This is indeed becoming endless.  No one expects the ranking systems to be
perfect.  It's impossible.  The reason they were instituted in the first
place was because subjective evaluations on who should be allowed in and who
should not be in were and are not fair.  They never will be.  Now the NCAA
definitely used a subjective evaluation on whether to let Quinnipiac in or
not.  They also had to use a subjective evaluation about where to seed
Niagara once they decided they accepted Niagara's RPI and PWR as being
reasonable enough to give them a spot in the tournament.  And I'm absolutely
sure they had to make a decision about that.  They may have some numbers
about each of the conference's winning percentages against everyone else to
back up the decision about Quinnipiac, but they had to discard the system
they are using and go outside it to make decisions on both Quinnipiac and
Niagara.  Suddenly something that is supposed to be a matter of the numbers
is no longer a matter of the numbers.  There are systems where they don't
have to do that.
 
And aside from the Quinnipiac issue, if the final PWR was just about correct
placing Niagara at #5 as pointed out by John Whelan, then Niagara was
betrayed by the NCAA's subjective evaluation as well.  The NCAA seeded them
sixth in their region for subjective reasons.  If they'd followed their own
PWR ratings Niagara would have been seeded higher and may not have had to
play North Dakota.  Who knows, they might even still be alive in the
tournament!  And if the NCAA's evaluation system is so good, then New
Hampshire wasn't treated fairly either because they shouldn't have been
playing Niagara in the first round of the tournament.  Any subjective
evaluation and decision based on it affects every single team in the
tournament and those left out "on the bubble" as well.
 
Moreover it's a crazy system used by the NCAA when Minnesota coach Don Lucia
knew it would be better to lose to Wisconsin in the semifinals of the WCHA
tournament and then defeat St. Cloud in the consolation game than to win and
then lose to North Dakota in the finals.  They would have won a critical
pairwise comparison by doing that.  Try to defend that one!  Coaches and the
players deserve to know exactly what it takes to make the tournament.  They
know right now at least winning the major conference tournaments or playoffs
will get them there, but beyond on that it just isn't as clear as it is
supposed to be.  It sure isn't fair to Quinnipiac to know they really can't
get in despite their numbers in the current system.  And I'm not too sure
that Niagara was sure they were going to get in either.
 
Would the selection committee have decided differently if Niagara had lost
the CHA finals to Alabama-Huntsville?  A loss there wouldn't have impacted
the numbers since UAH is a D2 team this year, but would it have changed how
the committee felt?  What if Quinnipiac had won the MAAC playoffs?  Who
knows for sure?  But it shouldn't be a matter of speculation.  Even if the
system is unfair it should be followed and not discarded.  There are fairer
systems where you don't have to make decisions about whether the numbers
legitimately represent whether the team belongs in or where it should be
seeded.
 
Eric Carlson
 
-----Original Message-----
From: The College Hockey Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
Behalf Of T. N. Long
Sent: Friday, March 31, 2000 9:38 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: 2003 Tournament Selection
 
 
If Niagara ran the table and won the whole thing, then that would be the
time to use Niagara as an example to challenge the PWR rankings.  When you
assert that a system is flawed by using empirical data that indicates that
it isn't flawed, then that is just plain silly.  And if one challenges
Niagara's convincing win over New Hampshire for the purpose of defending
their favorite ranking system, then they're just being bad sports.  Niagara
took their PWR ranking to the tournament and succcessfully defended it.  I
still find it fascinating that people can't just accept that.
 
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