This comes up every year on rec.sport.football.college.  They have some name
for it like 'transitivity' or something.  Basically it's the old "we beat
them, and they beat someone else, therefore we're better than someone else".
 They had a field day with that back in the year when Notre Dame
(steriod-ball) beat Fla St, but BC (same sport) beat ND, and Northwestern
(before they were legit) beat BC, and LOTS of teams beat Northwestern, ...
ad infinitum.  Many fans were using that argument to show that Lower South
Western Podunk Community College should've been the winner of college
football's Mythical National Championship.
 
If you REALLY want to believe something, like Team A is better than Team B,
you can find plenty of statistics (of the "lies, damn lies, and statistics"
genre) that will support your claim.  If you REALLY want to believe that a
team with a 3-8-2 record is really the best in college hockey because the 8
losses and 2 ties came because of:
        unfair refs
        injured players
        off nights by your favorite team
        cheating by other teams
        divine intervention
        home-town crowd
        bad ice surface
        exhaustive travel
        phase of the moon
then go ahead, if it makes you feel good.  Just allow others, who want to
believe that their 10-1-1 or 9-0-3 or 9-2-0 team is really best, the luxury
of their opinions.
 
And remember; talent does not equal winning (re: my many posts slamming Jeff
Sauer) and even a blind rabbit finds a carrot occasionally (or whatever gets
occasionally found by the blind thing).
 
And don't forget that the discussion is predicated on UND sweeping UM while
(implicit assumption) a lot of other good teams win games they should.
 
Steve G
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Original Text
From [log in to unmask] (The College Hockey Discussion List), on
12/5/95 2:58 PM:
If the North Dakota Souix sweep the Gophers this weekend (highly unlikely,
but still probable), the Gophers will find themselves firmly in 5th place
in the WCHA.  This would raise a couple of interesting questions:
 
1. How can a team with "three Hobey Baker candidates" (Brian Bonin, Dan
Trebil, Mike Crowely), "four all Americans" (add Ryan Kraft)- so says coach
Doug Woog, find itself firmly in the middle of the WCHA?
 
2. What does a middle team in the WCHA defeating Michigan in the hockey
showcase mean in terms of division strength?  The Troy, NY Poll has
Michigan ahead of the Gophers,(or did I dream this?) posing the question
why games are played in the first place.
 
Note:  There seems to be some Lou Holz logic going around,"I don't care if
they did beat us, we should still be ranked #1.
 
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HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey;  send information to
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