At 11:50 AM -0700 3/22/98, Charlie Shub wrote:
>i was wrong,  we now have a reprise of the CCHA final in the west region
>and a BU New Hampshire final in the east region.  I thought the committee
>would try to avoid that.
 
I do not know exactly how you did your thing Charlie (thanks for doing it
even tho it did not match those other guy's!) but perhaps you were seeeding
this year's field based too much on what the committee did LAST year.
 
Recall that last year when one crunched the numbers and plopped teams into
brackets, you got all sorts of intra-conference matchups. So the committee
fiddled with the seeds, making the 1-6 seed numbers basically worthless.
 
This is NOT standard procedure for them. They did it last year because
"they had to".
 
Traditionally, they crunch the numbers and THEN look for problems. If there
are not major problems (ie no 1st round conference matchups) then they stop
there and call it a night/day. Or so it appears.
 
Perhaps you looked too hard for brackets without 2 teams from the same
conference. Obviously, the committee does not like to mess with the seeds
unless they have too. Two possible second round intra-conference games are
not serious problems, not serious enough to start jumbling seeds (and
compromising the data).
 
So I take this as further evidence that they do not like to deviate from
the numbers. The messing with the brackets they did last year is not part
of the well-defined rules that make up the process. I think they like to
stick to the rules whenever they can. This year they could get by without
fiddling around afterwards, so I bet they are really happy campers.
 
And I am still not convinced the committee analyzed the data the same way I
did. We both came up with the same answers, but who knows if we took the
same path? I've gotten similar answers before, but I did not come up with
their seeds last year.
 
Each year I come up with the BEST possible brackets. Some years the
committee does too. (^:
 
Keith
 
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