Rob Holmes writes:
>This arguement lacks one important ingredient. The WCHA doesn't have any teams
>that are bad. The WCHA doesn't have any teams like Yale, Dartmouth, St.
>Lawrence, Princeton, Kent, Ohio State, Ill-Chicago, Cornell, etc... It's a
>lot easier to put up a big winning percentage when several of the teams in
>your conference are "not the good". The WCHA had a lot of parody this year,
>which brings winning percentages down, but makes for great games. 5 of the top
>15 teams in the RPI ratings were from the WCHA. If Wisconsin played Kent 4
>times a year, their numbers would have been better. I don't see the logic in
>your reasoning.
But by the same token, HE doesn't have any teams you consider "bad"
either, yet they were able to get 4 teams into the tourney to the
WCHA's 2 - and the 4th HE team to get in, Northeastern, was not even
the 12th seeded team among the teams that got in.
From Erik's latest RPICH:
Conf AvgRPI AvgRPIRank
HE .5341 13.38
WCHA .5137 18.3
CCHA .4979 23
ECAC .4764 27.5
AvgRPI=add up sums of each team's RPI and divide by # teams
AvgRPIRank=add up each team's position in RPI and divide by # teams
Basically, here is how the HE & WCHA teams finished in RPICH:
HE teams/% WCHA teams/%
#1-10 4/50% 2/20%
#11-20 2/25% 3/30%
#21-30 2/25% 5/50%
Alternatively,
HE teams/% WCHA teams/%
#1-15 4/50% 5/50%
#16-30 4/50% 5/50%
We have a subjective argument here. Was the WCHA a conference of many
good teams who beat up on each other, or of many mediocre teams who
went round and round knocking each other off? Here's something that
does not answer this question, but it may explain the difference
between the WCHA & HE: each conference's total record in games against
teams from one of the other three conferences. No Independents, no
Canadian teams, no nonleague games against teams from the same
conference, no playoff games.
HE 36-15-2 .698
WCHA 13-11-0 .542
CCHA 14-15-1 .483
ECAC 13-35-3 .284
Is it time for the WCHA to cut back on its league schedule and start
allowing teams to schedule even more nonconference games? Well, it
wasn't so long ago that the WCHA had the best situation of all of the
conferences (except one) - an interlocking schedule with HE. Every
team in the WCHA was guaranteed a game against every HE team. More
often than not, the WCHA won more than 50% of those games, usually
about 60%. But when SCSU entered the WCHA in 1989, the WCHA opted
(for other reasons that have been discussed here many times as well)
to retain its tradition of playing each league opponent 4x and
canceled the agreement with HE.
HE is the smallest of the conferences and has tried to keep as many
nonconference games available as possible. Although the league
schedule (games vs other HE teams) has slowly crept up from 18 in
1988-89 to 21 to the present 24, HE teams still have more nonleague
games available than any other conference. Even if RPI becomes the
league's 10th team, they will still have 7 NC games to play.
HE has also played most of its NC games vs the ECAC and won a majority
of them. What seems interesting is that even though the AvgRPI and
AvgRPIRank for ECAC teams is below that of any other conference, HE
has benefitted from playing and beating these teams. Next question
is whether getting a win is more important than who you get it against.
By the criteria, HE teams have fared very well in tourney selection
since the end of the HE-WCHA agreement. Are HE teams really that much
more deserving, or does HE just know how to play the system? (or have
they fallen into a way to play the system...)
Could the WCHA take a page from their book? Maybe...back a couple of
years ago when HE teams were playing 21 games and considering expanding
to 28, they tried to convince the other conferences to make more NC games
available - the CCHA/WCHA to cut back their schedules, primarily.
They got nowhere and decided expanding the league schedule was the
only thing left to do, because teams were seriously having trouble
filling out their 34-game overall schedule. Since several teams
wanted to stick with 21 and several others wanted to expand to 28, the
"Great Compromise" of 24 was arrived at. But recently, it has become
even harder to schedule NC games with Independents joining conferences or
dropping out of DivI and the other conferences do not increase
significantly their NC games available. HE has apparently decided that
to follow the lead of the others and expand. Mass Amherst and RPI could
make 10 teams by 1995-96, and they are talking about 12 being the ideal
number (possible additions being Villanova, UConn, and Holy Cross).
Yet, the plan is not to match the other conferences in league games,
from what coaches and ADs have said. Many have been quoted as saying
that they'd actually like a *smaller* league schedule - against *more*
teams. The expansion talk certainly supports this. HE teams have
also said that they want to play more Western teams and they schedule
them whenever possible.
Maybe HE has learned that the way to win out in the ratings is to
schedule more opponents (and beat them, of course). Maybe it is a
lead the WCHA should follow. But I don't expect it to happen, for
some of the very good reasons that ended the HE-WCHA interlocking
schedule 5 years ago. Yet, as long as the status quo is maintained in
the WCHA, it is really difficult for me to believe that they are
getting the shaft. They are the ones refusing to play other teams.
They have made a decision that sticking with a bigger league schedule
is what they want for a number of good reasons, but they must also
deal with the consequences, one of which is that it may hurt at NC$$
tourney selection time.
BTW, it has not always hurt them in the past. The WCHA got 4 teams in
last year. Whether this is an unusual season or not is something yet
to be determined. Also, Maine and BU were far ahead of any of the
other HE teams last season and they were the only two HE teams to
receive bids. This just makes it that much more difficult to find out
what a solution would be to the problem. However, it also points to
the possibility that maybe, just maybe, like HE last season, the WCHA
*was* a conference of mediocrity this season with a couple of teams
that rose above the rest.
--- ---
Mike Machnik [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc. *HMM* 11/13/93
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