My complete (and hopefully somewhat comprehensible) analysis
of the tournament seeding procedure, using this week's pairwise
numbers, is at <http://www.cc.utah.edu/~jtw16960/pframe.html>, but I
wanted to throw out two issues that are raised by running through the
process this week. First, here are the comparisons I'm using (they
differ slightly from those posted by Charlie because mine do *not*
include the effects of games involving UNO--an issue which should be
resolved real soon--and also do include the Mankato State/Army game
from last night)
1 Michigan 21 .601 MSNH__BUCgBCWiMmYaSCNMCCNEPvLSPnOSNtCkRPCrMk
2 Mich State 21 .596 __ NHNDBUCgBCWiMmYaSCNMCCNEPvLSPnOSNtCkRPCrMk
3 New Hampshire 20 .632 ____ NDBUCgBCWiMmYaSCNMCCNEPvLSPnOSNtCkRPCrMk
4 North Dakota 20 .629 Mi____ BUCgBCWiMmYaSCNMCCNEPvLSPnOSNtCkRPCrMk
5 Boston Univ 18 .615 ________ CgBCWiMmYaSCNMCCNEPvLSPnOSNtCkRPCrMk
6 Colgate 16 .573 __________ BC__MmYaSCNMCCNEPvLSPnOSNtCkRPCrMk
7 Boston Coll 16 .578 ____________ WiMmYaSCNMCCNEPvLSPnOSNtCkRPCrMk
8 Wisconsin 15 .573 __________Cg__ Mm__SCNMCCNEPvLSPnOSNtCkRPCrMk
9 Miami 14 .563 ________________ YaSCNMCCNEPvLSPnOSNtCkRPCrMk
10 Yale 14 .558 ______________Wi__ SCNMCCNEPvLSPnOSNtCkRPCrMk
11 St Cloud 12 .547 ____________________ NMCCNEPvLSPnOSNtCkRPCrMk
12 Northern Mich 11 .547 ______________________ CCNEPvLSPnOSNtCkRPCrMk
Issue #1: Who gets sent West?
The pairwise comparisons clearly order the six "Eastern" teams (five
real Eastern teams plus the seventh qualifies from the West, Northern
Michigan):
1 New Hampshire 5 .632 BUCgBCYaNM
2 Boston Univ 4 .615 CgBCYaNM
3 Colgate 3 .573 __ BCYaNM
4 Boston Coll 2 .578 ____ YaNM
5 Yale 1 .558 ______ NM
6 Northern Mich 0 .547 ________
So the numbers say to send Yale and NMU West. Thing is, with both
byes going to Hockey East, the only way to avoid a possible
second-round intraconference matchup is to send Boston College to the
Western regional instead. However, a case could be made for BC being
a bigger draw in Albany than Yale. So would the committee go with the
numbers (BC), conference considerations (Yale) or attendance (BC)? An
interesting situation.
Issue #2: What the heck do we do with the West regional?
Whoever gets sent out West, the natural seedings out there are pretty
messed up. North Dakota and Michigan take the byes on the basis of
their RPI (since UND, Michigan and MSU are tied on comparisons among
the three, even though NoDak has a lower total PWR), leaving the
remaining teams unequivocally ordered by pairwise comparisons:
1 North Dakota (W) 1 .629 Mi
2 Michigan (C) 0 .601
3 Mich State (C) 3 .596 BCWiNM
4 Boston Coll (H) 2 .578 WiNM
5 Wisconsin (W) 1 .573 __ NM
6 Northern Mich (C) 0 .547 ____
(BC and Yale are basically interchangeable in this discussion, so I'm
choosing BC for concreteness.)
Okay, now an all-CCHA bracket is clearly a no-no. If we were to switch
Wisconsin and NMU, we'd get pairings of
1W North Dakota (W)
4W Boston Coll (H)
5W Northern Mich (C)
2W Michigan (C)
3W Mich State (C)
6W Wisconsin (W)
which means only one possible second-round matchup. However, it's
between the two and three seeds, and our experience with Minnesota
last year tells us that's also a no-no. Switching Michigan State and BC
instead would take away that problem, but leave *two* possible
matchups, if either of the low seeds pulls an upset in the first
round:
1W North Dakota (W)
4W Mich State (C)
5W Wisconsin (W)
2W Michigan (C)
3W Boston Coll (H)
6W Northern Mich (C)
If we say that MSU must be the fourth seed to avoid a matchup with
Michigan, and we want to keep Wisconsin from playing North Dakota,
we're left with the following as the only possibility:
1W North Dakota (W)
4W Mich State (C)
5W Boston Coll (H)
2W Michigan (C)
3W Wisconsin (W)
6W Northern Mich (C)
But this is really unfair to BC (or Yale, as the case may be). The
top two non-bye teams in the regional are playing for the right to
play the top team.
The problems are all caused by the presence of a third CCHA team in
the regional. If we instead keep St. Cloud in the West, they take
NMU's place at the bottom of the pecking order. All we have to do to
minimize conference matchups is to swap MSU and BC, also swapping the
two WCHA teams to maintain the pairings:
1W North Dakota (W)
4W Mich State (C)
5W St Cloud (W)
2W Michigan (C)
3W Boston Coll (H)
6W Wisconsin (W)
But here's the really silly question: the committee started out in
this scenario by pretending that NMU was an Eastern team to even up
the regions. Is that fantasy still in effect? If so, this proposed
arrangement is against the rules, since only one "Eastern" and one
"Western" team were swapped. Put another way, while this plan puts
one true Eastern team in the West and two true Western teams in the
East, just like the others, the other plans had two "Eastern" teams
(including Northern Michigan) in the West, while this only has one.
And this plan only has one "Western" team in the East--if NMU is
considered "Eastern" for tournament purposes--instead of the usual
two. Oh what a tangled web we weave...
John Whelan, Cornell '91
Official Scorer/PA Announcer
U of Utah Ice Hockey Club
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<http://www.cc.utah.edu/~jtw16960/joe.html>
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