Monday, March 12, 2012

WCHA Final Five Set

Thanks to Denver's 3-2 overtime win over Wisconsin Sunday night, the field of six is finally set for the WCHA Final Five, which starts Thursday in St. Paul.

Luke Salazar's wrap-around at 1:40 of overtime pushed the Pioneers into the field, and likely locked DU into the NCAA Tournament, meaning the WCHA will get four teams -- and maybe five -- into the tournament.

Here is the Final Five schedule:

Thursday
No. 6 Michigan Tech  vs. No. 3 Denver, 2pm
No. 5 St. Cloud State vs. No. 4 North Dakota, 7pm

Friday
Michigan Tech/Denver winner vs. No. 2 UMD, 2pm
SCSU/North Dakota winner vs. No. 1 Minnesota, 7pm

Saturday
Semifinal winners, 7pm

Barring a catastrophic turn of events that might be mathematically impossible, Denver and North Dakota will join Minnesota and UMD in the NCAAs. If Michigan Tech or St. Cloud State win the tournament, the WCHA would likely get five teams in the field.

2 comments:

bench said...

If I understand the "You are the committe" (http://www.collegehockeynews.com/ratings/yatc.php ) if it is UMD vs UND for final five:
if UMD wins UMD is #1 in pairwise
if UND wins, UND will be #4 with UMD #5. Is that what could happen???

Bruce Ciskie said...

I'm hardly a PWR expert, but I'd guess UND flips a lot of comparisons with wins over SCSU, UMN, and UMD. I can tell you with virtual certainty that UND flips its comparison with UMD in that scenario.