Spring is here and the NCAA tournament is upon us, and for those of us hoping to do some prospect watching, we’ve got a busy week ahead of us.
The tournament kicks off on Thursday, and of the 16 teams taking part in it, the Flyers have prospects representing them on five of them. They are: Devan Kaplan at Boston University, Bryce Brodzinski at Minnesota, Alex Bump at Western Michigan, Owen McLaughlin at North Dakota, and Massimo Rizzo at Denver. We should note though that it may only wind up being four prospects that we see, as Rizzo has been out with injury, and his coach said that he’s questionable to return for the tournament this weekend. He didn’t rule him out, but it does feel like a bit of a long shot. We’ll see though.
Moving right along, we present you with the full bracket, and the schedule for the most relevant games for us.
Thurs. 3/28
2:00- Denver vs. UMass
5:30- Boston University vs. RIT
8:00- Minnesota vs. Omaha
Fri. 3/29
5:00- Michigan State vs. Western Michigan
8:00- North Dakota vs. Michigan
The winners from the Thursday games will play on Saturday (3/30) and the winners from the Friday games will play on Sunday (3/31)
And we have some interesting matchups here. Denver against UMass is going to be a tough one right off the hop. Michigan State took the Big Ten title with an overtime win over Michigan over the weekend, and as a reward for that work, they get a very tough Western Michigan team to play against. And sticking with that corner of the bracket, if things go terribly for the Flyers’ prospects and both Western Michigan and North Dakota are knocked out in their first game, we’ll get a rematch of that Big Ten championship game — a bad result for people looking to specifically do some Flyers prospect watching, but what great overall content that would be.
It’s an exciting time of year, the kids have been building up to this, the biggest moment of their seasons, as they press forward towards the Frozen Four. It’s a wide open tournament, and after the dramatics of last year’s tournament, it will be interesting to see how this one plays out.
