This has been brought up a few times in the past week, but I don't really agree
RPI was totally "snubbed" in the NC$$ tournament in 1990.  The final standings
of 89-90 bear this out...
 
1  Colgate            22 18-3-1   37  101-62  || 38  31-6-1   179-119 | 13-3-0
 2  RPI                22 14-8-0   28  131-107 || 34  20-14-0  176-151 |  6-6-0
 3  Cornell            22 12-7-3   27   86-69  || 29  16-10-3  109-92  |  4-3-0
    Clarkson           22 12-7-3   27   91-77  || 35  21-11-3  156-116 |  9-4-0
 
some important things to note are...
 
- Clarkson was only one point behind RPI (27 vs 28)
- The Knights had a 2-0 record vs. RPI and a better non-league record that
year.  Presumably, before the ECAC tournament, RPI had a 3-5 nonleague record;
Clarkson's appears to have been 7-1.
- Both teams lost to Colgate in the ECAC tournament, it's just that Clarkson
faced them the first night. (Probably irrelevant anyway)
- The only reason RPI beat ECAC #1 and #2 on the last weekend is that they were
travel partners who happened to be at the Field House for the last week of the
season.  (And RPI's final 6-5 OT win over Cornell was one helluva game, i'm
telling you!)  It's not inconceivable that Clarkson swept these two teams at
home, also.
 
If you go by those rules of "marginal picks," I, as an Engineer fan, really
think that Clarkson deserved the pick over the Engineers.
 
One other thing to note from these stats is how wild RPI games were ... the
Engineers had (by far) the most goals "for" and (marginally) the most goals
"against" of any team in the ECAC... at an RPI game you'd see an average of
about 11 goals scored... whew!  :)
 
sorry, Rich, I don't mean to be objecting to everything you say here... it's
just the way it looks to me... Cheers,
 
Ross
RPI '91 Go go go you red red red!