Sports squawk

We might be in the middle of basketball's March Madness. This week is also the start of college hockey's road to a national championship.
And it all gets started in New England this weekend when the NCAA Division I tournament's East and Northeast Regionals will be played in the area.
The Northeast Regional, also known as the Hockey East Invitational will be played Saturday and Sunday at the DCU Center in Worcester. Boston College, the top overall seed and Hockey East tournament champion, will play Atlantic Hockey champion Air Force on Saturday at 4 p.m. A second Hockey East team, Maine, will play Minnesota Duluth in the 7:30 p.m. second game. The winners play Sunday night at 8.
The East Regional is at Bridgeport, Conn., where ECAC tournament champion Union is the top seed and No. 3 overall seed. The Dutchmen will play Michigan State Friday at 3 p.m., while Miami (Ohio) plays a third Hockey East team in UMass-Lowell at 6:30 p.m. The regional championship is Saturday at 6:30 p.m.
A fourth Hockey East team, Boston University, is the third seed in the West Region, and the Terriers will play Minnesota on Saturday in Saint Paul, Minn. If BU and BC both get out of their regions, they would face each other in a Frozen Four semifinal in Tampa, Fla., on Thursday, April 5.
The four Hockey East coaches spent time on the telephone early this week discussing their roads to the tournament.
Twelve months ago, one of the four Hockey East coaches was putting his equipment away. Norm Bazin has led UMass-Lowell back to the tournament, but a year ago, he had just wrapped up his third year coaching Hamilton -- a NESCAC rival to Williams.
After three seasons of building the Continentals into a NESCAC threat, Bazin was hired by his alma mater.
"We've certainly had a consistent season," said Bazin. "We've run into some different challenges along the way, line everyone else."
UMass-Lowell has not been a Hockey East power and the River Hawks were coming off a five-win season. Bazin has led them to a 23-12-1 record, and it certainly looks like last year in Clinton, N.Y., all over again.
During the conference call, an ESPNBoston reporter asked Bazin if his team felt slighted because the River Hawks weren't discussed much in the ESPN selection show.
"We have to" have a chip on their collective shoulders, Bazin said. "If it wasn't for the brackets being scripted on the board, I don't think you would have heard anything from UMass-Lowell. That's OK with us.
"We're thrilled to be part of the tournament. At the same time, we have something to prove. It's going to be exciting for our guys to get this opportunity."
BC has to be a favorite to win another D-I title. But the Eagles will have to first ground the Falcons of the Air Force Academy. Air Force comes out of the Atlantic Hockey Association, and is the only AHA team in the tourney.
"They've had some really tremendous efforts in some recent NCAA games," York said. "If you look back at their 2-0 win over Michigan, their loss to Vermont in 2 OTs, a loss to Miami in OT -- it's remarkable how close they've been to the Frozen Fours. They have our attention because of how well they have done."
Year in and year out, BC and BU are in the NCAA Tournament, and certainly BC has a real chance to bring home the title. York was asked about how he does it every year.
"I think its a combination of first of all, making sure you have good players," said York. "You have to make darn well sure they're all on the same train, with the same thoughts and we've really established at BC that being an Eagle is way more important than any individual in the room."
There isn't much better than the NCAA hockey tournament. I'll see you in Worcester.

Posted by Matthew Sprague, Eagle Sports Editor at 2:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you ask Jay Bilas, he'll tell you that when it comes to the NCAA Basketball Tournament, there shouldn't be major, mid-major or small-major conferences. Bilas, the former Duke hoop standout and current ESPN analyst, says that the best 37 at-large teams - regardless of where they play - should be playing in the tournament.

Bilas was on an ESPN conference call Monday, speaking with media members about Championship Week and looking ahead to Selection Sunday and the NCAA Tournament.

"I don't know the exact monikers for each of these different teams. In my judgment, the way it should be is if you sign up to play in Division I, then you compete. There should be no distinction between teams," Bilas said in response to my question. "They all signed up for Division I.

"I look at it the same way I do in the Olympics. The United States and Trinidad & Tobago run in the 100 meters - you line up and you run. Trinidad & Tobago doesn't get a 10-meter head start. They don't get favored nation status because they're a small country. They say 'Do you want to run?' and they raise their hands. They step to the starting line and wait for the gun. That's the way college basketball should be."

The ESPN analyst said the committee should look at whatever its criteria for selection is. He said the at-larges should be the best 37 teams after the automatic qualifiers are in.

"I don't think it should matter where you're from or what your resources are, or how good you feel about your inclusion," he said. "It should be who did you play, who did you beat and are you one of the best 37. Everybody has an opportunity against their peers to win that automatic bid. The rest of it should be based on accomplishment."

Bilas is nothing if not forthcoming on any number of topics. Here are some of his thoughts.

