On Mar 26, 12:47, Greg R. Berge wrote:
>The whole point of this ugly little travesty is to give the RS champion a
>free ride to the title game and a better shot to grab the bye.  Well, that
>sure worked...
>
>Let the ECAC take a lesson that in this instance affirmative action both
>isn't warranted *and* doesn't even work. You know what the ECAC has done?
>They have *strengthened* the opponent of the #1 by putting a natural
>selection mechanism in to select out the stronger/hotter of the 4/5 seeds.
>They have actually made it harder for the #1.
 
Well, I dunno about that... yes, they get the "hotter" team, but that team
still will have played the night before, and Princeton notwithstanding, that's
generally going to be an advantage for the #1 seed.  If this format lasts a
while, I think we'll see many more #1 seeds winning this semifinal game than
losing it.
 
>> Day One:
>>         Game 1 (semi-final play-in): #5 vs #4
>>         Game 2 (semi-final): #3 vs #2
>> Day Two:
>>         Game 3 (consolation play-in): Game 1 loser vs game 2 loser
>>         Game 4 (semi-final): Game 1 winner vs #1
>> Day Three:
>>         Game 5 (consolation): Game 4 loser vs game 3 winner
>>         Game 6 (championship): Game 2 winner vs game 4 winner
>
>
>This is really creative!  I hate it  ;-)  Actually, I don't hate it -- it's
>better than the current system (so's an ice pick in the forehead), but it
>has the two finalists playing their SF's on different days, and that's not
>optimal.
 
The ECAC will never, never, never adopt something like this unless the #1 seed,
rather than #2/#3, could play on Day One and take Day Two off.  All they have
to do is look at the NCAA tournament back in the days when the semis were on
different days (and a huge percentage of those teams that played on the first
day and had the day of rest wound up winning the title game) to see how big a
disadvantage this would be to that #1 seed.  Can't have that...
 
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Disclaimer -- Unless otherwise noted, all opinions expressed above are
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Bill Fenwick
Cornell '86 and '95                                             DJF  5/27/94
LET'S GO RED!!                                                  JCF  12/2/97
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