MEYER: The difficult road ahead

While the titans of college basketball are clawing it out on the hardwood, trying to reach the Final Four, the top 16 teams in college hockey are about to lay it out on the ice to get to the Frozen Four. Yes indeed, the NCAA Tournament is upon us. What is about to commence is an epic two-week display of skill, speed, tenacity and perseverance that will at long last settle the debate as to who really is the best collegiate hockey team in the nation. In this year’s field, our very own Boston University Terriers have drawn the No. 1 overall seed, making them the odds-on favorite to win it all. The joy this seeding brings to any Boston University fan is only compounded by the news that defending national champion, preseason number one and archrival Boston College failed to even make the tournament. So amidst these lofty expectations and regular-season successes, one has to wonder how far the Terriers can go in this tournament, and if they can win it all. Unlike the massive 65-team field in college basketball’s postseason tournament, college hockey uses a 16-team format. Win two games, and you’re in the Frozen Four. Win four, and you’re national champions. Sounds easy enough, right? The hockey tournament field may be smaller, but if the number of teams means anything, it signifies that virtually every team in the tournament is a legitimate threat, with the possible exception of CHA champion Bemidji State. No Tennessee-Chattanoogas or Morehead States here. If you want to win this tournament, you have to show up with your best every night, regardless of who you are playing. The Terriers know this, though. Jack Parker will have this team ready for whatever comes its way because let’s all face it: he’s been here before. He has the postseason experience, and his two rings can speak for themselves that he knows how to win when the calendar turns to April. What comes with that No. 1 seed next to BU’s name on the bracket? Does it give this team confidence and an aura of intimidation to whoever it faces off against? Or is it more of a target on the back, making it more liable to be ousted early on? It’s always one thing to win games, but it’s another thing entirely to consistently win with the weight of lofty expectations. This proposition of BU being top dog (no pun intended) in the tourney would have honestly concerned me a few months ago. You could look back to a few points during the season where the Terriers, playing as the top-ranked team in the nation, would slip up to teams that had no business competing with them. Since becoming the number one team back on Feb. 2, BU has stayed in that same position for all but one week. If anything, the seeding better positions the Terriers to make it to the Frozen Four. At this juncture in the season, high prospects shouldn’t be too big of a problem. The first matchup of the tournament pits BU against Ohio State. While 99 percent of the country probably thinks of Ohio State football before hockey, the Buckeyes have a pretty solid resume, especially for a four seed (although if its hockey team performs like its football team does in big games, I really like our chances). Some may like to typify the 1-v.-4 matchup as a contender against a cupcake, but the BU squad and fans should be in no position to look past any team. This is the same Terrier team that has lost to the likes of Providence and Maine. A single-elimination configuration leaves absolutely no room for error because one loss sends you home packing with nothing left but unanswered questions. If BU does advance past its first contest, it would play either North Dakota or New Hampshire in the following round. Each team would be a big challenge for the Terriers, but BU could at least take solace in the fact that it has beaten both of them during the regular season. Any matchup beyond the regional round is pretty much up to speculation, but rest assured if BU does make it that far, they’d be playing extremely talented and dangerous teams. Say the Terriers don’t end up ultimately hoisting the hardware in Washington, D.C. Does that make their season a failure? Looking from a very simplistic standpoint, yes it would. Every team aspires to win the national championship at the beginning of the year, and if you don’t achieve your goal, you fail. But there’s really more to it. Before their season began, BU was coming off what was by most accounts one of its worst seasons in recent memory. I was still in high school when all this was going on, but I’ve heard the Brett Bennett horror stories. The Terriers started the year off ranked as the ninth-best squad in the nation, and although the team obviously had talent, people constantly questioned whether they could pool that talent together to achieve anything noteworthy. Honestly, who at the beginning of the year seriously expected this team to win the Beanpot, the Hockey East regular season and tournament, and boast their current seeding? One loss in a tournament should not invalidate the accolades BU has collected throughout the year in the minds of our great fans. This season has been anything but a failure, even if the Terriers don’t end up winning it all. But in an age in which more people get their sports information from blogs than they do newspapers, you will always have unreal expectations to deal with, and anything less than the best is unsatisfactory. What does lie ahead should be an exciting and intriguing few weeks, and hopefully when all is said and done, it will be BU that leaves our nation’s capital with a championship.