Obviously any given team is going to play most of their games against
conference opponents, especially towards the end of the season.  However,
the opponents win % and the opponents-opponents win % (which make up 65% of
the RPI) still contain all those non-conference games played during the
first half of the season.  So if a team were to win most of it's conference
games, but the conference as a whole did poorly versus the other
conferences, then the team's RPI would be lowered since their own winning %
as well as the winning % of most of their opponents (the other conference
members) would drop.
 
To illustrate how the insular schedule of the MAAC really affects this, I
calculated the "schedule depth" of each team.  The schedule depth is
determined as follows. For any given team there are 50 other Div. I teams.
A certain set of those teams will appear in the opponents list and another
set will appear in the opponents-opponents list.  I determined schedule
depth to be how many of the 50 teams show up in either of these lists. Here
are the averages for each conference:
 
Schedule Depth (out of 50):
Independents 47
ECAC 46
Hockey East 45
WCHA 44
CCHA 41
MAAC 25
 
Notes:
The highest three are Colgate (50), Niagara (50), and a tie between Mankato,
Mass-Amherst, Providence, RPI and Yale with 49.
The lowest three in the four major conferences are Harvard (39), Michigan
Tech (37), and Alaska-Fairbanks (33).
The six MAAC teams are Holy Cross (30), Canisius (29), and Connecticut (29),
Quinnipiac (24), Fairfield (19), and Iona (19).
 
Also the only two non-conference opponents were Air Force (twice) and Army.
These two teams have a combined record of 8-28-4 and Quinnipiac went 2-1-0
against them and outscored them by the whopping margin of 8-7.
 
I'm not trying to say that Quinnipiac sucks, I'm just trying to point out
that they, most likely, are not a top twelve team and if they are, they are
boarderline at best.  So should the committee let them in when it's
questionable whether or not they fall into the top 12 or should they let in
another team that has better data to back up their rankings?  It may take a
little time but Quinnipiac, as well as the other MAAC teams, will get their
shot.
 
Jim Walker
 
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