College Hockey:
Boston College again a unanimous No. 1 in men’s poll

USCHO Staff Report • March 12, 2012

For the second week in a row, Boston College is the unanimous No. 1-ranked team in the USCHO.com Division I Men’s Poll.

After that, changes abound in this week’s rankings.

Minnesota-Duluth is up one to No. 2, while Michigan also rises one spot to sit third this week. Minnesota jumps to No. 4 from No. 5 and Boston University is up one to No. 5.

Union jumps two to No. 6, Miami is up four to No. 7, Ferris State drops from No. 2 to No. 8, Denver remains ninth and Massachusetts-Lowell drops three to come in tenth.

At No. 11, Maine is down one, North Dakota stays 12th, as does Cornell at No. 13, Western Michigan jumps two to No. 14 and Merrimack is down one to No. 15.

Michigan State falls one to No. 16, Air Force jumps two to sit 17th, Notre Dame drops one to No. 18, while previously-unranked Harvard and Colgate are ranked 19th and 20th, respectively.

Ten other teams received votes this week.

The USCHO.com Division I Men’s Poll consists of 50 voters, including 28 coaches from the Division I conferences and 22 beat writers and sports professionals from across the country.

The following is a self-policing forum for discussing views on this story. Comments that are derogatory, make personal attacks, are abusive, or contain profanity or racism will be removed at our discretion. USCHO.com is not responsible for comments posted by users. Please report any inappropriate or offensive comments by clicking the “Flag” link next to that comment in order to alert the moderator.

