On Mon, 18 Mar 1996, Mike Machnik wrote:
 
> I have some big questions on a couple of the decisions that were made.
> First, here are the seeds again:
>
> Q1: Why was Lowell sent West over Clarkson?
>
> Rick Comley said that one of Clarkson, Lowell, or Cornell should go West
> (along with PC).  He said that it was decided to keep Cornell East because
> of their fan base.  So the decision came down to Lowell or Clarkson.  Rick
> said that fan base was determined to be even.  To make the decision, Rick
> said that they went to the criteria, and that Clarkson edged Lowell on
> criteria, and thus Clarkson goes to Albany and Lowell goes to East Lansing.
>
 
I think that Comley was including the criteria that they wanted to
minimize possible second round matchups in conference. Clearley this
means Mass Lowell goes west and tus Clarkson stays west.
 
>
> Now, first Rick said that the criteria were used to choose whether Clarkson
> or Lowell stayed East.  Then he said in response to a question by Jon
> Barkan on the conference call that the underlying factors were 1)
> attendance 2) a desire to minimize matchups between conference teams before
> Cincinnati.
>
> It is true that sending Lowell West instead of Clarkson removes a possible
> HE matchup in the regionals.  But why was this possible matchup removed
> while allowing a possible Cornell-Vermont ECAC matchup in Albany?  There,
> it seems that the difference was attendance, not criteria.  Lowell also
> wins out over Cornell both in number of comparisons won and head-to-head
> comparison.
>
 
Simple mathmatics says that you have to get at least one. They chose
Cornell because of draw. Here that only matchup requires an upset.
 
>
> MSU STAYING WEST
> I found it interesting that Rick said on tv that MSU stayed West because of
> the desire to encourage teams to bid for regionals.  He said that not
> enough teams were making bids and that they wanted to encourage this,
> presumably by guaranteeing that they would stay home.  But then why did he
> say last Monday on the conference call that MSU could be sent East?  Are
> the host teams guaranteed to always stay home or not?
>
 
Not always. In 1992, MSU hosted the Western regional at Joe Louis Arena, but
they were sent to play in the eastern regional in Providence. Granted
this was not at Munn. I think the committee will bend over backwards to
keep a host team home. This should give incentive to host regionals, but
as the 1992 example shows you may have to do it on campus.
 
> And after what has happened in 1994 and 1996, what are the chances that
> Lowell will bid for the East once their new rink opens?  It may be their
> only chance, short of earning a top two East seed, to ever play near their
> home fans.
>
 
I disagree with you on this point. The sample set is too small. IMHO The
problem this year is that the west was so strong in the computer
rankings. After sending the two lowest western seeds east Lowell
ranked 5th. If instead they ranked 3rd or 6th they would have stayed east
(ie they would not have to play BU in the second game).
 
> BTW, Rick said on the call that the basic procedure was as follows:
>
> 1) Choose the 12 teams and rank them within their own regions (E-W).
> 2) Decide who gets shifted to the other region - go back to the criteria.
> (use attendance too?)
                ^ and conference matchups
> 3) Re-seed within regions.
 
IMHO the committee did a great job. If they would have done things as
in the past, they would be sending LSSU at Michigan and Mass Lowell at BU.
Recall most of the examples that people talk about for the great games do
not involve teams from the same conference. This years brackets are full
matchups of this variety. Besides we just saw conference playoffs.
 
IMHO preventing Conference matchups before the Final Four, when possible,
is a great idea. Also bending over backwards to keep host teams home is
great. I also agree with the committee on keeping eastern byes eastern
and western byes west is good.
 
Although I did not expect these seedings, I have no complaints. I think
the committee deserves credit for having the guts to send LSSU east and
Lowell West. Is there any precendent being set here, we will have to  wait
until next year. For now lets play hockey!
 
Tim
 
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