*What does he think about the state of college basketball: I do think the game is going through a down period. I felt that way in 2010. I thought the game took a step back from '09, and I think it's taken another step down the ladder each year. Honestly, I was kind of fooled going into this year, thinking that some of the better players from last year - guys like Harrison Barnes [North Carolina] and Jared Sullinger [Ohio State] and others - guys that decided to come back for another year, would make the game more powerful. It hasn't. The teams at the top are good. I don't know if they're historically great. We have some really good teams. I think making the NCAA Tournament as an at-large team is as weak as it's ever been. I said it last year, it was the worst at-large pool in the history of the tournament. I don't know if this year is any better.

*What does he think can be done: I think it's a combination of things. We've had a couple of years with high school classes that haven't been strong, with last year's crop of freshmen ... this year's has been very strong. We've had a number of coaching changes in leagues, for example the Pac-12, where over half the league has been in place for only two or three years. It's the same thing in the ACC, from the middle to the bottom, the majority of the coaches in that league have not been in place very long. That's not to say they're not the right guys or outstanding coaches, they are. Any time you have that much turnover in a single league, recruiting takes a hit and the overall product takes a hit. The Big East is not as good as it has been. There's no question the Pac-12 is way down.

*Are the conference tournaments helpful or hurtful for teams going into the NCAAs: I don't know the answer to that. There's data on both sides and anecdotal evidence that the postseason conference tournament can help you or hurt you. It can be a springboard or it can wear you out emotionally and physically for the NCAA Tournament. I tend to think that if you go in and treat every game the same, and you prepare the same way, it shouldn't be that big of a factor. We've seen teams go into their conference tournaments and lost, gone home out of the spotlight to work on some things, get some rest and retool - and go into the NCAA Tournament fresher, more focused and ready to play.

*The Atlantic 10 and Big 10 are among the few conferences whose title games are on Sunday, the same day when the conference tournament championship game is played. Good or bad?: I do think that the teams that play on Selection Sunday put themselves at a disadvantage. First of all, it doesn't help their seeding at all. It's all done by then. All it does, you have a game closer to the date that you're going to play in the NCAA Tournament. That doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense to me, for other than a television window."

Posted by Matthew Sprague, Eagle Sports Editor at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I admit it, I was wrong.

The Duke men's basketball team really shouldn't be compared to Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. But it's fair to say that Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski is the Chairman of the Boards (if you read boards as the floor in gymnasiums across the nation).

Don't even call him the Chairman. He's more like the President of College Basketball.

I swear that about 50 fans who were held back from the Duke bus by portable fencing, didn't care about the Plumlee brothers or Austin Rivers. They were cheering for and calling out to Coach K.

I'll tell you this, Krzyzewski works the so-called rope line as well as President Obama or President Bush ever did. The venerable Duke head coach took time on his way from Conte Forum to the bus to shake a number of hands and pat a couple of kids on their heads and mussed up their hair.

It even looks like Krzyzewski has his own security guys who walk with him out to the bus.

Krzyzewski is nothing if not effusive in his praise for many of his victims. After the Blue Devils whipped Boston College 75-50, Coach K had much to say in support of the job Steve Donahue is doing at BC. He said that Donahue and the other new coaches in the ACC have made his job that much tougher.

"We have really good coaches in our league. That's the thing about this new wave of coaches, none of these teams are going to give up. All of them are building. We had to do that, and I know we never gave up," Krzyzewski said. "It's been a good league, a lot better than people anticipated because of how good all these coaches are and the good jobs they've done. Most teams with almost 20 losses would have packed it in a long time ago. They're far away from doing that because they're building something really nice here."

The Blue Devils are ranked fifth in this week's Associated Press Top 25, and that has Krzyzewski happy. The veteran coach said he's as pleased with this team as he has been with a lot of Duke squads.

"Our kids have earned everything they've gotten. Our non-conference schedule was brutal. They found ways to win. I do believe my team has the will to win. They're a good group," he said. "We're just not some type of juggernaut. I don't know if there's one thing we do great. We can shoot, and when we're shooting well we can shoot with anybody."

There was a capacity crowd in Conte Forum Sunday night, the BC students were really raucous, and ESPNU was in the house. That's all fine with Coach K. He isn't particularly fond about playing that 6 p.m. Sunday game. Make that not fond at all.

"I would put in an amendment never to play on Sunday night. I'm OK if we're never scheduled on a Sunday night. I know people think you get exposure and that. I think there's a natural tendency on Sunday night for people to let down. There was a good crowd [Sunday night], which helped and we respect [BC]."

I will say this for Krzyzewski's program -- it's always impressive when a college basketball coach opens his locker room to the media.

The only two I know of are Duke's and Siena's. UMass doesn't do it, BC doesn't do it, UConn doesn't do it. That puts the Blue Devils at the top of the list in my book.