Eric Carlson writes:
> The flaws in the selection criteria are not reflected by Niagara but by
> Quinnipiac, so let's not try to defend the NCAA's criteria by pointing at
> Niagara's performance against New Hampshire and North Dakota. Unlike the
> situation with Quinnipiac other rating systems put Niagara within range of
> making or in the tournament if they had been used. If the NCAA knows enough
> to eliminate Quinnipiac from consideration then they clearly know their
> criteria are at least somewhat flawed.
The committee also apparently had some doubts about Niagara's
comparisons, or else they would have seeded them above BC and Michigan
State, or kept them East in place of BU or Colgate (although
attendance and conference matchup considerations may have played a
role in Niagara going West).
> However, as John Whelan pointed out there were definitely three or four
> other teams that might also have been just as worthy choices for the final
> spot in the tournament. Northern Michigan, Mankato, Rensselaer and even
> Minnesota were right there with Niagara and could have been defended as
> choices for the tournament especially with one more win.
Acctually, the four I had in mind were Mankato, Minnesota, Providence
and Colorado College. Rensselaer was also overrated by the selection
criteria, and NMU was not all that close to the bubble in any system
AFAICT.
> Positions may well
> have been switched if Niagara had lost the CHA tournament championship game
> or if one of the other teams had finished just a little stronger.
The CHA championship game was, or at least should have been,
completely irrelevant to Division I tournament selection, since
Alabama-Huntsville was not eligible for the tournament, and games
against them were supposed to be left out of all selection decisions.
> Still Niagara made their case in the selection criteria and other rating
> systems as well as finishing their season with their 3-2 CHA tournament
> championship win on the road against UAH at Huntsville.
See above; as far as selection is concerned, that game didn't happen.
> The other four
> teams just didn't do what they needed to do to convincingly take away
> Niagara's bid to the tournament. In the end Niagara earned it and they all
> fell just short.
I don't believe that any of those teams would have taken away
Niagara's bid to the tournament, but instead St. Cloud's. So long as
there were no surprise conference champions, it is my suspicion that
Niagara were destined to be the #12 team in the tournament. The PWCs
would still have had the Purple Eagles around #5 or #6, which the
committee recognized was higher than they deserved, but I don't know
what measure they would have used to quantify that. Since Niagara
played a non-trivial schedule, they were recognized as belonging in
the same class as the various bubble teams, but without reasonable
PWCs to rely on, the precise determination of whether they were #10 or
#15 could not be made. This meant that the details of the end of
their season were irrelevant. (I suspect, however, that if both RPI
and UNO had won their conference championships on the last day of the
season, Niagara would have stayed home and not displaced Michigan
State.)
In contrast, using one proposed modification of the selection
criteria, Niagara would have ended up about four places out of the
tournament, but if they had swept Nebraska-Omaha instead of taking
only three points from them on the final weekend of the season, and if
they had beaten Canisius instead of losing to them, that would have
been enough to earn them the next-to-last at large bid in the modified
system. This is what I mean about the better precision allowed by a
system that judges all teams fairly.
John Whelan, Cornell '91
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