Greenie writes:
 
>In the East, I'm guessing that BU could lose in the finals and still gain a
>bye. UNH could lose in the finals and still get a bye -- but only if
>neither Clarkson or Yale made the ECAC finals. So what happens if UNH beats
>BU, and Yale beats Clarskson for their league championships? Going strictly
>by the PWR, BU should get a bye -- and so should UNH, ahead of Clarkson by
>1 slot in the PWR. But man, would this tick off the ECAC. Would the
>committee let this happen?
 
        It wouldn't have the option.  If Yale wins the ECAC
tournament, they get an automatic bye just like BU did last year.
 
        Also, UNH is not ahead of Clarkson on the basis of pairwise
comparisons.  You're presumably looking at the USCHO web page, which
shows each team with a PWR of 14 and ranks UNH higher because their
RPI is higher.  *BUT* Clarkson wins the individual comparison with
UNH, and *that* is what matters to the selection committee.  Here are
the pairwise comparisons among the five Eastern teams currently in a
position to qualify for the tournament:
 
   Team         lPWR RPI Comps Won
 1 Boston Univ    4 .619 CkNHBCYa
 2 Clarkson       2 .570   NHBC__
 3 New Hampshire  2 .576 __  BCYa
 4 Boston Coll    1 .571 ____  Ya
 5 Yale           1 .565 Ck____
 
Clarkson and UNH are tied in comparisons won with Eastern teams, just
as they are in total comparisons.  I am 99.99% sure that if the
comparisons ended up like this (and Yale didn't win the ECACs),
Clarkson would get the bye because they win the comparison with UNH.
Note, however, that the Clarkson-UNH comparison is not very stable,
since the comparisons looked like this before this afternoon's
BU-Merrimack game:
 
   Team         lPWR RPI Comps Won
 1 Boston Univ    4 .616 NHBCYaCk
 2 New Hampshire  3 .581   BCYaCk
 3 Boston Coll    1 .570 __  Ya__
 4 Yale           1 .560 ____  Ck
 5 Clarkson       1 .559 __BC__
 
What a difference a single comparison can make!
 
        BTW, because the WCHA regular season doesn't end until
tomorrow night, I'm going to delay this week's "If the Season Ended
Today" <http://www.slack.net/~whelan/cgi-bin/tbrw.cgi?pcurrent> by one
day.  I just updated the input for the play-at-home version
<http://www.slack.net/~whelan/cgi-bin/tbrw.cgi?tourney> and will do so
again tonight once the UMD-Denver result is in.
 
                                         John Whelan, Cornell '91
                                     Official Scorer/PA Announcer
                                        U of Utah Ice Hockey Club
                                               <[log in to unmask]>
                      <http://www.cc.utah.edu/~jtw16960/joe.html>
 
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