Adam Wodon wrote:
 
> The losses are all against teams higher up in the standings, except
> Vermont to Bowling Green.  Also, early in the season, the ECAC is at a
> distinct disadvantage, having played far fewer games and the games are
> on the road.
>
> So my point, if you go back, is that if you consider the bottom to be
> 8-10 or so, then the picture is a lot better ... The ECAC then has two
> more teams tacked on, which aren't as strong.  The other conferences
> aren't weighted with these teams.
 
You can't take "bottom" to mean 8-10 for all the conferences.  That allows
the ECAC to eliminate its worst performers.  It would be just as valid to
eliminate the TOP two ECAC teams to do the comparisons.  Getting the mix
exactly right is complicated and would probably involve redoing it every
year.  So I just went with bottom half.  One could also use, say, bottom
third.  Vermont loss to Denver is actually to a lower finishing team; by a
narrow margin, so is Cornell to Ferris State.
 
> But -- as JMN points out -- it doesn't really matter ... In my opinion,
> the ECAC is more fun for a lot of reasons -- but that's just opinion.
> For example, how often have No. 7 seeds won the other conference
> tournaments??  Princeton's made it to the final as a No. 7 seed twice in
> the last four years.  Does this mean the top of the conference is
> weaker?  Maybe.  Does it also mean the conference is pretty balanced?
> ... Yes.  And I like that, thank you.
 
What we may have here is not that the ECAC is so much more balanced, but
that Princeton is an odd case.  I'll be more convinced if some other team
makes it to the ECAC championship game from the #7 seed or lower.  Michigan
Tech made it to the WCHA final as the #10 seed one year, but that had a lot
more to do with Jamie Ram playing completely off his nut rather than any
sort of team effort.
 
> 7)  You have never and will neve hear me utter a disparaging word about
> the quality of eduaction at schools outside the ECAC.
 
If anyone thought that I meant this, I apologize.  I have NEVER heard Adam
say anything like this.  I have heard other ECAC fans say these things and
from the construction of my post, it is possible that this point would have
been taken as a continuation of my response to him.  I'm sorry for that.
Also, I admit that I only took one point of Adam's argument to respond to.
Most of the rest of it I either agree with or I think is unarguable.  I just
took the one point that was neither and tossed it around.  And, as I said,
my counter isn't irrefutable, either.
 
J. Michael Neal
 
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