#The Big Red What? TBRW? contributions by Joe Schlobotnik Joe
Schlobotnik's Sports Machine
The season ended today, 1999 March 22
) 1999, Joe Schlobotnik (archives)
URL for this frameset:
http://www.slack.net/~whelan/cgi-bin/tbrw.cgi?pairwise.current.shtml
If you want to work out some of the alternate possible interpretations
of the pairwise comparisons yourself, try the interactive "You Are The
Committee" script.
Another season of NCAA men's division I hockey has come to a wild
finish, but before we embark upon the postseason of the NCAA
tournament, there are some questions to be answered by the tournament
selection procedure. First, let's start with what we know: North
Dakota, Michigan State, Clarkson, New Hampshire, Denver, Michigan and
Boston College will all receive automatic bids for winning their
conference regular season or tournament titles. That leaves five
at-large bids to be given out on the basis of pairwise comparisons
among all teams which finished with Division I records of .500 or
better. Running those comparisons with the final results from US
College Hockey Online's Division I Composite Schedule, we obtain the
following results:
Team PWR RPI Comparisons Won
1 North Dakota 21 .641 NHMSMeBCCkCCDUSLQnMiOSNMRPPnNtMkCgNiCtHCPv
2 New Hampshire 20 .629 __ MSMeBCCkCCDUSLQnMiOSNMRPPnNtMkCgNiCtHCPv
3 Mich State 19 .597 ____ MeBCCkCCDUSLQnMiOSNMRPPnNtMkCgNiCtHCPv
4 Maine 18 .609 ______ BCCkCCDUSLQnMiOSNMRPPnNtMkCgNiCtHCPv
5 Boston Coll 17 .593 ________ CkCCDUSLQnMiOSNMRPPnNtMkCgNiCtHCPv
6 Clarkson 16 .592 __________ CCDUSLQnMiOSNMRPPnNtMkCgNiCtHCPv
7 CO College 15 .583 ____________ DUSLQnMiOSNMRPPnNtMkCgNiCtHCPv
8 Denver U 14 .571 ______________ SLQnMiOSNMRPPnNtMkCgNiCtHCPv
9 St Lawrence 12 .557 ________________ Qn__OSNMRPPnNtMkCgNiCtHCPv
10 Quinnipiac 12 .536 __________________ MiOSNMRPPnNtMkCgNiCtHCPv
11 Michigan 11 .565 ________________SL__ OSNMRPPnNtMkCg__CtHCPv
12 Ohio State 8 .531 ______________________ NM____NtMkCgNiCtHCPv
13 Northern Mich 7 .543 ________________________ RPPnNtMkCg__Ct__Pv
14 RPI 7 .533 ______________________OS__ Pn__MkCg__CtHCPv
15 Princeton 7 .531 ______________________OS____ __MkCgNiCtHCPv
16 Notre Dame 6 .536 __________________________RPPn MkCg__Ct__Pv
17 MSU-Mankato 5 .525 ________________________________ CgNiCtHCPv
18 Colgate 4 .523 __________________________________ NiCtHCPv
19 Niagara 4 .480 ____________________Mi__NMRP__Nt____ ______
20 Connecticut 3 .519 ____________________________________Ni HCPv
21 Holy Cross 3 .509 ________________________NM____Nt____Ni__ __
22 Providence 2 .511 ____________________________________Ni__HC
Maine, Colorado College, and St. Lawrence all clearly qualify at-large
bids since they win their pairwise comparisons with everyone else in
contention for those bids. The same would appear to be true of
Metro-Atlantic Athletic Conference regular season champion Quinnipiac.
However, the ratings percentage index upon which the pairwise
comparisons are largely based, has a weakness which is very
significant this year: it does not judge a teams' strength of schedule
accurately when that team's opponents have themselves played weak
schedules. Since the six division I members of the new MAAC conference
play 20 games each against each other, plus a few non-conference games
against Division I independents, a team like Quinnipiac can rack up a
high winning percentage against weak competition without the weakness
of their schedule being reflected in the RPI. Anticipating this, the
selection committee, as reported in the NCAA News, "noted that it
reserves the right to evaluate each team based on the relative
strength of their respective conference." The best way to gauge that
relative strength is via the conferences' performance against the four
Division I independents:
vs Indies vs Army vs Niagara vs AFA vs Mankato
Avg RPI PF-PA Pct PF-PA Pct PF-PA Pct PF-PA Pct PF-PA Pct
HE .523 14- 2 .875 12-0 1.000 0- 2 .000 2-0 1.000 0- 0 .---
WCHA .503 32-10 .762 0-0 .--- 0- 0 .--- 10-0 1.000 22-10 .688
CCHA .503 5- 5 .500 0-0 .--- 2- 4 .333 0-0 .--- 3- 1 .750
ECAC .495 28-10 .737 10-0 1.000 10-10 .500 2-0 1.000 6- 0 1.000
MAAC .454 8-22 .267 5-5 .500 0- 4 .000 3-5 .350 0- 8 .000
Given this poor performance against the only teams which can be used
to gauge the MAAC relative to the major conferences, it seems that the
NCAA's standard of competetive equity has not been reached, and
therefore we can expect that the committee will decide not to award a
bid to any MAAC team.
