Wisconsin Badgers tumble out of national men's hockey rankings

[Da-news-now]

The Badgers fell out of the 20-team USCHO.com Division I men's poll on Monday after spending the last two weeks at No. 19.

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[Keg Man]

Probably going to have to win the B1G Tourney to get into the show. (And this is with 5 potentially playing in World Juniors)

Oh how the non-mighty have fallen.

Brings back into question the choice of Eaves over Johnson

 

[TW]

I had high hopes for the men's program. Just too many guys who think they're super stars, and what they're doing at Wisconsin is just biding their time, and enjoying the skate.

 

[FlaPack]

this is similar to the one and done way college hoops has went, and then add in that anytime you recruit 17 year old kids and trying to project them to the next level is far from an exact science.

 

[Crease Creature]

I had high hopes for the men's program. Just too many guys who think they're super stars, and what they're doing at Wisconsin is just biding their time, and enjoying the skate.

Not my tweet, but the guy who put it out there seems sincere, and Oz retweeted it, which is why it showed up.
Say what you want about Eaves, and there's plenty, and it wasn't just the 4-win season that sent him packing (he was fired after the next season) it was his sudden inability to get good, in-state players to come here after 2012 that is probably what did him in the most.

But TW's post is spot on. Tony, Donny, and Oz were a splashy hire by Alvarez, and it initially looked like they righted the ship, hitting 20 wins in their first season. But either Don was the genius and heart of that staff, or they just took the guys who would have been cycling up as part of Eaves' steady 4 year windows and did well with them before letting a bunch of them go and getting (and now staying) really young. Holloway is a guy who we should have in house for another season, as he's not draft eligible until 2020, and the incoming class should be pretty good, but if it's just another collection of stars and not a team, then what the hell is the point? Season ticket sales took a bump after the new staff was hired, but I've seen that the level is pretty much back down to what it was during the post-2014 B1G championship team (another factor in the Eaves firing).