The UNH hockey team needs a win in tonight’s Game 3 showdown with Vermont to shore up its chances of securing an at-large spot in the NCAA tournament. The Wildcats and Catamounts meet at 7 at the Whittemore Center to close out their Hockey East quarterfinal series and determine who advances to Boston for the semifinals. . . . The Wildcats appeared to be in decent shape in the national rankings going into Saturday night’s game, but a 1-0 loss to Vermont sent them tumbling. UNH is No. 11 in the PairWise rankings this afternoon, having fallen from No. 8 yesterday. . . . The PairWise rankings mimic the system used by the NCAA to pick its 16 tournament teams. Six tournament champions earn automatic berths in the tournament and 10 teams are at-large picks. . . . Upsets in league tournaments can chew up slots for the NCAAs and a major one over the weekend did. Bemidji State of College Hockey America is in great shape for an at-large berth, but the Beavers were upset in the league semifinals on Friday night by Niagara. Alabama-Huntsville beat Niagara on Saturday night to earn the conference’s auto bid and now two teams from the four-team league are going to the NCAAs. The CHA is all done as a league after this season.
The UNH men’s hockey team has its work cut out for it this weekend and needs to get past Vermont in a Hockey East quarterfinal series beginning tonight at the Whittemore Center to shore up its chances of making the NCAA tournament. . . . If the Wildcats do make the NCAAs for a ninth straight year, the question then becomes where will they be sent for the Regionals?
. . . USCHO and Inside College Hockey, a couple of web sites devoted to the sport, have in recent weeks been speculating on what the NCAA field will look like when it’s announced on March 21. . . . USCHO this week has UNH as the No. 3 seed, playing No. 2 Alaska, at the Midwest Regional in Ft. Wayne, Ind. It projects that the other game there would be No. 1 Miami vs. No. 4 Minnesota-Duluth. . . . INCH has UNH as the No. 3 in Albany, taking on No. 2 Cornell in its first game. It has Wisconsin as the No. 1 seed in Albany, playing No. 4 Ferris State. . . . The other Regional sites are Albany, N.Y., and St. Paul, Minn.
UNH senior forward Bobby Butler leads his No. 11-ranked team into an all-important Hockey East quarterfinal series against Vermont this weekend at the Whittemore Center. . . . The Wildcats, 16-11-7 overall, are the No. 1 seed in the league tournament and likely have to beat No. 8 seed Vermont and advance to the Hockey East semifinals in order to make the NCAA tournament for a ninth straight season. . . . Butler scored 21 goals and had 20 assists in 27 league games this season to become the first 20-20 player in Hockey East games since UNH’s Jason Krog hit those marks in the 1998-99 season, according to notes compiled by Tom Wilkins of the UNH sports information staff. . . . Butler has 25 goals and 22 assists for 47 points overall in 34 games. . . . The UNH-Vermont series starts on Friday night at 7 and games are set for Saturday and, if necessary, Sunday at the same time.
The UNH men’s basketball team will be looking to make school history when it faces Vermont tonight at 7:30 in an America East semifinal game in Hartford. The Wildcats are in the semifinals for the seventh time, but have never won in this round and played in the league championship game. . . . UNH, the No. 6 seed in the tournament, earned its semifinal berth with a 66-57 win over No. 3 Maine on Saturday night. Vermont is the No. 2 seed and beat UMBC, 76-59, on Saturday night. . . . Starting guard Tyrone Conley is not expected to play for the Wildcats. He injured his ankle late in Saturday night’s game. . . . The Wildcats and Catamounts split a pair of games during the regular season. UNH knocked off Vermont, 75-56, in Durham on Jan. 27 and then took the Catamounts to overtime on Feb. 14 in Burlington before falling 85-76. . . . No. 1 seed Stony Brook and No. 4 Boston University meet in tonight’s first semifinal at 5.
No. 6 seed UNH will be looking for more offense, and good defense on Maine’s Gerald McLemore in particular, when the teams meet tonight a 8:15 in Hartford in an America East quarterfinal game. . . . UNH lost a pair of games to Maine, 56-42 and 72-53, during the regular season. McLemore, a 6-foot-3 sophomore guard who was named All America East first team on Friday, scored 30 points in the second game. “Hopefully we can guard him better,” said UNH coach Bill Herrion. . . . The flip side is that Herrion needs more offense out of his team, too. To that end, he will start the same group that started in last Sunday’s 77-55 win over No. 1 seed Stony Brook. The unit has Colbey Santos with Alvin Abreu, Tyrone Conley, Radar Onguetou and Dane DiLiegro. . . . “I think they’ll play loose and they’re ready,” Herrion said. “They get the fact that they handled us twice relatively easily and they’re motivated by that. They understand the score.”
