At 4:07 PM 11/16/95, Eeyore wrote:
>Dave Hendrickson wrote:
>
>>I think they would have won the double OT loss to Minnesota and
>>gotten to the Final Four.  (I'm not trying to provoke an argument on that
>>point, so let's just say they were within a whisker of the Final Four.)
>
>Just to vent my spleen on a grudge that I carry (you don't think I acquired
>the nickname Eeyore for nothing, do you?), Lowell only got that close to
>the Final Four because of weird seeding.  That anyone could have gotten out
>of that regional without having to face either Lake State or Michigan was a
>travesty.  And I say that as a fan of Minnesota, the ultimate beneficiary
>of that decision.
 
Wait a minute.  Lowell was only in that regional as a result of the
unprecedented histrionics the committee pulled to allow MSU and RPI to stay
at home.  Lowell should have been in the East Regional and played in Albany
because they were the fourth highest seeded East team.  From the file
NCAADIV1 RESULTS in the HOCKEY-L archives:
 
+1994 NCAA DIVISION I TOURNAMENT
+SEEDS
+WEST                                  EAST
+*Michigan (33-6-1)                1  *Boston University (30-7-1)
+*Minnesota (24-12-4)              2  *Harvard (23-4-4)
+ Mass Lowell (22-9-7)             3   New Hampshire (22-13-3)
+ Lake Superior (27-10-4)          4   Wisconsin (25-14-1)
+ Northeastern (19-12-7)           5   Western Michigan (24-12-3)
+ Michigan State (23-12-5)         6   RPI (21-10-4)
+*-received automatic bids by virtue of winning conference tournaments.
+NOTES: Records count all games, original results (no forfeits).
+Orig seeds were:
+  EAST BU, Harv, UNH, UML, RPI, NU
+  WEST Mich, Minn, LSSU, Wisc, WMU, MSU
+RPI and MSU stayed at home instead of crossing over, so the other
+two lowest ranking teams from each region crossed over instead.  These
+were 4E Lowell & 6E NU; 4W Wisc & 5W WMU.  Then, each region was
+re-seeded with its new collection of teams to give the result above.
 
>Those were the two best teams in the country at that point, and the
>sequence of events that led to them playing in the quarter-finals exposed
>the selection committee at its most worthless.
 
Well, hindsight is 20/20...besides, LSSU may have been playing better than
anyone else at that time, but the tourney isn't chosen based on who's
playing the best on the day the seeds are announced.
 
The problem wasn't so much that LSSU and Michigan met in the quarterfinals
as it was that the two home teams were given special privileges and favored
over teams that had earned the right to stay near home.  If the seeds had
stayed the way they should have, then the West regionals would have had
Michigan playing the RPI-Wisconsin winner and Minnesota playing the
LSSU-Northeastern winner.
 
BTW, Lowell would have played Western Michigan in the first round, with the
winner playing BU - which probably would have turned out to be a tougher
matchup for Lowell than Minnesota did.
 
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                   [log in to unmask]            *HMM* 11/13/93
>> Co-owner of the College Hockey Lists at University of Maine System  <<
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