Wisconsin women's hockey: Badgers to host Boston University in NCAA quarterfinals

The Wisconsin women's hockey team will host Hockey East tournament champions Boston University in the opening round of the NCAA tournament next Saturday.

Wisconsin has a 4-0 record against the Terriers all time, having most recently beat BU 5-0 in Vail, Colorado last season. The Badgers also beat BU in 2011 for the National Championship. Wisconsin won that game 4-1.

The Terriers finished their season 25-8-3.

The Badgers and Terriers shared just one common opponent this season - Clarkson. BU won both their match-ups, 3-1 and 5-2. Wisconsin tied Clarkson 1-1 and beat them 4-0.

(EDIT: Boston University traveled to Minnesota early in the season to play St. Cloud State and Minnesota. They beat SCSU 5-2, but lost to Minnesota by the same score. Wisconsin beat SCSU 5-0, 4-0 and 3-0 and lost 2-1. The Badgers lost to the Gophers 4-1 twice, 2-1 and tied them 1-1.)

Last season, Wisconsin played two common BU opponents - Northeastern and Harvard. The same weekend they played BU in Vail, Wisconsin also beat Northeastern 3-2. Wisconsin met Harvard in the quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament last season and won 3-2.

This season, BU met Northeastern five times and was 4-1 in those meetings. They won 3-2, 4-2, 3-1 and 6-1, the last time coming in the Hockey East semifinals. They lost 6-3 to Northeastern in November.

The Terriers met Harvard twice, tying 1-1 and then losing 9-2 in the Beanpot semifinals.

Boston University's star is Canadian Marie-Philip Poulin. You may remember that name from the two times she's broken American fan's hearts in the Olympics. Poulin scored both the tying and game-winning goals in Sochi as well as the game-winning goal in Vancouver.  She is a top-three finalist for this year's Patty Kazmaier Award.

They also have an impressive freshman in Victoria Bach. Bach was one of the top freshman in the country, amassing 33 points on 19 goals and 14 assists.

Look for a more in-depth preview later this week.

The tournament features three ECAC teams, two from Hockey East and the WCHA and one from the CHA.

According to Pairwise, the last three teams out of the tournament were North Dakota and Minnesota-Duluth from the WCHA and Cornell from the ECAC.

Tickets to the Wisconsin game go on sale Monday at 8:30 am here. They are $10 for adults, $5 for students, kids and senior citizens.

Matchups (all times local)

Quarterfinals (March 14)

RIT (15-18-3)* vs No. 1 Minnesota (31-3-4): 4 p.m. CT

Clarkson (24-10-3) vs. No. 2 Boston College (33-2-2): 1 p.m. ET

Quinnipiac (26-8-3)  vs. No. 3 Harvard (25-5-3)*: 4 p.m. ET

Boston University (25-8-3)* vs. No. 4 Wisconsin (28-6-4)*: 2 p.m. CT

*Automatic Bid

Frozen Four Semifinals: (March 20 at 5 p.m CT and 8 p.m. CT)

Minnesota/RIT winner vs. Boston University/Wisconsin winner

Boston College/Clarkson winner vs. Harvard/Quinnipiac winner

Championship (March 22 at 3 p.m. CT)

Frozen Four semis and championship to be played at Ridder Arena in Minneapolis, MN