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Selection committee dogs Wolverines once again

Or, at the very least, no one there grasps the concept of dog biscuits. The idea makes perfect sense, even to a dog: When you do right, you get rewarded with one. When you don't, well ... all you've got for sustenance is your own saliva.

Oral fluids are about all that the hockey Spartans have produced lately, winning four of their last 11 and blowing the CCHA title in the process. Meanwhile, Michigan won the playoff title and beat the Spartans in the standings and three of four times on the ice. And yet, Michigan must beat either Minnesota or Providence at Michigan State's Munn Ice Arena to advance in the NCAA tournament.

That's about as fair as watching the family pooch sit, roll over and stay, and then sending him off to scrap for food with the local junkyard dogs at their place. As for the Spartans, who get to play at home, they're getting rewarded for basically messing all over the living room floor.

"It's unfair to the purpose of the playoffs to give a team an advantage when it hasn't earned it," Michigan coach Red Berenson says.

Berenson is right: The NCAA ought to try something else -- like having higher-seeded teams host games -- than continue with the present system, in which regional sites are determined by a bidding process. The reason: Undeserving teams can get home-ice advantage.

And make no mistake: It's a huge advantage. Being at home in hockey means being familiar with the rink's surface and its dimensions (these vary from one rink to the next), not to mention having the crowd and not having to travel.

Not coincidentally, your average hockey team fares better at home -- and so does your not-so-average team: Michigan has suffered six of its seven losses away from Yost Ice Arena. One of those, by the way, was at Michigan State.

"But in fairness to that statement," Berenson says, "the teams that have hosted it haven't won."

One such team was last year's Wisconsin squad, which lost to the Wolverines in the quarterfinals. The Badgers still got to host Michigan, though, despite having an inferior record, a worse seed and a loss to the Wolverines earlier that season.

And even though the Wolverines don't face the Spartans, they'll still be at a huge disadvantage. In the 1994 West Regional at East Lansing, a raucous, anybody-but-Michigan crowd cheered on Lake Superior State (whose band, incidentally, played Michigan State's fight song) to victory over the Wolverines. So what gives?

"There has to be home-ice advantage," says Rick Comley, chair of the selection committee. "If we were going to have two buildings (with good attendance) that weren't on campus, that would be ideal. But so far we haven't had that."

The 1993 West regional at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit proved this point. Michigan's quarterfinal game against Wisconsin that year drew a paltry 7,483.

Since then, schools have bid on on-campus regionals, and the NCAA has made sure host schools have played at home, Comley says.

The Wolverines have yet to host one because, at first, they weren't aware of the NCAA's decision to make the West regional available to bidders. Meanwhile, Wisconsin and Michigan State have put in bids and hosted regionals.

Further handicapping Michigan has been the renovation of Yost, Berenson says, as it makes the arena unavailable. The renovation has kept Michigan from having a regional here for two years, since it was supposed to be done in 1995 but was postponed until this year.

These problems won't saddle Michigan forever, though, and Berenson says he'll probably put in a bid eventually. But for the time being, the Wolverines are forced to play for their tournament lives in their archrivals' backyard.

I wouldn't do that to a dog.