The road to South Bend

Greetings from somewhere near the Wisconsin-Illinois border ...

We're on the road to South Bend, with plans to get there in time for Minnesota State's practice and press conference prior to the start of the Midwest Regional.

In the meantime, here is some reading from Friday morning's college hockey coverage:

• Minnesota State and RIT have postseason experience against each other, dating back to their Division II days, and former Mavericks coach Don Brose remembers those games well.

• As for this year's RIT team, the trio of Matt Garbowsky, Brad McGowan and Josh Mitchell has put up some dazzling numbers this season — 148 points between the three of them. "We don't have three players with 150 points," MSU coach Mike Hastings told me earlier this week. "They do."

• RIT also has a player in Greg Amlong, a sophomore defenseman who was "run off" by UMass-Lowell after last season.

• Omaha and Harvard play in Saturday's second game, and that means one old UNO fan and Omaha native, the Crimson's Clay Anderson, will be facing a team he's quite familiar with.

• College Hockey News previews the Midwest Regional (and the others) and includes a look at MSU goalie Stephon Williams.

• USCHO also has its regional previews. Here is its look at the South Bend tourney.

• The NCAA tournament gets underway today with the West and Northeast Regionals in Fargo, N.D., an Manchester, N.H., respectively. The St. Cloud Times' Mick Hatten previews today's game between St. Cloud State and Michigan Tech. For much, much more on the West Regional, check out Brad Schlossman's collection of stories and links on his Grand Forks Herald blog.

• In the Northeast, Minnesota and Minnesota Duluth will be matched up against each other today. The Gophers and Bulldogs were both struggling a bit the last time they played each other, during January's North Star College Cup, but both made it into the national tournament. The Star Tribune, meanwhile, features the Gophers' Mike Reilly, who gets things done around the rink and around the grill, and the Pioneer Press looks at the ups and downs of Minnesota goalie Adam Wilcox.

• Who are the experts picking this weekend? Not sure. As for these guys ...