Okay, it's the start of the college hockey season, so now I want to ask a question about the end of the season. What criteria will the NCAA selection committee use to determine the seedings for the national tournament this year? If possible, what will be the algorithm? I ask this because every year it seems that the committee uses a different set of rules, and every year those rules are revealed only after the seeds are announced. Yet I've heard assertions that the process was determined in advance, but no one asked. Well, I'm asking. If we all know what the process is ahead of time, no one will be surprised by the seedings come March (while they might disagree with the priorities in the algorithm itself). I'm glad that there is an algorithm now, I'd just like to know it ahead of time. Last year in particular, we all thought the Pairwise Rankings (PWR) of the teams would be used to order the teams as a starting point. (To calculate the PWR, you compare a team to every other team with a winning record according to a set of criteria. The PWR is the number of teams which a team defeats in these Pairwise Comparisons.) Dan Olsen and I attempted to predict the would-be seedings based on each week's PWR, using as a guide the reasoning used for seedings the previous year, namely to avoid intra-conference matchups and increase attendance by shifting teams from one regional to the other, while making sure that the 3-6 seeds in each regional ended up in order by PWR. Then the seedings came out, and bore little resemblance to our expectations, with the principal surprise being that the seeds were shuffled within each regional, so that for instance Minnesota, with 16 PWCs won, was seeded below Miami, with 12 PWCs won. Several Hockey-Lers with media connections posted detailed explanations of the algorithm this year, and noted that it was completely cut and dry, according to procedures laid out in the championships manual. Then, a couple of days later, an interview of committee chair Joe Marsh by Adam Wodon appeared on US College Hockey Online <http://www.uscollegehockey.com/tournament/032097.html>. This article explained the actual process used by the committee, and it differed in its details from the analysis confidently posted a few days earlier (after all, with only twelve teams, it's not too difficult to get the same set of seeds for different reasons). The most important detail was that the total number of PWCs won was not used to distinguish teams, only the PWCs among teams competing for a particular seed. Thus Cornell was seeded below Miami, despite winning one more total PWC, because Miami won the individual PWC with Cornell. So I think it's fair to say that no one on Hockey-L (who include numerous media types, as well as knowledgeable fans) knew the seeding algorithm before the seeds were announced. Can someone ask the powers that be what changes are being made to the process for this season? Here's my understanding of last year's algorithm for comparison: Selection: Winners of conference tournament and regular season titles gain automatic berths; the remaining 4-8 at large bids are filled by the Pairwise Comparison process (i.e., compare relevant teams head-to-head), with the stipulation that each conference must receive at least two total bids. Byes: Any team winning both the regular season and tournament title in its conference receives an automatic bye. The remaining 0-2 byes in each region are given to the best teams in in that region according to PWCs. (According to Adam's article last year, Eastern byes are given to Eastern teams and vice-versa "unless there is an overwhelmingly compelling reason do so" but Vermont receiving a bye in 1996 despite being ranked below four Western teams would seem to indicate that it will never happen.) The two bye teams in each region are seeding according to a pairwise comparison. Okay, now we get to the judgment calls; from here on, the ordering of teams by PWCs may be over-ridden so that the final pairings produce higher attendance and/or avoid conference matchups. The order of distaste for conference matchups, from least desirable to most, is 1. Conference matchups in the first round 2. Second-round conference matchups involving a victory by the higher-seeded team (1/4 or 2/3) 3. Second-round conference matchups involving an upset (1/5 or 2/6) If seeds are changed to avoid a matchup, the first round pairings should be preserved if possible (i.e., if you swap the 3 and 4 seeds, you should also swap 5 and 6). Regions: There will be eight non-by teams at this point, 2-6 in each region. They are first split into four Eastern and four Western teams, with the lowest one or two seeds from the more well-represented region are considered to belong to the other region. [BTW, I think this is an absurd way to do things, since these teams are about to be swapped back into their own region while higher-ranked teams are shipped out.] Then the two lowest-ranked Eastern teams (again, determined by the individual PWCs) are shifted to the West and vice versa, unless attendance or conference match-up considerations indicate that other teams should go, as specified above; in addition, the host school, if it qualifies for the tournament, is guaranteed to play in its own region. Seedings: Once the four non-bye teams in each regional are determined, they are seeded relative to one another according to the pairwise comparisons; again, this may be changed to avoid conference matchups, as described previously. Reading Adam's article, I believe those were last year's rules. Can someone tell us (or ask the appropriate people) what, if anything, is different this year? John Whelan, Cornell '91 <[log in to unmask]> <http://www.cc.utah.edu/~jtw16960/jshock.html> Cornell Men's Ice Hockey: Back-to-back ECAC and Ivy League Champions HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.