Sixteen hockey teams flashed across the screen on the NCAA Hockey Tournament Selection Show on Sunday evening. MSU wasn't one of them.
Everyone pretty much knew it was coming, but it didn't make it any easier to accept. MSU had qualified for nine straight national tournaments before being left out of this year's bracket.
The Spartans (23-14-2) were tied for 16th in the final Pairwise Rankings, meaning they probably missed the tourney by two or three spots.
Losing to Northern Michigan in the CCHA Super Six Quarterfinals on Thursday was their final undoing. But the Spartans were in big trouble right from the get-go this season. They started 8-9-1 and never fully recovered.
"Numbers are numbers," first-year MSU head coach Rick Comley said after watching the selection show. "We created our problems early with some bad losses. There's no question about that.
"It's disappointing for us not to make it in, but we'll come back next year and try to make it happen."
Three CCHA teams made the tournament field, which expanded from 12 to 16 teams this year. Regular-season champion Ferris State earned a No. 2 seed and will play No. 3 North Dakota in the West Regional in Minneapolis. League playoff champion Michigan is No. 3 in the Midwest and will play No. 2 Maine in Ann Arbor.
Ohio State got the No. 3 seed in the East Regional. The Buckeyes will play No. 2 Boston College.
An upstart Wayne State team is also in the field, earning a No. 4 seed in the Midwest. The Warriors won the College Hockey America conference tournament, thus earning the league's first ever automatic bid into the NCAA bracket. They will play No. 1 Colorado College.
The Spartans were ranked No. 7 in preseason polls, but fell out of the rankings after splitting a series with Niagara in November. There were many factors contributing to MSU's slow first half, most notably the transition into Comley's up-tempo style and adjusting to the losses of star goaltender Ryan Miller, forward Adam Hall and defenseman Andrew Hutchinson from last year's team.
As the Spartans adapted to the changes, their offensive production eventually spiked and they climbed back into respectability. They were mired in 10th place in the CCHA on Jan. 3, but almost sneaked into third by the end of the season.
Heading into the CCHA Tournament, the Spartans were undoubtedly one of the hottest teams in the nation. Before the Northern game, they seemed to have an inside track for the NCAAs, but the Wildcats' win quashed those dreams.
MSU's 14 losses this season were as many as the team had the previous two years combined.
"It certainly wasn't the kind of year the program has had the last three years," Comley said. "But I think it was a pretty good year, considering all the graduation losses we've had, especially on the defensive end.
"There aren't as many elite players left in the program, so we're going to try to rebuild that."
Overall, MSU finished with the third-best power-play success rate (.275) and tied for the sixth-best offense (3.95 goals a game) in the nation.
Senior defenseman John-Michael Liles led the team in scoring (50 points) for the second straight season, becoming the first Spartan blueliner to accomplish the feat in back-to-back years. He is also the first Spartan to crack the 50-point plateau since Shawn Horcoff amassed 65 in 1999-2000.
Senior left wing Brian Maloney led the team in penalties (24) for the fourth straight year, but freshman left wing David Booth beat Maloney in terms of penalty minutes, 53-48.