With Quinnipiac (and Connecticut and Holy Cross) out of the picture,
that still leaves two at-large berths to fill, and even without
worrying about the possibility of a surprise MAAC bid, there are four
different ways they could reasonably be awarded. The point of
confusion is that the NCAA is supposed to award at-large bids based on
the pairwise comparisons among the "bubble" teams which are not
obviously either in or out. The largest conceivable set of such teams
is the following six:
1 Ohio State 3 .531 NiNMNt____
2 Niagara 3 .480 __ NMNtRP__
3 Northern Mich 3 .543 ____ NtRPPn
4 Notre Dame 2 .536 ______ RPPn
5 RPI 2 .533 OS______ Pn
6 Princeton 2 .531 OSNi______
With OSU, Niagara and NMU winning three of five comparisons each, and
Northern losing the individual comparisons to the other two, this
would seem to place Ohio State and Niagara in the tournament field.
However, looking at the table of pairwise rankings above you might
well ask what Niagara is doing on the bubble when they are 19th in the
country in terms of total number of comparisons won. However, the
total PWR is not as important to the selection committee as the
individual comparisons among teams in contention for a certain spot,
and if the comparisons against MAAC teams (notably Holy Cross and
UConn) and recipients of automatic bids are discarded, Niagara find
themselves with three comparisons won, tied with Mankato. OSU and NMU
have won 6 each and Notre Dame, RPI and Princeton 5 each. If they are
granted bubble status, Niagara clean up since all three of their
comparison wins are against other bubble teams, even though they lose
to three teams that are obviously off the bubble. If you exclude the
MAAC teams and then select "automatic" on my "You Are the Committee"
script, this is what happens. However, I can imagine the committee
more likely than not making the cutoff for "bubbledom" above rather
than below Niagara's level, so let's see what happens if they are left
off the bubble. (Another issue which they will probably not consider
is that Niagara benefits to a lesser extent from the weaknesses in the
PWR which the MAAC is able to exploit with its weak schedule. Their
records in the last 16 games and against other teams under
consideration are deceptively high because these winning percentages
were amassed against a weaker schedule. If strength of schedule were
corrected for, they would not win the comparisons they do.)
So, supposing we look at a five-team bubble not involving Niagara:
1 Northern Mich 3 .543 NtRP__Pn
2 Notre Dame 2 .536 __ RP__Pn
3 RPI 2 .533 ____ OSPn
4 Ohio State 2 .531 NMNt__ __
5 Princeton 1 .531 ______OS
Princeton wins only one comparison out of four and NMU wins three,
with the others taking two each. So if we say Northern is in and
Princeton out, the other three are still tied with one comparison
each. In this case, the tie breaker is RPI, which goes to Notre Dame.
But it's not quite so simple. If we throw Princeton out and re-total
the comparisons before doing anything about NMU (since Princeton is
further from the cutoff), then Northern Michigan and Ohio State each
win two out of the three remaining comparisons. (If we put Northern in
before dealing with Princeton, Notre Dame again takes the last bid,
since they win two out of three comparisons, including the
head-to-head with RPI, who also win two.) So with a five-team bubble,
we get two different answers depending in which order we prune it.
Finally, we could conceivably define the bubble to have four teams if
we make an arbitrary cutoff between a total PWR of 6 and 7. Then Notre
Dame is out and we find:
1 Northern Mich 2 .543 RPPn__
2 RPI 2 .533 __ PnOS
3 Princeton 1 .531 ____ OS
4 Ohio State 1 .531 NM____
Northern and Rensselaer are then the last two at-large bids. However,
this option seems unlikely to me, since such a cutoff would be in the
midst of the region of "non-transitive comparisons". Plus it would
involve appealing to the total PWR and essentially excluding Notre
Dame from the bubble for losing the suspect Holy Cross comparison.
