Schafer Concedes UNH Game

Quotes after last night's game:

"Obviously this weekend was lost before the weekend began," Cornell coach Mike Schafer said. "(It was lost) through exams and what guys did at home over Christmas break because we had no legs -- we were lethargic. We came out and played a solid first period but it seemed that was all that was left in the tank the rest of the night."

"All around it was a really frustrating weekend," Schafer said. "For us it has to be about starting all over now and beginning a whole new process for the second half of the season. We're right back to ground zero. It's like training camp is going to be starting here as soon as we get back to Ithaca and start to get back to the basics of a hockey team and start to build all over again."

"It's water under the bridge and it really is time to roll up our sleeves and get back to work over intersession here," Schafer said.

Notice that there's no mention of the UNH game three days from now. It seems like Schafer has focused his efforts on getting back to Ithaca next week and whipping the team back in shape. There aren't any quotes (at least published ones) about changing things around before Sunday. So has Schafer, after his team loses two non-conference games, given up hope of winning against New Hampshire?

In previous years, we as fans have often bemoaned Cornell's weak non-conference schedules. We might face a quality team in Florida, but otherwise the schedule was packed with schools like Niagara, Wayne State, Robert Morris, Sacred Heart, and RIT - schools which often gave us good competition, but didn't help us much in the computer rankings or pairwise.

This year, things seemed to be much different. We were going to be good, and we had plenty of chances to prove that. But, one by one, the team has let each opportunity slip away.

Road game against Yale? Loss.
Home game against Quinnipiac? Loss.
MSG game against BU? Blew a lead and tied.
Road game against Union? Tied.
Florida game against Colorado College? Loss.

Now... road game against UNH? It doesn't seem like anyone thinks Cornell has much of a chance to win.

The only remaining non-conference games, after UNH, are the two games against North Dakota. Let's be optimistic and say that Cornell earns a split at home.

Then, our non-conference record will be 2-4-1. One of those wins is against Niagara (3-10-2).

With a non-conference record like that, Cornell has to do one of two things. The clearest option is to win the ECAC tournament and secure an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. To do that, however, Cornell will probably need to beat at least two of four good teams (Yale, Quinnipiac, Union, Princeton). A tough, but not insurmountable task given the talent on this team.

The alternative is to win enough remaining ECAC regular season and tournament games to get to the top 11 or 12 in the pairwise, and secure an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. But this is a very difficult task, considering that Cornell is currently 23rd in the pairwise and doesn't win any comparisons against teams with winning records.

Neither option looks particularly likely at this point. The season which could have been 2003 is looking instead like a total dud. By striking out at every big opportunity, Cornell doesn't deserve to make the NCAA tournament. Unless things turn around, they won't.