>
>17 is a bit excessive; you're best of looking at the top 14 or 15 (at
most)
>teams. That's good for 12 teams making the tournament and 2 or 3
"bubble"
>teams.
>
>DISCLAIMER: "The tournament committee does not use opinion polls to
>determine tournament teams and/or seeding."
>
>Not much can be said about receiving one point, except for the possible
>speculation that the coach put in a vote for their own team.
>
>If there's anything that can be read from the poll about the inclusion
of 6
>ECAC teams it's the fact that they're ranked between 9th and 16th,
which
>would tend to point out three things about the feelings of the voters
this
>week:
>
>1. There's some good teams in the ECAC, but nobody has proven
themselves
>good enough to belong in the top half.
>
>2. The ECAC is not considered a tough conference by the voters in the
poll.
>Why else would Princeton and Rensselaer, with records of 11-4-1 and
12-5-1
>be voted so low? The three teams above them -- Boston College (.600),
>Colorado College (.682), and Notre Dame (.600)-- all have lower winning
>percentages than Princeton (.733). Heck, Maine (#3) has a record of
14-2-4
>(.700), also lower than Princeton.
>
>3. Princeton is considered by a significant margin to be the strongest
team
>in the ECAC, with nearly double the points of Rensselaer. Moreover,
given
>the margin in points between Princeton (56) and Colorado College (143),
>they've got a long way to go to impress the critics. Losing 9-1 to BU
>earlier in the season may just have been the "poll-killer" for
Princeton.
>
>
>greenie
 
 
I see the ECAC having several inconsistant teams, including Colgate,
Cornell, RPI, and Princeton.  While Princeton has a SLIGHTLY better
record than RPI, you have to take into consideration the fact that:
 
a)RPI defeated Princeton.
b)RPI has lost to quality opposition(Lowell, Niagra, New Hampshire), all
of those being non-conference games.  New Hampshire is already ranked
ahead of them, Niagra is not too bad this year, and Lowell defeated
Clarkson, St. Lawrence, and UMD.  I know that this isn't great evidence
of one team being better than the other, but I still have to go with
Rennsselaer considering they beat Princeton one-on-one.
 
Kyle Smith
[log in to unmask]
GO RPI!!!
 
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