At 8:30 AM -0600 3/17/97, Eeyore wrote:
> Other than that, though, I still maintain
> that it is the responsibility of this committee to produce the seedings.
>  One part of this job is to make the NCAA realize the absurdity of this
> kind of regulation.
 
Didn't we just go through a discussion recently where people claimed that
the NCAA doesn't care about or doesn't work hard enough for college hockey?
How are the members of the ice hockey selection committee going to get the
NCAA to change an organization-wide policy or adjust it specially for their
sport?
 
> It is particularly galling, since the criterion isn't even met. I think
> that Michigan State is a tougher team than raw computation of the
> numbers indicates.
 
That may be true, but perception of a team is not one of the criteria for
evaluating them. :-)
 
> After all, they beat Michigan twice this year.  It
> is not at all unthinkable that they will beat Minnesota on Saturday.  If
> this happens, what do you get?  A Michigan-Michigan State match-up that
> is not only between conference rivals, but repeats a conference final
> from last night.  Excuse me?  Isn't it to avoid this that Minnesota got
> shifted up a bracket?  Today, the NCAA was both stupid and inconsistent.
 
MSU ranks last among the 12 teams selected.  Thus it makes sense that they
should be placed in the bracket with the #1 team.  It doesn't matter that
they beat that team twice.
 
And matchups are to be minimized but do not have to be completely avoided.
It is within reason to set things up such that the only possible matchup is
between the 12th and 1st ranked teams (MSU & Michigan) after #12 knocks off
#4 Minnesota.  That's as wide a disparity as they could get.  Based
strictly on the numbers, an MSU win would be the biggest upset possible in
the first round.
 
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                [log in to unmask]               *HMM* 11/13/93
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