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BlackBear Hockey
It will certainly be interesting to read the justification reasons used by the USCHO writers, on why they will place Ferris State as a #2 seed over Maine, North Dakota, or Cornell this week. Most college hockey fans saw this collapse coming. Sorry Bulldog fans – if you lose 2 games at home, as the top seed in your conference tourney, as the “#2″ team in the nation – to a team with 23 losses this season, you shouldn’t be rated top 10 nationally. Heck, even at that 15th, you would be over-rated.
- Scpa0305
  Yeah I agree….blows me away. Even the pairwise has them pretty high; made no difference whether they lost or not. Terrible.
  - Guest
    I’m a ccha fan and I also believe their ranking is over inflated.
  - collegehockeyfan
    The CCHA did relatively well this year in non-conference play, especially at the beginning of the year. I can’t see more than one CCHA team making the FF after the last few weeks, but they will most likely have the most teams in the tournament because of their early season success, you never know.
- Scott Reed
  Go check out Inside College Hockey, they have had more agreeable rankings this season in my opinion.
  Seeing Ferris State and Merrimack drop like this is great, just confirms what I have been saying all along while whiny east coasters who dislike the WCHA historical supremacy defended them. Well who is eating their words now!!!
  - RENCEB
    Boy, I guess you told us didn’t you! Teams dropped when they lost games, rose when they won; man, who saw that coming? Also, do you now understand where the “ranking” # comes from? Just checkin’.
    - HotLunch
      heh, I presume you’re a red sox fan too…
    - Scott Reed
      Being ranked # 1 is saying your the best team in the country. There has been no point in the whole season Ferris or MC has been the best team. They played well for periods versus bad teams, if the voters for the polls can’t put that together like an average fan can and make the call that neither of them should have been #1 ever, then what are they doing voting…
      And I hope your not a redsox fan, there are few things to despise more in ths world thn cheaters and liars, except the fans that idolize them!
      - Guest
        “Your” is not the same as “you’re”. By the way, YOU’RE ranked #1 in being the most obnoxious Sioux fan this year.
      - GeauxSioux
        He’s only #1 because I’ve had a busy year.
      - Scott Reed
        thanks for the remedial english editing, I didn’t proof read I was more concerned with the actual points I was was making. And thanks I guess….I’m ranked number 1, how many first place votes did I get?
      - Guest
        Hey, at least your third grade education finally got you something…
      - Scott Reed
        cute, I remember the first time I got on the internet and started talking trash, your next milestone will be puberty! Good Luck
      - Guest
        Almost 200 posts on this website alone…get a life!
      - Scott Reed
        as the quality of your comments goes down I’m wondering is it actually possible for you to be getting further away from puberty and maturity, or do you really suffer from some mental handicap? Is it hard to read the screen through the protective visor on your helmet?
      - Guest
        I suppose ignorance has its benefits, but the embarrassment you cause Sioux fans is not something you should feel proud of. Every comment you write screams uneducated hick and reflects poorly on a very proud fan base.
      - Scott Reed
        really, you want to point out some examples of where my comments scream uneducated hick? or do you just like throwing insults with nothing to back it up?
      - Guest
        Your grammar and vocabulary are the biggest indicators, but your petty comebacks also reflect it. My point is that dumb rednecks can be tolerated in moderation, so please do us all a favor and limit the amount of comments you post.
      - Scott Reed
        So I ask if you can point out a specific example and you failed at that. The only time I have been petty on here is to lower myself to the level of the person who started the petty insults…
        And the guest who doesn’t have the balls to log in and have his comments logged and counted. I would love to debate you more but you have proven in this conversation that you are not up to it. take care
      - HaveYouWonATitleLately
        That’s easy for you to say in hindsight. And how many teams have been number one this year? They can’t all be number one at the end of the year and they can’t all win the national title. So what you do is you single out the teams – from the east exclusively and those without the right pedigree. You say they don’t deserve their ranking and then proclaim yourself a genius when it works out in your favor. You would never have the balls to make these sorts of proclamations about BC if it were back in October? And did you correctly call Notre Dame’s fall?
        PS Yale lost in the ECAC quarterfinals in 2010 and came back to win their first round NCAA game. Who did they beat? And if I recall your loser fanbase used every excuse in the book. Waaahhh. . . we had to travel east. They were rested. We had to play six games in 10 days. It just isn’t fair. We dominated that game!! And that, my friend, is why everyone hates your team.
      - Fan Man
        REALLY HAVEYOUWONLATELY!!! Your going to make that analogy again…. OH MY! Another excuse as to why you need to hate a good team is all that is. Good teams are always hated, your just making excuses. Red wings, Red Sox, Cowboys starting to ring a bell in that narrow minded thing on top of your shoulders yet?
      - HaveYouWonATitleLately
        You posted this drivel a week ago but least this time you had the sense to leave out the comparison to the Yankees. There are plenty of good teams out there. There are teams with more titles. But people hate the Sioux – or more correctly they hate your fans – because you’re obnoxious. And like the Dallas Cowboys you guys haven’t won a title in years. And Cowboy fans have the sense to not run around in 2012 telling everyone else how much they suck while trying to live off the glory of the Troy Aikman or Roger Staubach.
        Answer this – Minnesota won back to back titles in 2002 and 2003 to reach five titles. Denver won back to back in 2004 and 2005 to reach seven. Wisconsin won in 2006 to reach six titles. BC won two titles in the last decade – 2008 and 2010 – to reach four. Do see any of their fans ripping other teams week after week in these comment sections? It’s amazing that you don’t get that people don’t hate the Sioux. They hate your fans. And it has nothing to do with your success. Wake up.
