On whether Minnesota was intentionally placed in an easier bracket:
first, hindsight is 20/20.  I thought that bracket seemed tailor-made
for Lowell to get to St Paul.  Minnesota sure looked beatable after
the SCSU-Minn WCHA Championship Game.  They may have been beaten if
not for Lowell having played the night before.
 
But at any rate, such an argument would have to, I'd think, go
hand-in-hand with evidence that the committee bypassed its seeding
process when it came time to decide where Minnesota would end up.
There is no such evidence.  I have not found any cases where the positions
in which teams were seeded (starting with the original 1-12+ listing) cannot
be explained simply by looking at the five factors the committee used
and the additional factors such as conference teams not meeting in the
first round and RPI/MSU playing at home.
 
BTW, Ryan said:
 
>I would have liked to see Lake State ranked more
>appropriately, 2nd in the West, then we would have seen a much better 4th
>team, LIKE Michigan.
 
However, LSSU was 4th in the West, not 3rd.  4W LSSU would have had to
beat out 3W Lowell, too, not just 2W Minnesota.
 
Minnesota wins out in a head to head comparison with LSSU because of
the RPI.  Minnesota's rating was more than .01 greater than LSSU, so we
do not even have to look at the other factors.  Simply put, the Lakers
did not have a spectacular regular season.  14-1-2 in their last 17
through the BU win, but they were 17-9-2 before that streak and in third
place with WMU & BG right behind.
 
Remember, LSSU came inches from being knocked out in the first round
by Northeastern.  I have yet to watch the tape, but Sid says that they
showed numerous views to the press in St Paul (some of which were not
telecast, I believe) and the media consensus was that the Huskies were
robbed.  If Northeastern had indeed won that game, it would have been
down to NU and Michigan for a final four berth, and it would be
difficult to say that whichever of Michigan/LSSU didn't make it,
either or both deserved to be there.
 
BTW, once Minnesota lost Thursday, the number of people trying to get
rid of tickets Saturday was astounding.  I would bet that from what I
overheard, most people selling tickets within an hour before the game
outside the rink did not get much more than $5/ticket ($25 face).
Heather's cousin, a Gopher fan, decided to give us his pair of tickets
to either give to someone or sell for whatever we could get, and we
literally could not even give them away.  I still have them, if any
LSSU fan wants to buy them as a souvenir. :-)
---                                                                 ---
Mike Machnik                                          [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                  *HMM* 11/13/93