-----Original Message-----
From: T. N. Long <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thursday, March 30, 2000 2:22 PM
Subject: Re: NCAA seeding comments
 
 
>I'm surprised at the number of people who saw the "upset" of New Hampshire
>coming.  Does that mean that the selection process was flawed by putting
>them into the tournament?  And if one sees an "upset" coming, is it then
>really an "upset"; or, does it just confirm that the better team won?
>"Upsets" are generally close games, and New Hampshire never really
>threatened to take the win.  But, it is fascinating that even after proving
>themselves in the tournament, people are still unable to acknowledge
>Niagara's rightful place in the ranking of college hockey teams this year.
>Is it really that hard to understand that when you combine one of the best
>goalies in the country with 14 other talented seniors, you have a unique
>combination of players that is rarely seen in college sport?  Now, was that
>combination of players unfair?  Probably so.:-)
 
You don't get it, do you?
 
There is plenty of evidence that there were several other teams that didn't
make the tournament that could have had as good a weekend as Niagara did.
Upsets are not necessarily close games; check out Mankato's win over North
Dakota earlier this year, for instance.
 
Did I see the upset of New Hampshire coming?  Not really, no.  But I wasn't
shocked by it either.  And given the way the Wildcats in general, and Ty
Conklin in particular, played, I wouldn't have been surprised if plenty of
other teams, a lot of whom clearly did not belong in the tournament, would
have as well.  The difference between teams is small enough that a team
around 20-25 in the country will beat one of the top teams often enough that
it just isn't shocking, and it will happen.
 
What is Niagara's rightful place in the rankings?  In a big jumble of teams
somewhere around 10-18, depending upon how you measure it.  The methods that
have the best predictive abilities tend to have NU somewhere towards the
lower number.  As I've said before, for a variety of reasons, I thought that
the committee made the right call in including Niagara, but they wouldn't
have gone very wrong taking Mankato, either.  They did, after all,
consistently play North Dakota closer than 4-1, if you really want to go
with single games as your evidence.
 
In part, that's because Niagara was close.  As others have pointed out, the
flaws in PWR (which is, after all, what this discussion is about rather than
whether Niagara should have been included) also had Quinnipiac among the top
teams in the country, while the rating methods we're suggesting are superior
had them around #40, or even lower.  This was not close, and *really*
demonstrates the flaws in the current system.
 
J. Michael Neal
 
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