      - http://twitter.com/BCMike22 BCMike22
        BC also won in 2001 :)
      - HaveYouWonATitleLately
        Sorry I missed that one. :)
        Can’t help but notice the Scott Reeds and Fan Man’s of the world didn’t respond to this post.
        C’mon Scott. Answer the question.
      - LADIES AND GENTLEMAN!
        IT LOOKS LIKE WE HAVE A NEW CHALLENGER! IN THIS CORNER…… SCOTT REED….AND IN THE OTHER CORNER …..FAN MAN! WHO WILL WIN MOST OBNOXIOUS SIOUX FAN?? IT IS TOO CLOSE TO CALL! NEITHER IS SMARTER THAN A FIFTH GRADER! NEITHER MAKES ANY SENSE! NEITHER CAN SPELL “YOU’RE” CORRECTLY!
      - Scott Reed
        I am your first like on that comment, pretty good. I would like to defend myself… I don’t care about grammar on here, if anybody would like to compare professional writings from their business expeience I would be more than happy to have that conversation with anybody.
      - FightingSioux4ever
        At least he’s got the balls to fly his colors! Do people like you even have a team to get behind, or are you just another “Sioux hater”?
      - HaveYouWonATitleLately
        Can’t help but notice you didn’t address a single thing I wrote.
      - Scott Reed
        I could say the same to you… well you attempted to, you just got all the facts wrong, it would have been better if you didn’t address anything and just kept drinking the koolaid in your dark corner
      - Scott Reed
        Right hindsight, Ummm I was screaming about the teams that were #1 back in October. I haven’t made any proclamations about BC so get your facts straight, and I could care less about Notre Dame…
        everything you wrote is blah blah worng fact wrong fact blah blah we beat you 2 years ago blah blah
        And you want me to take you seriously why?
      - HaveYouWonATitleLately
        You didn’t read very carefully. I specifically said you would never call out a team like BC early in the year. But you’ll call out everyone else because the odds are in your favor that you’ll be right. Like I said, there have been what, six or seven teams that have been number one this year. They can’t all be standing tall at this point in the year. And whether it’s you or someone else when you attack the teams without the right pedigree you guys always use the same argument: they haven’t won anything in the past (but the Sioux have!). So it gives you cover until March. And the reason you won’t call out a team like BC is you know their fans will taunt you back about titles and recent NCAA history. That’s why people like you go after teams like Merrimack or Ferris.
      - Scott Reed
        get it out of your head that I have something against specific teams…except the goophers… there have only been like 19 different teams ever to be ranked number one, that says something. I don’t care who you are or what you think, MC and Ferris were at no point in this year the best team in the country. Just take that at face value, don’t try to psycho analyze me for why I say it…. either you agree or you don’t.
      - HaveYouWonATitleLately
        Scott, your bias isn’t against specific teams by name. It’s against any non-WCHA team that doesn’t have the history. You don’t think you have a bias but you do. Your “analysis” always comes down to: What have they ever done in the past? And you just proved your bias by pointing out the number of teams to ever have been ranked number one. Seems like you think if you haven’t been ranked number one in the past, you can’t be ranked number one now. Or maybe it’s you think if you haven’t won a title (or seven) you couldn’t possible be good now. Every now and again a team wins the title for the first time. And if it isn’t you it’s some other WCHA fan doing it. The day I see one of you guys actually analyze the teams and their players for their strengths and weakness will be the day I know that h**l has frozen over. And yeah, I just censored myself so my post won’t go to the moderator first (where posts go to die).
      - HaveYouWonATitleLately
        PS: I posted this before and you didn’t answer:
        Answer this – Minnesota won back to back titles in 2002 and 2003 to reach five titles. Denver won back to back in 2004 and 2005 to reach seven. Wisconsin won in 2006 to reach six titles. BC won two titles in the last decade – 2008 and 2010 – to reach four. Do see any of their fans ripping other teams week after week in these comment sections? It’s amazing that you don’t get that people don’t hate the Sioux. They hate your fans. And it has nothing to do with your success.
      - Scott Reed
        Do I do the rankings? is that my bias? pull your head out and think…maybe there is actually something to those stats… and if you have issue with them. don’t take it up with the person repeating the stats, talk to the voters who make the stats!
        The Sioux are not the best team in the country, not at all talent wise. This is one of our least talented teams in years. We have been playing without being able to fill out our lineup card for over a month now because of injuries, we started horrible, but we have the best record in the country since thanksgiving.
        You pick the team, lets analyze them for stregnths and weaknesses.
  - GetALife
    Someone has a serious chip on his shoulder.
    - Scott Reed
      seriously… you know when you click on someone’s name you can see what they comment on… if I were you I would not draw attention to myself, lol
      - GetALife
        It’s an unregistered user name so those aren’t even my comments, you dolt.
      - Scott Reed
        oh so magically it picks up your posts on USCHO but your claiming your not posting about justin beiber and selena gomez… sounds pretty fishy
      - GetALife
        It’s not magic. It’s how Disqus works. Someone else has used “GetALife” as an unregistered user name. Or I should say I assume it’s unregistered because I wouldn’t think I would be able to use it if someone else had registered it. But believe what you want to believe. If it makes sense to you that someone posted hundred of times about teen pop stars and then showed up on USCHO go for it.
  - GottaLoveHockey
    To get to 9-0-1 back in November, Merrimack played who they were scheduled to play,
    and they did beat both Maine and BU on the road. They were the only
    undefeated team in the country. Every other team had lost, meaning that
    some other team could claim to be better. So for two weeks, they were
    number 1. In November! Who cares about November?
    Anyone else notice that the East / West “rivalry” is always first
    brought up by someone who is obviously from the West? Strikes me as a
    bit of an inferiority complex.
    And since when is Ferris State in the East?
    - Scott Reed
