With just about an hour to spare, I've posted my predictions of the
NCAA tournament brackets at http://slack.net/hockey/
For the impatient, these were the brackets I got.
5W Michigan (C) 6E Harvard (E)
4W St Cloud (W) 3E Maine (H)
1W New Hampshire (H)--+--2E Boston Univ (H)
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2W Minnesota (W) --+--1E Denver U (W)
3W Mich State (C) 4E Cornell (E)
6W CO College (W) 5E Quinnipiac (M)
For details, read on.
The season ended today, 2002 March 17
© 2000-2002, Joe Schlobotnik (archives)
URL for this frameset:
http://slack.net/~whelan/tbrw/tbrw.cgi?2002/pairwise.020317.shtml
Game results taken from US College Hockey Online's Division I
composite schedule
Now that the CCHA title game has been played, all the results are in
for selecting and seeding the NCAA tournament field. Central to this
process are the pairwise comparisons among the 27 teams who finished
the season at or above .500 (in games against tournament-eligible
teams, which doesn't include Findlay). Those are as follows:
Current Pairwise Comparisons (including games of 2002 March 17)
CAPTION: Pairwise Comparisons
Rk Team PWR RPI Comparisons Won
1 New Hampshire (H) 26 .6239 DU Mn BU MS Mi Me SC CC Cr Ak NM WM ML Mh
OS NO RP NE BC WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
2 Denver U (W) 25 .6259 Mn BU MS Mi Me SC CC Cr Ak NM WM ML Mh OS NO
RP NE BC WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
3 Minnesota (W) 24 .6241 BU MS Mi Me SC CC Cr Ak NM WM ML Mh OS NO
RP NE BC WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
4 Boston Univ (H) 22 .5991 MS Me SC CC Cr Ak NM WM ML Mh OS NO
RP NE BC WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
5 Mich State (C) 22 .5940 Mi Me SC CC Cr Ak NM WM ML Mh OS NO
RP NE BC WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
6 Michigan (C) 21 .5826 BU Me CC Cr Ak NM WM ML Mh OS NO RP
NE BC WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
7 Maine (H) 20 .5882 SC CC Cr Ak NM WM ML Mh OS NO RP NE BC
WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
8 St Cloud (W) 19 .5947 Mi CC Ak NM WM ML Mh OS NO RP NE
BC WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
9 CO College (W) 18 .5824 Cr Ak NM WM ML Mh OS NO RP NE
BC WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
10 Cornell (E) 18 .5793 SC Ak NM WM ML Mh OS NO RP NE
BC WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
11 AK-Fairbanks (C) 16 .5607 NM WM ML Mh OS NO RP
NE BC WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
12 Northern Mich (C) 15 .5568 WM ML Mh OS NO RP NE
BC WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
13 Western Mich (C) 13 .5415 ML OS NO RP NE
BC WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
14 Mass-Lowell (H) 13 .5611 Mh OS NO RP NE BC
WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
15 Mercyhurst (M) 11 .5426 WM OS NO BC WS
Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
16 Ohio State (C) 11 .5364 NO RP NE BC WS
Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
17 NE-Omaha (C) 10 .5361 RP NE BC WS Ck
Qn Ha Da SH HC
18 RPI (E) 10 .5157 Mh NE BC WS Ck Qn
Ha Da SH HC
19 NorthEastern (H) 9 .5352 Mh BC WS
Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
20 Boston Coll (H) 6 .5168 WS
Qn Ha Da SH HC
21 Wayne State (A) 6 .5088 Ck
Qn Ha Da SH HC
22 Clarkson (E) 6 .5048 BC Qn
Ha Da SH HC
23 Quinnipiac (M) 4 .5032
Ha Da SH HC
24 Harvard (E) 3 .4999 Da
SH HC
25 Dartmouth (E) 2 .4823
SH HC
26 Sacred Heart (M) 1 .4806
HC
27 Holy Cross (M) 0 .4753
Five teams received automatic berths for winning their conference
tournaments: Denver in the WCHA, Michigan in the CCHA, Harvard in the
ECAC, Quinnipiac in the MAAC, and New Hampshire in Hockey East. This
leaves seven at-large bids, which will go to Minnesota, Boston
University, Michigan State, Maine, St. Cloud, Colorado College, and
Cornell, since these seven win all their pairwise comparisons with all
other teams in contention for at-large bids. This gives a tournament
field of:
Team lPWR RPI Comparisons Won
New Hampshire (H) 11 .6239 DU Mn BU MS Mi Me SC CC Cr Qn Ha
Denver U (W) 10 .6259 Mn BU MS Mi Me SC CC Cr Qn Ha
Minnesota (W) 9 .6241 BU MS Mi Me SC CC Cr Qn Ha
Boston Univ (H) 7 .5991 MS Me SC CC Cr Qn Ha
Mich State (C) 7 .5940 Mi Me SC CC Cr Qn Ha
Michigan (C) 6 .5826 BU Me CC Cr Qn Ha
Maine (H) 5 .5882 SC CC Cr Qn Ha
St Cloud (W) 4 .5947 Mi CC Qn Ha
CO College (W) 3 .5824 Cr Qn Ha
Cornell (E) 3 .5793 SC Qn Ha
Quinnipiac (M) 1 .5032 Ha
Harvard (E) 0 .4999
The top four teams in the nation receive first-round byes. UNH, DU,
and Minnesota all win all comparisons against the rest of the field,
so they get three of them. The final bye comes down to a choice among
Boston University, Michigan State, and Michigan, with each team
winning one comparison and losing one with the other two. In this case
the ratings percentage index should be applied as a tie-breaker,
giving the last bye to BU.
