At 9:07 PM -0500 3/20/97, Jack C. Berenzweig wrote:
> Obviously Joe Marsh and the committee went to great lengths to avoid a
> Minnesota - North Dakota matchup in the regionals since those two teams met
> in the WCHA Championship game. They should be commended for that. However,
> perhaps I am missing something, but didn't Michigan and Michigan State meet
> in the CCHA  Championship game?  Why wasn't that potential match-up also
> avoided?
 
I think Adam may have addressed this before here, but you have to consider
it in the context of the entire process.  The alternative, once the six
teams for Grand Rapids were set, was for Michigan's bracket to contain
Cornell and Minnesota instead of MSU and Minnesota.  But this would have
meant a first-round meeting between MSU and Miami, a guaranteed conference
matchup.
 
When you consider that MSU was the lowest seeded team in the tourney, it
made sense to have the only possible matchup in the regionals between
conference teams be one that would involve the #1 and #12 teams.
 
The committee doesn't have to entirely avoid all regional matchups between
teams from the same conference although it tries its best to do so.  Going
strictly by the numbers, this was the least likely of all possible
matchups.  And the seedings did avoid that guaranteed first round matchup
between MSU and Miami.
 
The key thing I think people should learn from Adam's article is that the
decision to avoid conference matchups came from the coaches themselves, who
have expressed their desire to do this many times in the past.  The
committee was simply carrying out what the coaches wanted.
 
BTW, I also found it interesting that in the coaches' quotes on USA Today,
it is clear that the majority of the coaches in the tourney felt that the
committee did a good job.  Given that, I don't think we're likely to see
any drastic changes for next year.
 
After hearing that Joe Marsh received so many nasty letters about the
seedings, I'm tempted to drop Joe a line to tell him I think they did a
great job.  Of course, it's to be expected that the only people he will
hear from are the ones who are upset.  People who were happy with the job
they did had no reason to write.
 
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                [log in to unmask]               *HMM* 11/13/93
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