To recap, the final two at-large bids could reasonably be given to NMU
and Notre Dame or NMU and OSU, or conceivably to NMU and RPI or OSU
and Niagara. What will the committee do? I cannot say for any
certainty, but after the field is announced we will understand the
process of identifying the bubble somewhat better than we do now.
For the sake of concreteness let's say they select Northern Michigan
and Notre Dame (I think a 5-team bubble is likely, but the question of
how they'd pare it down is up in the air). In that case, we have seven
Western and only five Eastern teams, so we move the lowest-ranked
Western team, Notre Dame, over to compensate:
West East
1 North Dakota 5 .641 MSCCDUMiNM | 1 New Hampshire 5 .629 MeBCCkSLNt
2 Mich State 4 .597 CCDUMiNM | 2 Maine 4 .609 BCCkSLNt
3 CO College 3 .583 __ DUMiNM | 3 Boston Coll 3 .593 __ CkSLNt
4 Denver U 2 .571 ____ MiNM | 4 Clarkson 2 .592 ____ SLNt
5 Michigan 1 .565 ______ NM | 5 St Lawrence 1 .557 ______ Nt
6 Northern Mich 0 .543 ________ | 6 Notre Dame 0 .536 ________
As was the case with Boston University in 1997, Clarkson receive an
automatic bye for winning both the regular season and tournament
championships in the ECAC. The other three regular season champions,
North Dakota, Michigan State and New Hampshire, all lost in their
conference playoffs, but qualify for byes on the basis of their
pairwise comparisons. Now we need to ship two teams from each region
into the other. In the East, it's easy to see that this will be SLU
and Notre Dame; although leaving all three Hockey East teams in one
regional means there will be a potential second-round intraconference
matchup, attendance considerations ensure that Boston College will be
left in the regional in Worcester, and Maine is too far above SLU in
the comparisons to justify moving them instead. In the West, the
numbers tell us to move Michigan and NMU to the East to get
West East
1 North Dakota (W) 1 .641 MS | 1 New Hampshire (H) 1 .629 Ck
2 Mich State (C) 0 .597 | 2 Clarkson (E) 0 .592
3 CO College (W) 3 .583 DUSLNt | 3 Maine (H) 3 .609 BCMiNM
4 Denver U (W) 2 .571 SLNt | 4 Boston Coll (H) 2 .593 MiNM
5 St Lawrence (E) 1 .557 __ Nt | 5 Michigan (C) 1 .565 __ NM
6 Notre Dame (C) 0 .536 ____ | 6 Northern Mich (C) 0 .543 ____
The West regional has two potential second-round matchups, but we can
reduce that number to one (which is the minimum possible with seven
Western teams in the NCAAs by switching the seeds of SLU and Notre
Dame. Generally speaking, this also means switching CC and DU, to
preserve the first-round pairings, which also has the benefit of
avoiding a rematch of the WCHA final between North Dakota and Denver.
The bracket that comes out is then:
5W Notre Dame (C) 6E Northern Mich (C)
4W CO College (W) 3E Maine (H)
1W North Dakota (W) --+--2E Clarkson (E)
|
2W Mich State (C) --+--1E New Hampshire (H)
3W Denver U (W) 4E Boston Coll (H)
6W St Lawrence (E) 5E Michigan (C)
However, the committee has a lot of leeway in choosing which Western
teams go where, and might mix it up a little to improve attendance,
for instance by moving Michigan into the regional in Madison in place
of Notre Dame or Denver. Bumping Denver also heads off that WCHA
tournament repeat, so to make a final guess at the brackets, let's
say:
5W St Lawrence (E) 6E Northern Mich (C)
4W Michigan (C) 3E Maine (H)
1W North Dakota (W) --+--2E Clarkson (E)
|
2W Mich State (C) --+--1E New Hampshire (H)
3W CO College (W) 4E Boston Coll (H)
6W Notre Dame (C) 5E Denver U (W)
This prediction is made with very little confidence: there are several
other ways to fill the field, and in each case about four plausible
permutations of the Western teams. The four bye seeds are set, and I
think we can say with confidence that Maine and BC will be in the East
and SLU in the West. Beyond that, all we know for sure is that
Michigan, Denver and Colorado College will be somewhere...
The Gory Details
You can also see a detailed accounting of the final pairwise
comparisons.
_________________________________________________________________
Last Modified: 1999 March 21
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