>On Tue, 5 Mar 1996, Cory J Laylin wrote:
>
>> I disagree with having 16 teams.. There are only what, 44 teams to begin
>> with.  I think 12 is a good number.
>
Kevin Power replied (spelling his):
>Good point.  Compared to other collegiate sports (basketball and football),
>hockey is alredy overloading.  Hockey sends 12 of 44 or 27.3% of all
>elidgable teams to the national tournement.  Basketball sends 64 of 309
>or 20.7% to the national tournement.  Finally, football has approximately
>15 or 16 Bowl games which means 30 of 168 teams or 17.6% (I may be a
>bit light on this one) go to the post season.
>
>The point being that hockey sends over a quarter of it's teams to the BIG
>one.  It's just a function of the low number of participating schools.
>See expansion thread a month back.
>
>> What I would like to see is the NCAA playoffs going back to best of 3
>> series.  I've always thought playoff hockey was meant to be played in a
>> series.  That way you can reward a team for playing a better series as
>> opposed to maybe having one good game.
>
>I believe that one reason it was changed to regional sites was to eliminate
>the possibility of 3 weekends of excessive travel.  One weekend for the
>regionals and one weekend for the finals, and its done.  Also the bye
>WEEK may have favored the #1 and #2 teams more than just the 1 game BYE.
>I liked 2 out of 3 for the round of 12 and quarter-finals.
>
 
Here's two thoughts:  Make it truly a "National" championship.  Make it a
16-team tournament, and put the top 4 Division III teams into the mix.
Sort of like the tournaments all over the country in hoops, etc. where the
smallest team, if on a roll, can play the "big" teams and win it all.  Why
not ?  Do you Div. III supporters think the top teams in that div. could be
competitive against Div. I in the tournament ?
 
I think the 16-seeds in hoops are unworthy (possibly even the 15-seeds)
participants .  Think, for a moment, there already is a team with a LOSING
record in the Round of 64, simply because they won a dubious "conference
tournament" and "earned" an automatic bid.
 
The 12th seed in hockey is more competitive vs. the top teams than the
bottom in hoops.  Hockey at Div. I level is more competitive top-to-bottom
than any of the  Div. 1 teams in hoops or even the 1AA (CFA) teams in
pigskin.
 
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