The assignment of bye seeds is actually a tricky thing. Boston
University, as host of the East Regional, must play there. But
according to the NCAA's Championship Handbook for Division I Men's Ice
Hockey, #4 BU must be placed in the bracket so as to play #1 UNH in
the national semifinal if they both advance. With Boston University as
the second seed in the East, that means New Hampshire must be the
first seed in the West, and either Denver or Minnesota must be sent
East as a number one seed. (The documents we've seen (see a recent
hockey-l post for an explanation) describing a policy change to reduce
travel seem to imply that the preceding reasoning is unaffected, as
they say that the "seeded" teams (the top four in the hockey
tournament) should be placed into the bracket first, and
travel-reducing considerations then applied to the remaining teams.)
This would likely make New Hampshire fans unhappy, and the "reward" of
being bracketed to play BU is likely offset in the Wildcats' minds by
the penalty of flying out to the West Regional. Nonetheless, it
appears to be the only course of action consistent with the NCAA's
published guidelines.
Given that both Minnesota and Denver are more than 400 miles from both
regionals, either team would be flying to either regional site, so
there's not much to favor sending one or the other East in UNH's
place, except that Minnesota might bring more fans to the West
Regional in Ann Arbor Michigan. Denver, as the national #2, should get
the more "favorable" seed, although it's not clear whether this would
be the second seed in their own regional or the top seed in the other.
So as a pure guess, let's suppose Denver goes East.
There are four teams from each region without byes, and since the NCAA
is trying to minimize travel in accordance with the aforementioned
policy, it seems safe to assume that the eight teams will all stay in
their own regions, which gives us regionals of:
Western Regional
(Ann Arbor, MI)
Eastern Regional
(Worcester, MA)
Team lPWR RPI Comps Won
New Hampshire (H) 1 .6239 Mn
Minnesota (W) 0 .6241
Mich State (C) 3 .5940 SC Mi CC
St Cloud (W) 2 .5947 Mi CC
Michigan (C) 1 .5826 CC
CO College (W) 0 .5824
Team lPWR RPI Comps Won
Denver U (W) 1 .6259 BU
Boston Univ (H) 0 .5991
Maine (H) 3 .5882 Cr Qn Ha
Cornell (E) 2 .5793 Qn Ha
Quinnipiac (M) 1 .5032 Ha
Harvard (E) 0 .4999
Both regionals can be seeded directly according to the pairwise
comparisons without any first-round intraconference matchups. In
principle, the committee might overrule the Quinnipiac-Harvard
comparison because the MAAC is a substantially weaker conference than
the ECAC and thus the selection criteria are unreliable in making the
comparison. However, moving Harvard up to the fifth seed would set up
a rematch of the ECAC championship game with Cornell, so the ordering
is best left alone. That makes the expected brackets
5W Michigan (C) 6E Harvard (E)
4W St Cloud (W) 3E Maine (H)
1W New Hampshire (H)--+--2E Boston Univ (H)
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2W Minnesota (W) --+--1E Denver U (W)
3W Mich State (C) 4E Cornell (E)
6W CO College (W) 5E Quinnipiac (M)
The selection committee's actual choices will be known in the next
hour or two, but with the reduced travel, the unpredictable decisions
about regional placement are avoided. The only question is the
identity of the #1 seed in the East, with the bracket above being
about as likely as one in which Minnesota and Denver are reversed. One
other possiblity might be to interchange Denver and New Hampshire, and
keep all twelve teams in their own regions. However, as noted above,
this would seem to require that the committee disregard the details of
the process described in the championships manual.
_________________________________________________________________
Last Modified: 2002 March 17
Joe Schlobotnik / [log in to unmask]
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John Whelan, Cornell '91
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