There are harder exercises than figuring out the Wisconsin Badgers men's hockey team—like deciding whether atheists can receive insurance for acts of God—but, still, how do you explain this group?
The team began the season well enough, but from there on out, it's basically been a tailspin.
Yes, the top five scorers from a banner season moved on to bigger and better proceedings. Yet ""Wisco"" hockey, as the team affectionately refers to it, had enough talent to convince those in college hockey circles that this was a top-five team ready for some form of an encore.
That designation ended after a split in Alaska-Anchorage, which, incidentally, is the Badgers' opponent this weekend as they try to make something of this season. If UW wants anything to do with the goings-on beyond the conference tournament, it has to do one of two things—and with the way this team has performed to this point, it's hard to distinguish between the likely and unlikely.
One: Eight games remain in the regular season â_ four at home, four away from the Kohl Center. Three of those four opponents are grouped with UW in the lower half of the WCHA. The other, second-place St. Cloud State, comes to Madison (and who's to say the Kohl Center has intimidated opponents, anyway?).
In order to make the cut into the 16-team field of the NCAA tournament, the Badgers are going to have to finish approximately in the top 15 of the PairWise rankings, the convoluted selection process. Currently, they are tied for 22nd. Michigan Tech, another remaining opponent, and St. Cloud State are both ahead, so ideally, UW needs those victories. Winning will also up the RPI, another PairWise factor.
Should the Badgers continue this pattern of spotty play and split series, though, they are surely not going to be ranked high enough to get an at-large berth.
For the sake of expedience, the Badgers' best chance to play in the NCAA tournament may be to win the conference tournament outright. Each of the six automatic bids go to the conference tournament winners. The only issue there is that even if the Badgers do advance as far as the Final Five, it may come down to playing Minnesota in the Gopher bastion of St. Paul.
Still, we're talking about a WCHA competition that is more than a month ahead. Head coach Mike Eaves has it right in belaboring the point that to look too far ahead is to risk looking past opponents and jeopardizing a momentum gain.
Looking at this weekend, the Badgers have a beatable opponent in Alaska-Anchorage. Preaching preparedness is one thing; manifesting it the minute this team skates onto the ice Friday night is another (see: Tigers, Colorado College).
As Eaves said earlier this week, ""Here we go again. Another battle in the WCHA."" Here's to hoping that the Badgers take a battle-like approach into their next series. And here's reminding them that, regardless of the battle's outcome, the war is still to come.
Bortin can be contacted at bortin@wisc.edu.
