>But this is not the only factor.  In deciding which teams play where, they
>can try to maximize attendance and limit conference matchups.  Remember
>that Lowell went West instead of Clarkson or Cornell because of attendance.
>This was stated last year.  They could have kept Lowell East and limited
>matchups as you say, but then attendance may have suffered.
 
        But didn't the selection committee say that Lowell and
Clarkson were considered equal draws?  To quote you last year:
 
>Q1: Why was Lowell sent West over Clarkson?
 
>Rick Comley said that one of Clarkson, Lowell, or Cornell should go West
>(along with PC).  He said that it was decided to keep Cornell East because
>of their fan base.  So the decision came down to Lowell or Clarkson.  Rick
>said that fan base was determined to be even.  To make the decision, Rick
>said that they went to the criteria, and that Clarkson edged Lowell on
>criteria, and thus Clarkson goes to Albany and Lowell goes to East Lansing.
 
        Anyway, the actual seeds do involve some shuffling, and are
pretty close to what you predicted:
 
 1 Michigan (C,20)         2 Clarkson (E,19)
 3 North Dakota (W,18)     8 BU (H,13)
10 Miami (C,12)            6 Vermont (E,14)
 4 Minnesota (W,16)        5 UNH (H,15)
13 Michigan State (C,9)   12 CC (W,9)
 9 Cornell (E,13)         11 Denver (W,10)
 
(I've added the number of comparisons won, in parentheses after the
conference.)  The out of order seeding can be explained by setting up
brackets: as you predicted, Minnesota is 4W and UNH 4E to avoid the
conference matchups.  Since the 3 and 4 seeds are reversed, it makes
no sense to put the worst team into the 2-3-6 bracket, since both of
their potential opponents there would be lower ranked than in the
1-4-5 bracket.  Thus MSU is 5W and CC is 5E.  So the only question is
why are Cornell and Miami seeded the way they are instead of reversed.
(Not that it really matters, except to determine who gets to be the
"home team" in the 3-6 game.)  Cornell wins 13 comparisons to Miami's
12, but Miami wins the individual comparison against Cornell.  It
seems that the NC$$ gives more weight to the individual comparison
here.  But by the same logic, Vermont should have been sent West
instead of Cornell, since Cornell wins the comparison with Vermont,
despite UVM winning one more total PWC (14 to 13).  I think this
decision was made on the basis of attendance, meaning that Cornell now
suffers from the same consideration that helped them last year.  What
comes around goes around.
 
        Oh yeah, and could the folks on the selection show maybe spend
a little time on this list?  Why ask stupid questions like are
Clarkson and BU surprised they got the 1-2 seeds in the East?
 
                                        John Whelan, Cornell '91
                                        <[log in to unmask]>
        <http://www.cc.utah.edu/~jtw16960/jshock.html>
 
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