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Date: | Mon, 16 Mar 1992 23:47:21 EDT |
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A week's break between conclusion of play in the East and the
announcement of NCAA tourney seedings should provide ample opportunity
for discussion of the potential seedings in the East. Here are my choices
and reaso (with acknowledged bias towards SLU and ECAC) along with
a list of how I think they might actually come out.
EAST - if I were the committee as the real committee might do
1. Maine 1. Maine
2. St. Lawrence 2. Boston University
3. Boston University 3. New Hampshire
4. Alaska-Anchorage 4. St. Lawrence
5. Clarkson 5. Alaska-Anchorage
6. New Hampshire 6. Clarkson
Maine - Number 1 - How could a seed be any easier?
SLU - Number 2? The Saints are the ECAC Champion,
were only a point away from the regular season title, and have
the second best winning percentage in the East
Maine 29 - 3 - 2 0.882
SLU 22 - 8 - 1 0.726
B.U. 21 - 8 - 4 0.697
Clarkson 20 - 9 - 1 0.683
UNH 22 - 12 - 2 0.639
Harvard 14 - 7 - 6 0.630
Providence 21 - 13 - 2 0.611
B.U - Number 3? Overall record beats UNH, strength of schedule
a determiner over Clarkson. Lack of success in Hockey East tourney
prvents strength of schedule from overcoming SLU's superior winning
percentage.
Clarkson seeded above UNH? Superior overall record and a victory
at UNH.
Where does Alaska-Anchorage fit in? Beats me - its tougher to
rate a team that isn't a part of a regular league where many
games make comparisons easier.
Any chance for ECAC regular season champ Harvard? I don't think
so, their winning pct. is considerably below Clarkson's, they
lose the head-to-head to Clarkson (0-1-1), and their record against
teams under consideration is something like 1-5-0. Some might
argue strength of schedule, but getting pasted by Maine shouldn't
really help a team too much - since it seems to happen to everybody.
I've heard though that Harvard is still practicing...
Guessing the real selection committee's rationale:
B.U. - Number 2: They are #3 in winning percentage (in the East)
and can argue a more difficult schedule than SLU (B.U.'s RPICH
is #2 in East). Also having Coach Parker on the selection committee
probably will help - I know he "leaves the room" when BU is
discussed, but I assume he participates for the other teams in the
brackett. They certainly were not hurt in the seeding last year -
perhaps with good reason given the eventual results.
UNH over SLU - That old strength of schedule bear again, along
with UNH's 6-1 victory over SLU (at UNH after SLU had already
played Harvard and Brown the same weekend).
In fact, SLU played only 1 non-league game at home this year
- an unfortunate 3-2 loss to BC in their season opener which SLU
dominated and should have won. Given their overall 11-1-1 home
record, its too bad we only got to see them here for 13 of their
31 games (so far). How does this number (or %) of home games
compare to other Eastern schools?
What about Providence? Assuming that it is the East's turn to
take the independent (and A-A is certainly deserving of a bid
on their own merits this year), and assuming that two ECAC teams
are chosen and that Parker's BU will get a bid, it would seem
that Providence will be left out. On the other hand, the committee
might argue that their record is similar to UNH 22-12-2
(Providence 21-13-2) and give it to Providence based on a 3-1-0
head-to-head for the year. Does this sound unlikely? See the
Cornell-SLU discussion last year - similar records, SLU knocked
Cornell out in the tourney semifinals, but Cornell won both
regular season meetings and the committee has been said to
give no special weight to tourney games.
Wouldn't a 16 team NCAA tournament be nice?
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