The UNH women’s basketball team earned a spot in the America East quarterfinals with a 65-50 win over Maine last night in the No. 8-No. 9 play-in game in Hartford. . . . The Wildcats face a tall task. They play No. 1-seed Hartford tonight at 6, also in Hartford. The Hawks are 25-3 overall for the season and went 16-0 in league play. They beat UNH 72-45 in Durham on Jan. 9 and 65-35 in Hartford on Feb. 6. . . . UNH improved to 9-21 overall with the win over Maine. The Wildcats had lost to Maine twice during the regular season.
UNH and Maine will square off in the America East basketball tournaments in Hartford this weekend. The No. 9-seeded UNH women and No. 8 Maine meet in the play-in game tomorrow night at 6 and the winner advances to play No. 1 Hartford in the quarterfinals on Friday. . . . The No. 6-seeded UNH men take on No. 3 Maine in the quarterfinals on Saturday night at 8:15. The winner of that game plays a semifinal on Sunday night at 7:30 against the winner of a game between No. 2 Vermont and No. 7 UMBC. The Wildcats moved up a spot in the standings when Binghamton, which has been besieged by off-court issues, withdrew from the tournament. Maine beat the Wildcats twice this season: 56-42 in Orono on Jan. 18 and 72-53 in Durham on Feb. 17. . . . Maine is 19-10 overall and 11-5 in America East. UNH is 12-16 and 6-10 and is coming off a 77-55 win over top-seeded Stony Brook on Sunday at Lundhom Gymnasium. . . . The Wildcats will be without freshman point guard Chandler Rhoads in the tournament. Rhoads, who had been playing well down the stretch, broke his left hand during a practice drill on Saturday.
The UNH women’s hockey team opens defense of its Hockey East tournament championship with a semifinal game against Boston University on Saturday at 3 in Providence. UNH, 19-7-5 overall and 13-6-2-0 in Hockey East, is the No. 2 seed for the league tournament and BU, 15-8-12 and 10-6-5-3, is No. 3. UNH went 1-1-1 with BU during the regular season and the Terriers won a shootout in the tie game. . . . The winner of the UNH-BU game faces the winner of a noon time semifinal contest between No. 1 Providence and No. 5 Connecticut. The championship game is at 12:30 on Sunday, also at PC’s Schneider Arena. The tournament winner earns an automatic spot in the eight-team NCAA tournament. . . . UNH has won the last four league tournaments. Before that, Providence won the first three.
James van Riemsdyk was back on the ice for the UNH hockey team today. Van Riemsdyk came to Durham for a few days while his Philadelphia Flyers and the National Hockey League take their Olympic break. He plans to practice a couple of times with the Wildcats, watch his old team play against Vermont this weekend and take his brother, Trevor, who plays for the New Hampshire Junior Monarchs, out for dinner while he’s around. . . . “It should definitely help kind of recharge the batteries for the stretch run,” he said before the Wildcats bused to Exeter for practice. . . . Trevor, a defenseman, recently announced that he planned to accept a UNH scholarship and enroll in the fall of 2011. . . . James, a former No. 2 overall pick in the 2007 NHL entry draft, turned pro last spring after his sophomore season at UNH. . . . In 57 games, he has 13 goals and 19 assists for 32 points, which is tied for third-best in the NHL among rookies.
The UNH women’s basketball team plays at Maine tonight and the Wildcat men take on the Black Bears tomorrow night at 7 in Lundholm Gymnasium. The UNH and Maine women are battling to stay out of the America East play-in game. UNH is 3-9 in the league and Maine is 3-10. Both are just ahead of last-place Albany, 2-10. The final two teams square off in the play-in for a spot in the league quarterfinals. . . . The UNH men are 10-14 overall and at 5-8 in the league are in seventh place, just behind 5-7 Hartford. Maine is 16-9 overall and at 8-4 in the league is in third place, chasing Stony Brook (10-2) and Vermont (10-3). . . . The Wildcats started slowly and trailed 23-13 at the half in a game they lost, 56-42, at Maine on Jan. 18. . . . UNH rallied on the road to take Vermont to overtime on Sunday before losing, 85-76. The Wildcats had won their previous two games.
