Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2012-13 edition

[blazer777]

Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2012-13 edition

Actually it quadruples it. Mathematically impossible, but Dick Umile will find a way.

If recent history is any indication, then yes, he will.

For Niagara to play in ManchVegas, they would have to lose in the AHA play-offs and drop down to about 15 or 14th in the standings.

The other AHA team would play down in Providence more than likely.

[Snively65]

Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2012-13 edition

If recent history is any indication, then yes, he will.

For Niagara to play in ManchVegas, they would have to lose in the AHA play-offs and drop down to about 15 or 14th in the standings.

The other AHA team would play down in Providence more than likely.

I do not think that Niagara is going to lose in the AHA tournament, as they are far superior to all other teams in the AHA this season.

At the moment looks like the PWR would have UNH facing Dartmouth in Manch, as the Riverstone Cup zombie comes back to life.

[Todd]

Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2012-13 edition

... three different teams at the top in the last 24 hours...this is great.

True dat.

[Todd]

Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2012-13 edition

For Niagara to play in ManchVegas, they would have to lose in the AHA play-offs and drop down to about 15 or 14th in the standings.

Why? Each regional has four slots. UNH only takes one as host. Why couldn't Niagara fill any of the other three, instead of needing to "drop down" just to fill the bottom one? They could meet as either a 1-4 or a 2-3 or in the final.

[jjmc85]

Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2012-13 edition

http://www.westerncollegehockeyblog....y-lowell-maine

Todd's been doing this thread for years. While I'm sure this blog is nice and all, that's not why this thread exists.

[CollegeHockeyRinkReport]

Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2012-13 edition

That's great. I have nothing against Todd, but that's what is great about the world. You can have more than one opinion and more than one person can share his thoughts.

[Todd]

Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2012-13 edition

After Sat 2/23:
UNH 1 @ UVM 1 OT
PC 3 @ NU 2
BU 1 @ UML 3
ME 2 @ UMA 5

--- Home Lock - 35 (PC/UNH/MC/BC) ---
PC 28 - 36 [1-6]
UNH 28 - 36 [1-6]
MC 27 - 39 [1-6]
BC 26 - 38 [1-7]
UML 26 - 36 [1-7]
BU 24 - 34 [1-8]
--- Home Eligible - 27 (Top 5) ---
--- In - 24 (ME) ---
UVM 19 - 27 [5-10]
UMA 17 - 25 [6-10]
ME 16 - 24 [7-10]
NU 13 - 21 [7-10]
--- Out - 17 (UMA) ---

Remaining LEAGUE storm-adjusted schedules:
PC - @BC/BC, @UML/UML
UNH - UMAx2, MEx2
MC - BC, @BU, @UML/UML, UMA/@UMA
BC - @MC, UML, PC/@PC, @UVMx2
UML - @BC, MC/@MC, PC/@PC
BU - MC, UVMx2, @NU/NU
UVM - @BUx2, BCx2
UMA - @UNHx2, @MC/MC
ME - NUx2, @UNHx2
NU - @MEx2, BU/@BU


So MC and BC were idle and BU... also didn't get any points. In the mean time, PC and UML added 4 while UNH added 3.

The result? When the Sun set Friday, the standings looked like this: MC/BC/UNH/BU-PC/UML. When the Sun rises on Sunday, they will be: PC-UNH/MC/BC-UML/BU.

PC has gone from 5th seed (tie for 4th, losing the tb) to 1st seed (tie for 1st, Charlie-Sheening the tb) in about 27 hours.

----
On the other end of the spectrum, UMA and ME played leapfrog by splitting - each drawing incrementally closer to UVM who took a slim point from UNH on the weekend.

NU, like BU, got swept and saw its chances for moving up take a huge hit. On the bright side for one of these two, they will face off for a pair on the final weekend, so someone has to get points.

----
Home Lock is now at 35.

BU is not involved in the benchmark because they can no longer get there.

UML is not because, as noted previously, for them to reach the benchmark, they take out enough other teams that it actually lowers the benchmark, which defeats the premise of the Home Lock line.

With so few variables left, the simplest in-your-head way to see it is to note the Maxes of the Top 4: PC: 36, UNH:36 , MC:39 , BC: 38.

