I am not sure, but there seems to possibly be some confusion taking place
here.  What I am referring to is not a poll that says that the 4th team
from one conference is better than the 2nd (or 1st) team from another, but
the *actual statistics* used by the selection committee.  The poll does not
determine the seeds/bids, the numbers do.  I think I have seen a few people
refer to the polls deciding the seeds and this just isn't true.
 
This was determined to be a way to compare teams across conferences even
though they may never play.  It doesn't care about what conference a team is
in, or how many games it plays, or how many nonleague games it plays.
 
If it is supposed to be so difficult to compare teams across conferences
that it would make more sense to require taking two from each conference,
then I say 1) why not just take 3 from each conference (of course I don't
agree with this), and 2) still, how are you going to seed them if you don't
think there is a good way to compare the teams?
 
Finally, another point that hasn't been brought up: the WCHA, CCHA & HE all
do not have the collection of teams at the bottom of their standings with
poor overall records that the ECAC does, and even in the nonleague games
that are played, the ECAC is far behind the other three.  There truly are
real factors at work here.
 
 
- mike