Jim Love writes:
>   Note that these stats include the infamous "Black Tuesday" of 1982 (?)
>when seeds 2-4 lost at home to seeds 7-5 respectively, meaning 16.7% of the
>quarterfinal upsets occurred in the *same year*.
 
"Black Tuesday" actually occurred in 1978, and the only home team to advance
to the ECAC semis that year was Boston University -- in an overtime win, no
less, over New Hampshire.  And yes, there probably was a great deal of
complaining that year about the single-elimination quarterfinals, but I
seriously doubt that Boston College was doing any of it, because they won
the tournament and got an NCAA bid.  By the way, 1982 was a more or less
"normal" year for the ECAC tournament, in that all four of the top seeds
advanced to the semis.  But they went to the two-game series the following
year anyway.
 
>What's often overlooked in discussions like these is the impact the expansion
>of the NCAA tournament field has had on the CONSEQUENCES to a high-ranking
>team losing (in any format) in the early round(s) of its respective conference
>tournament.  BC's upset loss to N'Eastern in last year's HE quarterfinals,
>while shocking [ well, given the UA-A results, maybe not :-) ] was certainly
>not as damaging to their NCAA aspirations given a 12-team field as would have
>been the case in "Ye Olden Dayes" of the 8-team tournament.
 
Actually, the NCAA tournament consisted of only FOUR teams prior to 1981,
when they expanded to eight.  Back then, the NCAA selection committee was in
the habit of filling the two Eastern slots with the ECAC tournament champion
and runner-up, regardless of how they had done during the regular season.
This caused all sorts of interesting things to happen, perhaps the most
ludicrous of which was the "BU-PC fiasco" that Jim referred to.  This also
happened in 1978, due to the unprecedented rash of upsets in the ECAC tour-
nament, and if Ripley's Believe It or Not doesn't have this story, they damn
well should.  That year, BU went into the ECAC semis with a 25-1 record and
was ranked #2 in the country (and #1-ranked Denver was on probation and
ineligible for the NCAAs that year).  With all the other upsets, it looked
to be easy pickings for the Terriers, but they were beaten 5-1 by Providence
(who I believe had also previously dealt BU their only other loss of the
season).
 
This put the NCAA's "Eastern selection committee" (which was essentially
composed of ECAC higher-ups) in a bit of a bind as far as determining who
the second Eastern team was going to be.  Providence was the runner-up and
had theoretically knocked BU out of the picture, but BU clearly deserved
consideration, as they were one of the top teams in the country.  The
situation was made even more complicated by the fact that the NCAAs were to
take place that year at Providence.  Cynics suggested, with some justifi-
cation, that the ECAC was trying desperately to send the team that would
most stack the deck in the East's favor (BU with its talented team or
Providence with its home-ice advantage) in order to avoid the type of
humiliation that Eastern teams had experienced in the previous five NCAA
tournaments.  From 1973 through 1977, not only did no Eastern team win the
NCAA championship, none of them even made the final game.
 
At any rate, the NCAA/ECAC set up a special one-game "qualifier" between BU
and Providence, to take place at Providence (to test the home-ice advantage,
I assume) during the off-weekend before the NCAAs, with the winner to
receive the second Eastern bid.  Fortunately(?), the Terriers put an end to
all this nonsense by beating Providence 5-3 and then going on to win their
third NCAA championship.  But if any single incident could have put pressure
on the NCAA to expand their tournament, I'd bet this whole silly affair
would have been the one.  I wouldn't be surprised if even more tangled-up
things happened with the Western bids and the WCHA or CCHA before the 1981
expansion.
 
>                                                             Top-seeded New
>Hampshire's 6-7 OT loss to RPI in the 1974 ECAC quarterfinals bounced the
>Wildcats right out of the NCAAs, as I'd wager happened to other 1 or 2 seeds
>who took it on the chin in those innocent days before $$$ and TV interests
>boosted the tournament pool
 
During the days of the four-team NCAA tournament, a total of five #1-seeded
ECAC teams were refused bids to the NCAAs after failing to advance to the
finals of the ECAC tournament:
 
     1965      Boston University (lost to Brown in the semis)
     1974      New Hampshire (lost to RPI in the quarterfinals)
     1977      Clarkson (lost to BU in the semis)
     1979      BU (lost to Dartmouth in the semis)
     1980      Boston College (lost to Cornell in the quarterfinals)
--
Bill Fenwick
Cornell '86
LET'S GO RED!!
 
"One woman broke up with me because, she told me, I was insecure.  I thought,
 'Great, THIS is gonna help.'"
-- Jeff Stilson