UNH has no games left within the quartet, so can win out without dinging any of the other three. Lock in UNH at 36 for the remaining scenario.

MC is four points clear of 35, and only has one game against BC to be decided within the group. Give BC both points and leave MC at 37 after winning the rest.

BC has 3 points to spare above 35, but has to play PCx2. PC is one point over 35. It's pretty clear how that four points has to be split, leaving both squads at 35 after winning anything not already covered.

Four teams at or above 35, and no way to redistribute points to move up the 4th seeded team to 36 or higher - making 35 the target for locking up Home Ice. No BU or UML points included. In fact, since UML only plays BC/MC/PC from here out, UML would have lost all five remaining RS games and still be at 26 in this setup.

----
That said, UML did jump up into the ranks of those who have clinched a playoff spot. Welcome, Hawks!

----
Home Eligible and In have met and swapped places.

In drops to 24 with just Maine, now that we know how the UMA/ME series turns out.

Similarly, Out is now based on whether one can catch the banked points of current 8 UMA.

----
Eligible is actually 27 now, but BU is no longer a factor in setting the benchmark.

----
PC and UNH are now clear of the bottom four, so can be no lower than 6th.

----
MC, at 27, could be caught by UVM, but would win the H2H tb. The schedule won't allow BC or UML to be in the mix with MC/UVM at 27, but BU could (must beat MC, must lose to UVM, split NU 1/3). That RR resolves BU/MC/UVM. Therefore, MC also can't be passed by UVM and can't be lower than 6th.

----
At 26, either BC or UML could, however, be passed by UVM, but not UMA, so they have clinched 7th.

----
We ran through the scenarios with BU at 24 and those are all still true, so BU has locked up 8th and a playoff spot, but that's it so far.

----
UVM could RR tie at 27 for 4th, but can't come out ahead of available tbs, so can't get Home Ice. 5th is still within reach.

---
UMA can't catch the top 5, so 6th is their peak.

---
ME can, at best, tie BU for 6th place. They lose that tb, and so are no higher than 7th.

----
NU's Max drops to 21, which is dangerously close to 7th place UVM's banked points, leaving them shrinking options to escape the cellar.

From a mathematical perspective, NU must have at least two points from the ME series next weekend. Behind ME by three for 9th and UMA by four for 8th, if NU splits with ME, they would go into the final weekend still three points behind the Black Bears and alive on paper - as long as UMA (over whom NU has the tb) doesn't widen their gap by taking three or four from UNH.

If NU takes only one point (or none) from ME, Maine ends up five points (or seven) up with two games to go and NU is done.

Anything less than a sweep of Maine, at Alfond, leaves them still in 10th heading into the final weekend, needing to pass two teams instead of one to keep their season alive for another week.

----
NU's biggest ally at this point is UNH, who plays both UMA and ME. In fact, if UNH and NU were to win out (NU 21, UMA 21 Max, ME 16), that would guarantee NU a spot in the playoffs, barring a three-way RR with UMA and UVM at 21 (NU:2-4-0, UMA: 3-3-0, UVM: 4-2-0), unless the league would decide to promote UVM and restart UMA/NU, which NU would win.

----

For those of you scoring along at home...

... I detailed last weekend an unusual "3-goal" streak involving BU.

That's seven of the ten games with three-goal leads or responses - or both. In fact, seven 3-plus-goal leads and three 3-plus-goal answers in ten games gives about even odds that you'll see one or the other.

Well... Harvard scored four straight on Monday to take a 6-3 lead en route to a 7-4 final, then Maine trailed by two before ripping three straight on the PP before the BU equalizer for Friday's 3-3 result, so add two more to that skein.

So that makes 8 three-goal leads and 4 three-goal responses in 12 BU games since Denver through the BU/ME tie last Friday.

On Saturday, BU trailed ME 1-0 before ripping four-in-a-row (Three-goal-lead? Check!), only to give up three straight (Three-goal-comeback? Check!) in regulation before the last-rush OT win. That's 9 leads and 5 responses in 13 games.

BU's freakish streak continued into UML's 3-0 win Friday. Saturday's game was 3-1, but it was 2-0, not 3-0, when BU got a SHG to avoid the shutout.

