Kyle Aumell writes:
> I was also wondering if some great, unbiased collge hockey guru would
>venture to guess that, if the season ended today, who would go to the NCAA
>tournament?
Ask and ye shall receive. :-)
Having been pondering this very question myself over the past few days,
this is the answer I have come up with. The seeds are in order of
the way the Guru would seed them himself, given what he knows about the
Selection Committee's process and what they look for.
Following that are the teams and their records against all teams under
consideration (all teams I thought had a chance to make it). I list
first the six West/East seeds, then the additional teams I considered.
The column "vs finalists" indicates the team's record against teams
that made the final cut and is used mainly for seeding. The NCAA
does something similar to this.
WEST
1 Lake Superior (21-3-4)
2 Minnesota (21-4-3)
3 Michigan (20-5-3)
4 Northern Michigan (20-5-3)
5 Ferris State (18-5-5)
6 Wisconsin (19-6-2)
vs finalists
LSSU: Maine 1-1, Cornell 1-0,
Mich 2-1-1, FSU 2-1-1, MSU 2-0-2 (8-3-4) 6-3-2
Minn: BC 0-1,
NMU 1-0-1, Wis 1-0-1, ND 1-1 (3-2-2) 2-1-2
Mich: BU 1-0, BC 0-1, Maine 1-0,
LSSU 1-2-1, FSU 1-1, MSU 1-0-1 (5-4-2) 4-4-1
NMU: Maine 0-2,
Minn 0-1-1, Wis 2-0, ND 3-0-1 (5-3-2) 2-3-1
FSU: Mich 1-1, LSSU 1-2-1, MSU 2-0 (4-3-1) 2-3-1
Wis: UAA 1-0-1, SLU 1-0,
Minn 0-1-1, ND 2-1, NMU 0-2 (4-4-2) 0-3-2
others
ND: NMU 0-3-1, Minn 1-1, Wis 1-2, AA 2-0 (4-6-1) 2-6-1
MSU: LSSU 0-2-2, FSU 0-2, Mich 0-1-1, BC 2-1,
Maine 0-1 (2-7-3) 2-7-3
EAST
1 Boston College (18-6-0)
2 Maine (20-6-2)
3 Clarkson (14-5-1)
4 Boston University (15-6-2)
5 Cornell (9-4-2)
6 Alaska-Anchorage (13-9-3)
BC: BU 2-0, Maine 2-1, PC 2-0, MSU 1-2, Minn 1-0,
Mich 1-0, SLU 1-0, Clark 1-0, RPI 0-1,
NH 1-1 (12-5) 7-1-0
Maine: BC 1-2, BU 0-1, PC 1-0, LSSU 1-1, AA 1-0-1,
NMU 2-0, Clark 1-0, MSU 1-0, Mich 0-1,
NH 2-0 (10-5-1) 6-5-1
Clark: Corn 0-0-1, SLU 1-1, Maine 0-1, BU 1-0, BC 0-1,
NH 1-0, RPI 1-0 (4-3-1) 1-2-1
BU: BC 0-2, Maine 1-0, PC 1-0-1, Mich 0-1,
Clark 0-1, SLU 1-0, RPI 1-0, NH 1-0-1 (5-4-2) 1-4-0
Corn: Clark 0-0-1, SLU 1-0, LSSU 0-1, RPI 1-0 (2-1-1) 0-1-1
AA: Wis 0-1-1, Maine 0-1-1, PC 0-1, ND 0-2,
NH 0-1, PC 0-1 (0-7-2) 0-2-2
others
PC: SLU 1-0, BU 0-1-1, BC 0-2, Maine 0-1, AA 1-0,
RPI 1-0, NH 1-0 (4-4-1) 0-4-1
SLU: PC 0-1, RPI 1-0, Corn 0-1, NH 0-1, Clark 1-1,
Wis 0-1, BC 0-1, BU 0-1 (2-7) 1-5-0
RPI: BU 0-1, PC 0-1, Clark 0-1, SLU 0-1, BC 1-0,
Corn 0-1, NH 0-1 (1-6) 1-3-0
NH: AA 1-0, Clark 0-1, SLU 1-0, RPI 1-0, BC 1-1,
Maine 0-2, BU 0-1-1, PC 0-1 (4-6-1) 1-5-1
COMMENTS
There should be little argument with the top seeds in each region.
The toughest decisions to make were:
- Where to seed Michigan and NMU
- Where to seed BU and Cornell
So, don't complain about these decisions because I am not sure of them
myself; they're too close to call. I feel pretty strongly about
everything else.
The teams that are "others" need to pick it up right now or they
probably won't make it. I would say I am 90% sure that the 12 teams
I selected above will end up going to the NCAAs in March, with maybe
at most one change, barring a major upset in the conference playoffs
(which, historically, hasn't happened yet). Seeds could vary
one or two positions depending on what happens in the remainder of
the season.
- mike
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