----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Lewin" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, March 17, 2002 10:34 PM
Subject: I guess I answered my question


> When I first checked USCHO, their brackets remained 1E-2W and 1W-2E.
> For a while, their site was inaccessible (must be all those Las Vegas
> bookies
> setting up the morning line) and the NCAA site was empty.  Now I see that
> the NCAA site
> has 1E-2E and 1W-2W and USCHO has changed their brackets to match.
>
> McDonald is right. This guarantees a final of east vs. west. It also
> guarantees that the
> one and only east vs. west matchup will occur in the finals and not
before.
> I can understand why they wanted to minimize travel for the regional
> (actually
> I don't understand it; it's senseless) but regardless, once you have the 2
> winners from the
> east and west regionals in the same building, what sense does it make to
> keep the east and west
> separate until the finals.  As a fan, I'm very disappointed in this turn
of
> events.  If I were
> able to go to Worcester or St. Paul, I'd be outraged.

I'm not going to Worcester, but I will be in Ann Arbor and St. Paul.  I
wouldn't say that I'm outraged, but I am frustrated.  Not so much because I
won't see any eastern teams in the regional per se, but because trying to
set up a bracket based upon the actual seedings seems to have (again; if
Adam Wodon is still on the list, I'm sure we can go another round about
this) been tossed right out the window.  The three lowest ranked teams, by
both PWR and RPI, are all in the East Regional.  The two highest ranked
non-bye teams are both in the West Regional, which is not the one with the
lowest ranked bye team.  By the measures that the NCAA uses, it is very
clear that one of the regionals is much weaker than the other.  (I'm sure
that someone can come up with subjective reasons why this wouldn't be the
case, but the arguments will come right back the other way, so I'm sticking
to the NCAA's own criteria.)

If the NCAA wanted to go back to doing a strict East Regional and a strict
West Regional, fine, but then let's get that announced up front.  But this
seems like a very odd year to do it quietly, given the imbalance of the
regions.  And, frankly, I find the whole argument about Sept. 11
necessitating a reduction in travel to be bogus.  Like a lot of times it's
been trotted out to justify a change in policy (like, for instance, not
being allowed to bring a purse into Yost Arena, for those of you going to
the West Regional; when we went to Ann Arbor for the College Hockey
Showcase, my wife and I had to walk the eight blocks back to the car to
stash her purse when we tried to get in, and missed the first half of the
first period, so don't make the same mistake) it is either a gross
overreaction or a sham excuse used to cover up a change that someone is
making for other reasons.

We had a brief two year stretch where the NCAA actually made seedings based
upon the rankings their actual priority, but they have constructed a new
shibboleth that trumps all other considerations and choose not to invest any
thought in how it crushes everything else.  As a Gopher fan for this year,
it works to my advantage, since they'll be in Ann Arbor (where I was headed
anyways) and play a team that has, on paper, a much tougher game the night
before than the seedings would otherwise mandate.  It's still a crummy
system.

J. Michael Neal