      I will admit I have no idea where ferris state is, and I could care less, lol
      If you want to bring up east/west inferiority complex… the WCHA has been a conference for 59 years, in 54 of those years a WCHA team has been in the championship game. No other conference can claim anything close to that
      And an educated voter would look at who they played and put them number one because they played hot for a while. I am honestly asking, did anyone think they were the best team in the country at that time, or just playing the best for a short period?
      - ScottReedIsBoring
        The past performance of the WCHA has no bearing on this year’s polls or at least it shouldn’t. If you want teams getting inflated poll numbers because of something North Dakota did 50 years ago then that’s your problem.
        And yeah, you have a complex of some sort. You would think that with all of that success you wouldn’t need to denigrate everyone else. You would be happy with your accomplishments. So obviously something is lacking.
      - Scott Reed
        you maynot agree with me, but come on… anything but boring!!! I do not want teams getting inflated polling numbers for anything.
        Also I am not the one who started the conversation about the east/west rivalry, I never said UND by name I was speaking about the whole conference. But thank you for proving your, at least temporary, inability to comprehend the english language.
      - collegehockeyfan
        the swing of talent changes every year, college hockey is not the same it was… even from 10 years ago. Some people coming into the game would never know tech was a powerhouse…..
      - collegehockeyfan
        On a side note, its people like Scott here that make college hockey followers hate the WCHA. As a WCHA fan and supporter, I will be the first to admit that the WCHA is not the best conference every single season. Depth wise? Maybe. But the best team is not always a WCHA team. It’s time to just realize that and analyze the season as it is being played. Personally I would put the WCHA as the third best conference this year, where last season, I thought the WCHA was the best, time to think a little bit.
Mefishguy43
the rankings and pairwise is a FRIGGIN JOKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Josephcrowley28
  The opinion that the rankings are a joke is a reasonable opinion, whether or not it is right.
  The opinion that a mathematical formula is a joke is, well, humorous. Perhaps you disagree with the fundamentals of the pairwise formula, perhaps you disagree with the ratios within the pairwise, but in either case, it is the formula agreed to by D-I hockey. It was instituted to create an objective way to select the 16-team NCAA field after all autobids are won.
Darb0114
I have to come to some defense for Ferris here. Do I think they were overrated to be #1 and #2? YES. I actually think that hurt Ferris more than anything else tho because the rankings got to their heads, and they stopped playing hockey.
To their defense, the streak at the end of the season was still impressive (14-1-5), going unbeaten until the last game of the season. Also, let’s not forget they did win the CCHA regular season title by multiple games. A #1 national seed, NO. Top 16, Yes.
- collegehockeyfan
  As a follower of college hockey, it would have been cool to see Ferris do better in the CCHA tournament in addition to the regular season championship, but on the bright side, they are for sure in the national tournament and hopefully they turn around the bowling green weekend into a learning experience. Anyone can win on any given night in college hockey. Should be fun to find out!
18secondsbeforesunrise
I noticed a couple of oddities with this week’s rankings. First off, Maine (ranked 10th last week) beats Merrimack (ranked 14th last week) in 3 games (both victories by 1 goal) but drops one position in the poles. Ok….but BU (ranked 6th last week) beats UNH (not even close to being ranked) in 3 games (1 win by 2 goals, the other in double OT) and they rise up one in the polls. Lucy, you got some explaining to do.
Similarly, Wisconsin (unranked) takes Denver to 3 games, with Denver winning the 3rd in OT, yet Denver stays at #9 in the polls. Hmm…shouldn’t they drop a little in the polls like Maine?
Lastly, Miami beats Michigan State (15th in the polls last week) handily in two games, so they rise in the polls, but all the way up to 7th. I do believe they deserve a jump in the polls, but perhaps not over Ferris State, Denver, UMassLowell, and Maine.
Just saying….
- Scpa0305
  Haha, I’ve been noticing this so long ago. If you lose a WCHA game you tank….if you win a CCHA game or lose for that matter you seem to rise. There are seriously 2 teams in the CCHA that are just a little scare Michigan and Miami. That’s it and Miami is a stretch. Ferris State loses quick in the tourney, I said it here first.
  - Fan Man
    Ya I’d much rather be put in a bracket with Ferris than I would the likes of any of the Michigans~state,western, and northern even
Seth
I don’t understand how Maine beats #14 Marrimack in two out of three games and they drop in the rankings. Yet BU struggles to beat a UNH team (at home no less) that is far from good this year and they rise in the poll. Seriously, who votes on these polls? In who’s world does this make sense?
- Joe C
  I do not know why Maine dropped, it might be due to the freefall that Merrimack has been in recently. However, correlation is not causation. A number of teams had to go the three games, half of which lost.
  I think Maine should be higher ranked than it is, but I do not have a vote. In my opinion (as a BU fan that roots for Maine whenever they are not playing BU), all of the rankings from 2-15 mean very little. BC is the dominant team according to record AND recent play. Having said that, just about anyone that gets in the NCAA can win it this year. BC probably crushes PC and then plays BU/Maine winner. It is possible that BC wins the rest of its games this year and just as possible that it wins no more games this year.
  The BU/Maine game at the garden should be awesome. If Maine wins, they will get a nice bump. If not, then they probably stay where they are in the polls this week. They might even go up with a loss, given how some of the votes go. (Well they must be great, they got the Gahden)
Tadkins
Just some interesting quick math on future conference affiliations and current rankings:
NCHC 88% of members receiving votes
WCHA 56% of members receiving votes
HE 58% of members receiving votes
ECAC 42% of members receiving votes
collegehockeyfan
quick thought…. how is Notre Dame ranked again???? haha..

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