I finally got around to writing my first "If the Season Ended Today"
of the season, which is on the web at
http://www.slack.net/~whelan/cgi-bin/tbrw.cgi?pairwise.current
There is a very sticky issue using the current comparisons, about just
who gets the final at-large bid. In essence it's the usual question
of what defines the bubble, but since Niagara's comparisons are
extremely non-transitive this season, it's much more likely to be an
issue in the final selection this year. Here's an excerpt from the
run-through, after the MAAC teams have been excluded and the current
conference leaders (including SLU, who would otherwise be on the
bubble) have been given hypothetical auto-bids:
With that out of the way, we proceed to assigning the at-large bids.
Maine and Boston College win their comparisons with all of the teams
below them, and with the exception of the Princeton-Notre Dame
comparison, so do Colorado College, Clarkson and Princeton. So those
five should get bids easily. The remaining three bids need to be given
based on pairwise comparisons among the "bubble teams". Where life
gets really complicated is in the definition of the bubble, because
Division I Independent Niagara wins so many comparisons against team
higher in the PWR and loses comparisons against those farther down. To
illustrate, consider the broadest possible set of teams that could end
up on the bubble, leaving out only teams which have already been
granted at-large or automatic bids, plus the bottom five teams in the
PWR, who lose all but one of the comparisons with teams above them.
That leaves the following eight teams in contention for the last three
bids:
Team lPWR RPI Comps Won
1 Ohio State 6 .543 Mi__NtNiNMRPPv
2 Michigan 5 .564 __ DUNt__NMRPPv
3 Denver U 5 .546 OS__ __NiNMRPPv
4 Notre Dame 4 .562 ____DU __NMRPPv
5 Niagara 3 .487 __Mi__Nt NM____
6 Northern Mich 2 .538 __________ RPPv
7 RPI 2 .531 ________Ni__ Pv
8 Providence 1 .522 ________Ni____
It would seem like Ohio State, Michigan and DU are the teams to take,
but if we drop the bottom three teams (who are clearly not going to
make the cut), give a bid to top team OSU, and instead define a
four-team bubble, we get the following:
Team lPWR RPI Comps Won
1 Niagara 2 .487 MiNt__
2 Michigan 2 .564 __ NtDU
3 Notre Dame 1 .562 ____ DU
4 Denver U 1 .546 Ni____
In which case Niagara makes the field in place of Denver. I don't
think we can predict what the committee would do here. The definition
of the bubble is the only vague aspect of selecting the field, and
while that vagueness has never mattered before, it could be crucial if
Niagara's comparisons stay about the way they are. It's even possible
that Notre Dame would receive the final bid rather than Niagara or
Denver. They do have the highest RPI of the three, and win the
pairwise comparison with Denver.
If the season ended today, I honestly couldn't tell you which of these
three teams would make the tournament.
John Whelan, Cornell '91
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http://www.amurgsval.org/joe/
"We've got a whole mess of penalties" -- Cornell PA Announcer
Arthur Mintz, after the Cornell-Union brawl 1998 December 4
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