I know the validity of various ratings systems has been discussed at
great length, especially the RPI because of its use in the NC$$ selection
process.  A frequent comment has been that ratings are meant to be used
at the end of the season.  Well, there are only 2 weekends left, so I
think it's fair to begin analyzing the rating systems' performances.
 
Many people on the list have spent many hours breaking down the different
systems (even more than I've spent trying to understand them all :-),
varying the weighting of components, etc.  The argument posed for the
current weighting of the RPI is that Op% and OpOp% should even out by the
end of the season.  Every conference has a total record of .5000, so it's
only the choice of non-conf opponents that will vary these figures.  This
deviation should be fairly small, hence only needing to give win% a 25%
weight.
 
Now, to the point:
 
Looking at this weeks ratings is troubling.  Colorado leads the WCHA by a
substancial margin, yet trails Minnesota in the ratings.  Colorado has a
significantly higher win%, but Minnesota is ahead by virtue of its
strength of schedule (beating UM and MSU during T-day certainly helped,
as did playing BU over New Year's)
 
Similarly, it's hard for even me to justify BU being ahead of Maine (but
who am I to argue :-)  Maine has the best win% in the country, yet it's
rated 3rd because of SOS.
 
The most eggregious:  NORTHEASTERN
Here is a .5000 team rated 8th in the country, ahead of Clarkson with a
.6667 win%.  That's a HUGE difference.  Also, compare NU to Lowell.  They
are 4 and 5 respectively in HE.  Both are exactly .5000 overall.
        8   NU
        28  Lowell
NU is a talented team that could be "ranked" highly in a subjective poll
if they had started slow and since caught fire (much as LSSU has done).
But a .5000 team should in no way be "rated" this high, especially
compared to the closest team in its conference, Lowell.  It's hard to
accept a team such as BGSU (currently 12) getting bumped out of the
tournament in favor of having all conferences with at least 2 bids (Brown
being rated 13 and getting the 2nd ECAC bid).  It's even harder to think
of Wisconsin or Denver losing a spot in favor of a 4th place HE team with
a .5000 record.  Granted, Wisconsin is currently 4th in the WCHA, but
they've got a better record and are still in contention.  After getting
swept by UNH, NU is in jeopardy of losing home ice.
 
I'm all for having 4 HE teams in the tourney, but NU just hasn't earned
it (yet, a strong finish plus a strong showing in the HE tourney could
change that).  NU has benefited from a strong NC schedule (BU and
Harvard in the 'Pot, Badger Classic, a game with DU) in which it
has performed poorly (if memory serves me a 3rd, a 4th and an embarassing
home loss respectively).
 
Just my $.03 on a perceived flaw in the system
($.02 ran out a couple of paragraphs ago, so I threw in another penny:-)
 
Greg Weintraub
BU '97
One Beanpot down, two trophies to go!