BOWLING GREEN — There are scenarios by which Bowling Green can make the NCAA tournament even without winning the Western Collegiate Hockey Association championship game.
While the Falcons certainly could use good fortune elsewhere and the computer rankings to assure their spot in the 16-team field, they’re more interested in using the Al-Davis-approved method.
Just win, baby.
Bowling Green is 60 minutes from an automatic NCAA bid that comes with winning the WCHA playoff tournament. The third-seeded Falcons will visit No. 1 seed Minnesota State, the WCHA’s gold-standard program, in a winner-take-all title game Saturday in Mankato, Minn.
All six Division I conferences will play their championship games Saturday, but the Falcons said only one is on their minds.
“We shouldn’t be worrying about what this team does against this team,” Falcons captain Stephen Baylis said. “All we’ve got to do is win one game, and we’re in there.
“We don’t have to worry about anything else other than what we’re going to do. I think we’d take that any day of the week rather than worry about what’s going on around the country.”
VIDEO: Falcons set to play for WCHA title
The Falcons currently sit at No. 13 in the all-important PairWise rankings with selection for the NCAA tournament coming Sunday. With a loss, Bowling Green likely would drop to 15th — the final possible spot for an at-large berth in the NCAA field.
Before the Falcons fret about scores in games involving Colorado College, Brown, or the Hockey East, they can make themselves undeniable.
Rather than worry about all the permutations elsewhere, BG is hoping to travel the math-free route.
“Why try to figure it out? Why not just know that we can earn our name being called on Sunday with Saturday’s night’s game?” Falcons coach Chris Bergeron said.
But beating Minnesota State on the road will be no easy feat. The Mavericks, ranked No. 3 in the PairWise rankings, are a lock for the NCAA tournament and would clinch a No. 1 seed in the NCAA field with a win.
Despite Bowling Green’s two-game sweep at Slater Family Ice Arena in December, Minnesota State ran away with the WCHA regular-season championship during the second half of the season.
This will be the second time in three seasons Bowling Green will play the title game on the road. In 2017, BG was inches away from making the NCAA field in a double-overtime loss at Michigan Tech.
“This is a situation where we’re walking into the lion’s den, but we’ve done it before,” Bergeron said. “Our seniors were sophomores on that team; our juniors were freshmen. We’re going to ask them to act like they’ve been there before.”
Coming so close and losing in 2017 is something Baylis said has stuck with all of the veterans on the roster.
“It’s something we talk about all the time, especially at the start of the year when we’re getting ready for the year and going through our training,” Baylis said. “It’s something we motivate ourselves with. Going into this weekend, it’s definitely in the back of our minds that we’ve been in that position and let it slip.”
The next step in the Falcons’ hockey revival always has been the NCAA tournament, for which the program has not qualified since 1990.
This game will present as good an opportunity as any to make sure nothing is left to chance come Sunday.
“We want to take care of our business knowing that if we do that, the rest will take care of itself,” Bergeron said. “If we leave it to chance and we’re talking about the math, your guess is as good as mine.”
First Published March 22, 2019, 11:15 a.m.
