Well, looks like the NCAA got what they wanted this year. By
arbitrarily concealing part of the selection process (the size of the
"quality win" bonus), they have created doubt going into the selection
show over who will make the tournament. The breakdown of Notre Dame,
Colorado College, Colgate and Cornell depends sensitively on the size
of the bonus, but the only question relevant to setting the field is
which of the four comes out on top. With no bonus, CC would get by on
the strength of their .5322 RPI. But they have no "quality wins"
while Notre Dame has two on the road and one on neutral ice, and their
RPI is not far behind at .5274. So as long as
2*(road bonus) + (neut bonus) > .0048
Notre Dame is in and CC is out.
The other impact of a reasonable choice of bonus is on the Miami-UNH
comparison. With no bonus, Miami wins on the basis of a .5415 to
.5409 RPI advantage. But Miami has no "quality wins" and UNH has one,
on neutral ice. Again, if the neutral-ice bonus is at least .0006,
UNH wins that comparison, which jumps them over Wisconsin and Miami in
the PWR. But they're all three-seeds either way.
Okay. so assuming that the bonuses are big enough to accomplish both
of these things, here's what the ranking of the field by PWR looks
like:
1. North Dakota
2. BC
3. Maine
4. Minnesota
---------------------------
5. UMD
6. OSU
7. Denver
8. Michigan
---------------------------
9. UNH (host)
10. Miami
11. Wisconsin
12. Michigan State
---------------------------
13. Notre Dame
22. Harvard
25. Niagara
28. Holy Cross
(I would list the individual comparisons, but last year's seedings
made it clear that the committee only looks at the order of the teams
these days.)
As a starting point for the seeding, I collected teams in a straight
1-16 bracket:
1. NoDak 2. BC 3. Maine 4. Minnesota
8. Mich 7. DU 6. OSU 5. UMD
9. UNH 10. Miami 11. Wisco 12. Mich State
28. HC 25. Niagara 22. Harvard 13. Notre Dame
There are actually no first-round interconference matchups there. But
then geography comes into play. Putting all of the top four seeds in
the "closest" regionals would make it
_West_ _Northeast_ _East_ _Midwest_
1. NoDak 2. BC 3. Maine 4. Minnesota
8. Mich 7. DU 6. OSU 5. UMD
9. UNH 10. Miami 11. Wisco 12. Mich State
28. HC 25. Niagara 22. Harvard 13. Notre Dame
Now, New Hampshire is the host of the Northeast regional, so they need
to go there. But if we just switch them with Miami, we'll have a
Michigan-Miami game in the first round. So we also switch their
opponents and send Denver to Colorado Springs (which is a good idea on
attendance grounds anyway). This gives us
_West_ _Midwest_ _Northeast_ _East_
1. NoDak 4. Minnesota 3. Maine 2. BC
7. DU 5. UMD 6. OSU 8. Mich
10. Miami 12. Mich State 11. Wisco 9. UNH
28. HC 13. Notre Dame 22. Harvard 25. Niagara
Those brackets actually work out quite nicely: Denver is playing in
Colorado Springs, Michigan State is in Grand Rapids. Every "band" has
as many teams playing in their East/West region as possible, So let's
draw it up:
_W3_Miami______
\____
_W2_Denver_____/ \
\____
_W4_H_C________ / \ _Wisconsin_E3_
\____/ \ ____/
_W1_NoDak______/ \ / \_______OSU_E2_
\____ ____/
_M3_M_S_U______ / / \ ___Harvard_E4_
\____ / / \____/
_M2_U_M_D______/ \ / / \_____Maine_E1_
\____/ ____/
_M4_Notre_Dame_ / \ _______UNH_N3_
\____/ \ ____/
_M1_Minnesota__/ \ / \__Michigan_N2_
\____/
\ ___Niagara_N4_
\____/
\________BC_N1_
John Whelan, Cornell '91
[log in to unmask]
http://www.amurgsval.org/joe/
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