I finally got around to writing my first "If the Season Ended Today"
of the season, which is on the web at
   http://www.slack.net/~whelan/cgi-bin/tbrw.cgi?pairwise.current
There is a very sticky issue using the current comparisons, about just
who gets the final at-large bid.  In essence it's the usual question
of what defines the bubble, but since Niagara's comparisons are
extremely non-transitive this season, it's much more likely to be an
issue in the final selection this year.  Here's an excerpt from the
run-through, after the MAAC teams have been excluded and the current
conference leaders (including SLU, who would otherwise be on the
bubble) have been given hypothetical auto-bids:
 
   With that out of the way, we proceed to assigning the at-large bids.
   Maine and Boston College win their comparisons with all of the teams
   below them, and with the exception of the Princeton-Notre Dame
   comparison, so do Colorado College, Clarkson and Princeton. So those
   five should get bids easily. The remaining three bids need to be given
   based on pairwise comparisons among the "bubble teams". Where life
   gets really complicated is in the definition of the bubble, because
   Division I Independent Niagara wins so many comparisons against team
   higher in the PWR and loses comparisons against those farther down. To
   illustrate, consider the broadest possible set of teams that could end
   up on the bubble, leaving out only teams which have already been
   granted at-large or automatic bids, plus the bottom five teams in the
   PWR, who lose all but one of the comparisons with teams above them.
   That leaves the following eight teams in contention for the last three
   bids:
 
   Team         lPWR RPI Comps Won
 1 Ohio State     6 .543   Mi__NtNiNMRPPv
 2 Michigan       5 .564 __  DUNt__NMRPPv
 3 Denver U       5 .546 OS__  __NiNMRPPv
 
 4 Notre Dame     4 .562 ____DU  __NMRPPv
 5 Niagara        3 .487 __Mi__Nt  NM____
 6 Northern Mich  2 .538 __________  RPPv
 7 RPI            2 .531 ________Ni__  Pv
 8 Providence     1 .522 ________Ni____
 
   It would seem like Ohio State, Michigan and DU are the teams to take,
   but if we drop the bottom three teams (who are clearly not going to
   make the cut), give a bid to top team OSU, and instead define a
   four-team bubble, we get the following:
 
    Team         lPWR RPI Comps Won
 1 Niagara         2 .487   MiNt__
 2 Michigan        2 .564 __  NtDU
 
 3 Notre Dame      1 .562 ____  DU
 4 Denver U        1 .546 Ni____
 
   In which case Niagara makes the field in place of Denver. I don't
   think we can predict what the committee would do here. The definition
   of the bubble is the only vague aspect of selecting the field, and
   while that vagueness has never mattered before, it could be crucial if
   Niagara's comparisons stay about the way they are. It's even possible
   that Notre Dame would receive the final bid rather than Niagara or
   Denver. They do have the highest RPI of the three, and win the
   pairwise comparison with Denver.
 
If the season ended today, I honestly couldn't tell you which of these
three teams would make the tournament.
                                          John Whelan, Cornell '91
                                                  [log in to unmask]
                                     http://www.amurgsval.org/joe/
 
"We've got a whole mess of penalties"  -- Cornell PA Announcer
   Arthur Mintz, after the Cornell-Union brawl 1998 December 4
 
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