At 1:09 AM -0700 3/16/97, John T. Whelan wrote:
> I think we all agree on the field; here are the top twelve
> teams from the PWR on USCHO:
>
> 1 *+ Michigan (C) 2 + Clarkson (E)
> 3 *+ North Dakota (W) 8 *+ Boston University (H)
> 4 Minnesota (W) 5 New Hampshire (H)
> 10 Miami (C) 6 Vermont (E)
> 11 Denver (W) 9 * Cornell (E)
> 12 Colorado College (W)
> 13 Michigan State (C)
>
> * Tournament Champion + Regular Season Champion
>
> Note that teams 5-9 are all in the East, and 10-13 all in the West.
> Also note that with Maine's ineligibility and BU's automatic bye,
> there are effectively no teams between #6 UVM and #9 Cornell.
>
> Michigan, NoDak and BU all get automatic byes, and it's pretty clear
> Clarkson gets the other one. And Michigan and Clarkson clearly get
> the top seeds. A straight swap of the bottom teams gives:
>
> Plan A:
>
> 1 Michigan (C) 2 Clarkson (E)
> 3 North Dakota (W) 8 Boston University (H)
> 4 Minnesota (W) 5 New Hampshire (H)
> 9 Cornell (E) 6 Vermont (E)
> 10 Miami (C) 12 Colorado College (W)
> 11 Denver (W) 13 Michigan State (C)
This is not quite the way it is done. If there is not a 6-6 split, then
the committee is required to begin by moving the bottom teams from one
region to the other to equalize the regions. So, MSU would be placed below
Cornell in the East to start off.
Then, they have to move two teams from each region to the other for the
regionals. This actually works out nicely because MSU, as an "East" team,
gets to stay in the West after all.
The biggest question is which teams will be swapped. I am inclined to
think that Denver & CC will go East, while along with MSU, Cornell will go
West. But there have been rumblings that Vermont may go West instead of
Cornell. This would be an odd twist since I don't believe that the
committee has ever really "punished" teams for losing early in their
conference tourneys before. The attendance factor seems about equal, and
Vermont ranks higher.
Figuring that the committee will try to avoid conference matchups that
would result in the second round if the "favorites" all win the first
night, the regionals could look like this:
WEST EAST
1 Michigan 2 Clarkson
3 North Dakota 8 BU
9 Cornell 6 Vermont
4 Minnesota 5 New Hampshire
10 Miami 11 Denver
13 MSU 12 CC
WEST
MSU-Cornell winner plays North Dakota
Miami-Minnesota winner plays Michigan
EAST
CC-Vermont winner plays BU
Denver-UNH winner plays Clarkson
This does have a possible Miami-Michigan second round meeting, but the
committee doesn't have to avoid ALL conference matchups. I surmised that
the matchups the committee wanted to avoid the most were the first round
ones and the second round matchups between BU-UNH,
Vermont/Cornell-Clarkson, and Minn-NoDak.
BTW, if they do decide to send Vermont West, then just swap Vermont &
Cornell in the above.
--- ---
Mike Machnik [log in to unmask] *HMM* 11/13/93
***** (Part-Time) Color Voice of Merrimack Hockey WCAP 980 AM *****
***** Unofficial Merrimack Hockey home page located at: *****
***** http://www.tiac.net/users/machnik/MChockey/MChockey.html *****
>>> U.S. College Hockey Online http://www.uscollegehockey.com/ <<<
HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to
[log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.
|
