So much for the comparisons being transitive. The comparisons among the 2-5 seeds in the East are the same, so Clarkson is still in line for that bye, and a cursory examination indicates that BC will have a hard time catching them. The fun part comes when figuring out who's in the tournament. Here are the current comparisons: Team PWR RPI Comparisons Won 1 North Dakota 18 .619 MSBUMiCkOSBCNHYaCCWiNESCMDNMMeMmRPPn 2 Mich State 17 .616 __ BUMiCkOSBCNHYaCCWiNESCMDNMMeMmRPPn 3 Boston Univ 16 .606 ____ MiCkOSBCNHYaCCWiNESCMDNMMeMmRPPn 4 Michigan 15 .585 ______ CkOSBCNHYaCCWiNESCMDNMMeMmRPPn 5 Clarkson 13 .574 ________ OSBCNHYaCCWiNESC__NMMeMmRPPn 6 Ohio State 13 .562 __________ BCNHYaCCWiNESCMDNMMeMmRPPn 7 Boston Coll 12 .579 ____________ NHYaCCWiNESCMDNMMeMmRPPn 8 New Hampshire 10 .560 ______________ YaCC__NESCMDNMMeMmRPPn 9 Yale 10 .555 ________________ CCWiNESCMDNMMeMmRPPn 10 CO College 9 .550 __________________ WiNESCMDNMMeMmRPPn 11 Wisconsin 9 .548 ______________NH____ NESCMDNMMeMmRPPn 12 Northeastern 6 .527 ______________________ SCMD__MeMmRPPn 13 St Cloud 6 .534 ________________________ MDNMMeMmRPPn 14 Minn-Duluth 5 .517 ________Ck________________ NM__MmRPPn 15 Northern Mich 5 .530 ______________________NE____ MeMmRPPn 16 Maine 4 .525 __________________________MD__ MmRPPn 17 Miami 2 .518 ________________________________ RPPn 18 RPI 1 .506 __________________________________ Pn 19 Princeton 0 .490 ____________________________________ With the exception of the Clarkson-UMD comparison, the top eleven teams win comparisons with the other eight, so they're in. Likewise, the bottom three TUCs lose to everyone else, so that leaves five teams potentially fighting for that last spot: Team lPWR RPI Comps Won 1 NorthEastern 3 .527 SC__MeMD 2 St Cloud 3 .534 __ NMMeMD 3 Northern Mich 2 .530 NE__ Me__ 4 Maine 1 .525 ______ MD 5 Minn-Duluth 1 .517 ____NM__ Now, on the surface, it looks like Northeastern gets the nod, thanks to their individual comparison win with SCSU. But not so fast. Suppose we toss out Maine and UMD, who only win one out of four comparisons each. That leaves 1 St Cloud 1 .534 NM__ 2 Northern Mich 1 .530 __ NE 3 NorthEastern 1 .527 SC__ In the classic rock-scissors-paper situation, we go to the RPI to resolve the trilemma, and St. Cloud is in. Which way would the selection committee resolve a situation like this? We'll probably only know if it comes up. At any rate, when St. Cloud and Northeastern take the ice tomorrow in games three of their respective series, either one of them could be facing the end of their season, even without surprise tournament champions. One final note: since Yale gets an automatic bid, New Hampshire will have a somewhat tense time watching the conference tourneys... John Whelan, Cornell '91 <[log in to unmask]> <http://www.cc.utah.edu/~jtw16960/joe.html> Learn about the NCAA selection process on the web at http://www.slack.net/~whelan/cgi-bin/tbrw.cgi?pairwise HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.