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| Tom Serratore and Minnesota held off Lee Reimer and Michigan State in a key early-season series. |
Just because it's the laziest post I could conjure up for Sunday Funday, here's a look at the Fake Big Ten standings so far this year, through the games of Saturday night.
The major flaw in looking at this, of course, is the current conference alignment. With three future Big Ten schools in the CCHA, two in the WCHA and independent Penn State, teams generally don't play anything resembling a true Big Ten schedule, or even one that can be compared to other future conference rivals for any reason beyond novelty. But hey, that's why this is the Fake Big Ten.
Still, it should be said that Michigan State will play every Big Ten opponent but Wisconsin, while Penn State and Ohio State could end up playing at least three of the five (if PSU and OSU meet at the Three Rivers Classic). Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin will each get two opponents in.
----Conference---- -----Overall-----
W-L-T Pts. GF-GA W-L-T Pts. GF-GA
Minnesota 3-0-1 7 17- 5 7-2-2 16 36-21
Michigan 1-1-0 2 7- 8 4-6-1 9 40-39
Michigan State 1-3-0 2 10-19 4-6-2 10 30-35
Wisconsin 0-1-1 1 3- 5 1-5-2 4 14-21
Penn State 0-0-0 0 0- 0 6-3-0 12 30-22
Ohio State 0-0-0 0 0- 0 4-3-3 11 19-21
Conference Results
October 12: Michigan State 1 at Minnesota 5 [box score]
October 13: Michigan State 1 at Minnesota 7 [box score]
November 9: Michigan State 1 at Michigan 5 [box score]
November 10: Michigan 2 at Michigan State 7 [box score]
November 16: Wisconsin 2 at Minnesota 2 [box score]
November 17: Wisconsin 1 at Minnesota 3 [box score]
Conference Games Remaining
November 30: Ohio State at Michigan State
December 1: Ohio State at Michigan State
December 29: Penn State vs. Ohio State (Pittsburgh, PA)*
December 30: Michigan State vs. Michigan (Detroit, MI)*
January 25: Penn State at Michigan State
January 26: Penn State at Michigan State
February 1: Michigan State at Michigan
February 2: Michigan State vs. Michigan (Detroit, MI)
February 15: Minnesota at Wisconsin
February 17: Minnesota vs. Wisconsin (Chicago, IL)
February 22: Michigan at Ohio State
February 23: Michigan at Ohio State
February 24: Penn State at Wisconsin
February 25: Penn State at Wisconsin
* Tentative, conditional on in-season tournament results.
Always fun to play with the numbers... I've been doing that as well trying to figure out where we really stand among the 59 schools in D-1. At the time, beating RIT seemed pretty huge. Now it looks like they stink (ranked 11th of 12 in the latest CHN conference power ranking). Army is ranked 5th and Air Force 3rd, so those wins seem to be pretty decent.
ReplyDeleteAssuming that puts is in the top third of Atlantic Hockey, we are at worst tied with Air Force for 49th (I think we are better than Alabama-Huntsville as well).
Looking at the bottom third of the other conferences, I think we are better than at least a third of those teams as well (looking at who they lost to and who we've beaten) or at worst just as good.
After all of my "scientific" analysis, I have us in the high 30's - low 40's overall.
Before the Air Force series, I think I said that I'd be comfortable with anywhere between 40 and 50 for PSU, that you could argue towards either end of the range. Now that we've split with AFA, I think definitely towards the higher end. We're better than UAH, and probably at least 9 or 10 Atlantic Hockey teams as well - for now, I'm still going to rely on Air Force's usual position as the AHA's top dog, although that Holy Cross series in a couple weeks might end up being our toughest in that conference. So right there, you're into the mid-40s.
DeleteOf course, there are the major conference bottom feeders (I really think we have a great shot at UVM in January, as one example), RPI, Minnesota State, a couple others...I actually think you nailed it pretty well. I'm not ready to say that we're up to a middle of the pack major conference team yet, but we'll have our chances to prove otherwise.
Really, I'm just excited to be better than anyone. That's damn cool. I remember Josh Weiner, a former Delaware defenseman, said that PSU would go undefeated last year and winless this year. Wrong on both counts.