So, Dan beat me to it this week; I was waiting for the Beanpot
games and for the PWR to be posted to INFO. There are a couple of
interesting issues brought up by this week's snapshot, since with
Clarkson leading the ECAC (if you take tiebreakers into account), RPI
would no longer get the automatic berth, and thus there are five
eastern teams (3 ECAC, 2 HE) and seven western (4 WCHA, 3 CCHA):
1 * Michigan (C) 2 * New Hampshire (H)
4 * North Dakota (W) 3 Vermont (E)
6 Minnesota (W) 5 * Clarkson (E)
7 Miami (C) 8 Boston University (H)
10 Colorado College (W) 9 Cornell (E)
11 Michigan State (C)
12 St. Cloud (W)
The last time this happened, in 1995, the committee sent one
Eastern team (RPI) West and two Western teams (Lake State and Denver)
East. Obviously, Cornell would be the choice to go West in the
current scenario. In 1995, the two lowest Western teams were the ones
sent East. (This is not the same as putting the lowest Western team
in the empty East seed then switching the last two.) If you do this,
you get
1 Michigan (C) 2 New Hampshire (H)
4 North Dakota (W) 3 Vermont (E)
6 Minnesota (W) 5 Clarkson (E)
7 Miami (C) 8 Boston University (H)
9 Cornell (E) 11 Michigan State (C)
10 Colorado College (W) 12 St. Cloud (W)
Dan's "raw bracket", OTOH, was
>EAST WEST
>E1. New Hampshire W1. Michigan
>E2. Vermont W2. North Dakota
>E3. Clarkson W3. Minnesota
>E4. Boston U. W4. Miami
>E5. Colorado College W5. Cornell
>E6. St. Cloud St. W6. Michigan St.
MSU, being ranked lower, would seem the deserve being shipped out more
than CC, except for the attendence issue. For the sake of argument,
I'm going to finish my projected brackets as if the NC$$ didn't
consider attendence.
My raw brackets need some shuffling, since they have one
first-round conference matchup (CC-Minnesota) and four possible
second-round matchups (Minn-NoDak, Miami-Mich, Clarkson-UVM, BU-UNH).
Now, with each conference claiming one of the four "bye seeds" and
seven western teams in the tourney, it's impossible to avoid one
potential matchup (first or second round) without sending three
western teams East. The least disturbance to the brackets seems to me
to switch Minnesota with Miami and Clarkson with BU. This gets rid of
all of the matchups except CC-NoDak. I'd also switch St. Cloud and
MSU so that the lower-ranked SCSU is in line to play the higher-ranked
Clarkson and UNH and the higher-ranked MSU is set to play the
lower-ranked UVM and BU. So without consideration to attendance, I
get:
West Regional Phinal Phour East Regional
Grand Rapids, MI Milwaukee, WI Worcester, MA
March 21-23 March 27 & 29 March 21-23
(Host: WMU) (Host: Wisc) (Host: BU)
W6 Colorado College \ / E5 St. Cloud State
W3 Miami }--Semifinal--{ E4 Clarkson
W2 North Dakota / | \ E1 New Hampshire
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Final
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W1 Michigan \ | / E2 Vermont
W4 Minnesota }--Semifinal--{ E3 Boston University
W5 Cornell / \ E6 Michigan State
But what if we consider attendence and keep MSU in the West?
Dan says:
>EAST WEST
>E1. New Hampshire W1. Michigan
>E2. Vermont W2. North Dakota
>E3. Clarkson W3. Minnesota
>E4. Boston U. W4. Miami
>E5. Colorado College W5. Cornell
>E6. St. Cloud St. W6. Michigan St.
>This matchup works out well for several reasons: 1) No same league matchups in
>the first round, 2) Michigan St. goes to the West Regional $$$$$.
>However, this plan has some problems as well: 1) Possibility of 2 same league
>matchups in East 2nd Round (Clarkson/UVM & BU/UNH), 2) Possibility of 2 same
>league matchups in West 2nd Round (Michigan/Miami & Minnesota/UND).
[as above, switch Clarkson and BU in the East]
>The west is a little more difficult as there are 3 CCHA teams in the west
>bracket. An additional move of Miami to the East and CC to the west would
>solve this problem, while not hurting attendance much. CC and Cornell would
>flip flop due to their power ratings.
Yeah, but if you make that swap, not only to you shaft Miami,
but you then have 3 WCHA teams in the west. Six of one, half-dozen of
the other.
>So, my final suggestion for this week is, with their PWR Rankings:
>EAST WEST
>1E. UNH 2 1W. Michigan 1
>2E. UVM 3 2W. UND 4
>3E. BU 8 3W. Minnesota 6
>4E. Clarkson 5 4W. Cornell 9
>5E. Miami 7 5W. Colorado College 10
>6E. St. Cloud 12 6W. Michigan St. 11
Sending Miami East and then seeding them so low seems like a
bad idea. I'd say either MSU or CC should go instead. I discussed
the consequences of sending MSU above. If we send CC, the East is
handled pretty much as in my first plan, but with CC in place of MSU.
In the West we need to shuffle
1 Michigan (C)
4 North Dakota (W)
6 Minnesota (W)
7 Miami (C)
9 Cornell (E)
11 Michigan State (C)
As Dan said, no first-round matchups, but two second-round ones
(Michigan-MSU and Minnesota-NoDak). The obvious thing to do is to
switch Minnesota and Miami again, which also means switching Cornell
and MSU to avoid Miami-MSU first-round matchup. But then again if the
bracket is left unchanged, both potential second round conference
matchups would be big draws. Speaking of $$$$$
John Whelan, Cornell '91
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Cornell Men's Ice Hockey: 1996-7 Ivy League Champions
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