At 7:39 PM 3/18/96, Robin Lock wrote:
>Does anyone with a better institutional memory than me remember where
>the tradition of insisting that some Eastern teams go West and vice versa
>originates?
 
Going back a ways...when the tourney expanded to 8 teams in 1981, the top
two seeds in each region hosted the bottom two from the other region in two
game series.  There were always four W and four E teams chosen.  4W played
at 1E, 3W played at 2E, and so on.  The tourney was two weekends: qfinal
series, and final four.
 
In 1988, the tourney expanded to 12 teams.  An Independent was guaranteed a
bid and could come from either region.  It was also not required that an
equal number of teams be chosen from each region (I am not certain that it
was required with 8 teams; it just worked out that way).
 
The tourney was three weekends: one weekend of first round series, one
weekend of qfinal series, and final four.  Brackets were set up as
crossovers, meaning that the first weekend, for example, 6W played at 3E,
and the second weekend, the winner played at 2W.  So brackets were
6W-3E-2W, 5W-4E-1W, and flip the regions for the other two.
 
Sometimes there were more teams from one region than another.  The teams
were first selected, then split up according to the region from whence they
came.  In 1988, the East had 7 teams, because the Independent bid went to
Merrimack (7E).  Merrimack was flipped over as 6W and played at 3E
Northeastern.
 
At this point, effectively, once the 6-6 split was determined, the teams
that crossed over in the first round were always the 5-6 seeds in each
region.  Sometimes, as in 1988, you had two teams from one region meeting
in the first round.
 
This format lasted until 1992 when the regionals began.  After 1992 the
Independent bid was eliminated, however, it was still possible to get an
unequal number of teams by region.
 
In 1992, there were 5 East teams and 6 West plus a West Indep, UAA.  UAA
was shifted over as 6E and along with 5E Clarkson, played at the West
Regional at the Joe.  5W & 6W crossed over and played in the East Regional
at Providence.
 
In 1993, the Indep bid was eliminated, but the West still got 7 teams.
Wisconsin was moved to 6E and played in the West along with 5E Brown.  5W &
6W again crossed over to the East Regional.
 
Note that through 1993, the teams that crossed over were *always* the teams
seeded bottom two in each region.
 
1994 was the first time that this didn't happen.  RPI & MSU hosted.  6
teams from each region were chosen, and RPI and MSU each ranked in the
bottom two in their region.  Both stayed home while the teams ranked 4th
crossed over instead: Wisconsin and Lowell.
 
In 1995, the split was 7W and 5E.  Wisconsin hosted but ranked 4W; others
were 5W MSU, 6W LSSU, and 7W Denver.  LSSU and Denver crossed over to the
East.  Only 5E RPI crossed over to the West.  Note that here, again, the
bottom teams were the ones that crossed over.  The East sent only one team
over since it only had 5 teams.  This was a little different from the last
time there was an uneven split, but it still made sense.
 
In 1996, we have a precedent where the teams that rank 3rd in each region
cross over (LSSU & Lowell) while lower ranked teams that were not hosting
stay in their region.
 
>If the powers that be were really primarily interested in drawing fans to the
>regionals, wouldn't switching 4E Western Michigan for 4W Lowell make
>fans of BOTH teams happier (and more likely to go to the regionals)?
>Could it be that $$$ is not the only motivating factor?
 
I think the answer lies in the following:
 
1) With six teams per region, two must cross over;
2) To decide those crossovers, look at 1) attendance 2) minimizing conf
matchups.
3) After determining crossovers, re-seed within region.
 
Possible crossovers (#3-6 seeds each region):
West: LSSU, Minn, WMU, MSU
East: Lowell, Clarkson, Cornell, PC
 
West: MSU stays home as host.  2 of the others must go.  WMU makes sense as
a bottom two seed.  Seems like Minn would normally go...but this sets up a
possible LSSU-Mich second round meeting.  So LSSU goes.
 
East: Cornell stays East due to attendance.  2 of the others must go.  PC
makes sense as a bottom two seed (last).  Seems like Clarkson should
go...but this sets up a possible Lowell-BU second meeting.  So Lowell goes.
 
Re-seeding the regions E-W we wound up with:
West: 3 Minn, 4 Lowell, 5 MSU, 6 PC
East: 3 LSSU, 4 WMU, 5 Clarkson, 6 Cornell
 
What if WMU and Lowell were swapped?  Problem is that only one team from
each region crosses over, giving 5 West + 1 East & 5 East + 1 West.
Re-seeding would give
 
West: 3 Minn, 4 WMU, 5 MSU, 6 PC
East: 3 LSSU, 4 Lowell, 5 Clarkson, 6 Cornell
 
and you have first round matchups between conf teams in the West as well as
another potential matchup in the second round (Lowell-BU).
 
It seems to me that as Rick said, the factors of attendance and minimizing
conf matchups decided the crossovers for them.  But what seems odd to me is
that they used the attendance factor to determine the first of the two
teams to stay home, and then they used the matchups to decide the second
team.  At least, that's how it looks.  Again, Rick did say that when it was
down to Lowell, Clarkson, or Cornell, Cornell stayed East because of
attendance, but Clarkson stayed East because of matchups.  (also criteria
but see how this conflicts with the LSSU-Minn situation)
 
I think the key is that once the final 6 teams in each region were
determined, they had to be ordered by rank (i.e. PWR).  They came up with
the final 6 in each region by looking to maximize attendance and minimize
matchups.  They could have increased attendance but also increased matchups
(Robin's suggestion of flipping WMU and Lowell).  Here, the matchups won
out.  But then why not flip PC and Cornell instead and eliminate all
matchups?  Because attendance ($$$) was still important.
 
This got longer than I intended.  In short, I do believe they tried as best
as they could to max attendance and min matchups.  But I don't believe this
is the right way to go.  I liked it better when the bottom two from each
region crossed over and that was it.  It was a lot easier then. :-)
 
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                   [log in to unmask]            *HMM* 11/13/93
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