> John Whelan wrote:
>> We won't know for sure how exactly the field was chosen until the
>> committee provides us with an explanation this week, but to imply that
>> it was done simply on the basis of PWR is detrimental to the process
>> of educating the college hockey public.
>
> I cannot prove this until again speaking to the committee, but as I have
> tried to point out in recent years, I think it does become, in essence,
> the same exact thing.
>
> My reading of it all has been that the committee will define "the
> bubble" as everyone thereafter that isn't certain. All the other TUCs.
> Thus, as they look through the comparisons, they are, in essence and in
> fact, just totalling up the PWR the same as the actual PWR list.
 
The key difference is that if the committee goes strictly by PWR,
then they never look at individual comparisons between teams, only
the sum of those comparisons.
 
If the committee looked at say, Notre Dame vs Northern Michigan, in
isolation, and chose NMU because they beat Notre Dame in this
head-to-head type of criteria comparison, then THEY DO NOT USE PWR as
the determining factor.
 
If they chose NMU because Northern wins 7 comparisons and Notre Dame
wins 6, then they do use PWR.
 
It is possible for one team to have a better PWR than another, but
lose the head-to-head criteria comparison. If the committee says they
always go with the team with the better PWR, then USCHO's claim is
valid.
 
BUT if the committee even looks at 1 head-to-head criteria
comparison, then they have gone beyond PWR and it is not the deciding
factor. It could still be an important factor, but not the be-all
that USCHO claims.
 
In many cases, the team with the better PWR *also* wins the
head-to-head criteria comparison. So it is hard for us to reverse
engineer. All we have to do is ask the committee what their deciding
factor was, criteria comparison sums, or an individual comparison
win. Then we will know where PWR stands.
 
Keith
 
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