up in the CCHA standings.  A split wouldn’t have been awful, but a sweep would have been absolutely huge.  Well, there was a sweep, but unfortunately Michigan was on the wrong side of it.  As a result, Michigan’s hopes of making the NCAA tournament as an at-large team are as good as dead.  The Wolverines dropped out of the top 25 in the PairWise Rankings, and to even get in a position for an at-large bid, Michigan would have to win out not only the regular season, but most likely the CCHA playoffs as well.  If Michigan was able to do that, though, it would receive an automatic bid anyways.  Basically any thought of an at-large bid is unrealistic, because Michigan’s NCAA tournament hopes are going to come down to somehow winning the CCHA playoffs, which looks much tougher after what happened this past weekend.

Had Michigan swept UNO, it would be tied for second in the CCHA with both Michigan State and Ferris State.  Because it lost both games this weekend, however, Michigan dropped down to seventh in the standings.  It is now 4 points back of fourth-place Nebraska-Omaha.  Northern Michigan and Alaska are tied for fifth with 39 points.  Both UNO and Alaska have played 26 games, whereas NMU and U-M have only played 24.  Because Michigan plays Northern Michigan this weekend, it still controls its own destiny in regards to a first-round bye in the CCHA playoffs.  Vaulting up the standings all the way to second or third place is unlikely, though MSU and FSU do play each other this weekend, but the focus right now is just getting to fourth place.  With Northern Michigan coming to Yost for both games of the upcoming series, Michigan can put itself in position for a first-round bye by coming out of the weekend with a sweep.  Anything less would give Michigan an uphill battle to fourth place with only one week left in the regular season after the conclusion of the NMU series.