Tally through this weekend... 10 three-goal leads and 5 three-goal responses (by either team) in the 15 BU games since 12/30/12.

Since that's still working out to one per game, I'd say two things:
1) apparently no lead is safe - for BU or their opponents - so fans should slow their roll to beat traffic if either side gets up by a couple mid-way through the 3rd.
2) there's no way the Terrier coaching staff isn't climbing the walls over what appears to be a focus issue on the ice, since the common thread here is the skaters in scarlet and white.

---
Purely from an observer's perspective, I've seen teams be both streaky good and streaky bad, just usually not at the same time. Within the same game, sure. Over two months, game in and game out? No.

Does anyone else recall seeing something like this? Any team in any sport? It's just weird.

[Todd]

Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2012-13 edition

That's great. I have nothing against Todd, but that's what is great about the world. You can have more than one opinion and more than one person can share his thoughts.

Jeff -

Speaking only for myself, I don't have a problem if anyone has insight or spots errors or anything else that adds to the thread. Through the years, I have taken as many of the good-to-excellent suggestions as I can and incorporated them in the analysis so that we all know what's going on. The accumulated joint effort has made a better, deeper analysis possible, which is better for all of us.

What's odd is that you seem to be posting your link here for people to read, but you don't seem to be reading the thread you're posting in yourself. Your posts keep having math errors that have already been covered here, usually spelled out in detail - great detail when warranted. ("26 points beats 25 points" needs no explanation. A Head-to-Head tie-breaker is simple enough. However, I'll break something out to a multi-variate six-way tb and show the math so that everyone can follow, if that's what it takes to resolve something.)

What's also troubling is your comment about "opinion". The whole point of the thread (or "why this thread exists", as jjmc85 pointed out) is to just look at math, but to also do it accurately, so none of us have to guess. When it's conjecture, it's clearly conjecture. In your linked blog posts, you have stated, multiple times, things that teams need to be able to clinch that are just factually wrong. That's not opinion. It's logic and math.

If you're not sure which those are, feel free to ask. There are a number of folks that could probably help out. I don't think I'm the only one that can - I am just the one that posts the detailed updates since I started the thread all those years ago.

I'm not trying to crap on what you're doing. For example: your strength of schedule stuff is handy for people to look at, lots of people find that interesting, and I'm not going to add that in to the workload of the rest of the update. Jump on in and keep us all up to speed on that. I think it's good for a Western blog to be broad enough to have posts concentrating on an Eastern league. It's all good.

Just please be accurate.

Especially when the answer is already available.

- Todd

[blazer777]

Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2012-13 edition

Why? Each regional has four slots. UNH only takes one as host. Why couldn't Niagara fill any of the other three, instead of needing to "drop down" just to fill the bottom one? They could meet as either a 1-4 or a 2-3 or in the final.

See Snivley's quote just up from yours as he's probably right about the AHA play-offs.......but if Niagara does lose, then the AHA auto bid will be seeded 16th. Based off the current 'bracketology' listings, that team would go to Providence and Niagara, depending on where they end up in the standings, they might come east or they could stay in the Toledo regional with an at large bid. There's still a lot of hockey to play and upsets to be had.

The NCAA is also in the business of making money so while 'we' would like to see certain teams play in various locations, they are looking at attendance as a major factor too. BC and UNH playing in Manchester and facing off against each other in the final would be a financial windfall for the NCAA (no offense Niagara fans).

[Todd]

Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2012-13 edition

See Snivley's quote just up from yours as he's probably right about the AHA play-offs.......but if Niagara does lose, then the AHA auto bid will be seeded 16th. Based off the current 'bracketology' listings, that team would go to Providence and Niagara, depending on where they end up in the standings, they might come east or they could stay in the Toledo regional with an at large bid. There's still a lot of hockey to play and upsets to be had.

The NCAA is also in the business of making money so while 'we' would like to see certain teams play in various locations, they are looking at attendance as a major factor too. BC and UNH playing in Manchester and facing off against each other in the final would be a financial windfall for the NCAA (no offense Niagara fans).

I understand each of the pieces of your argument here, but I don't see how they coalesce to form a whole around Niagara needing to be 15 or 14 to be in Manchester.

Quite possible that a non-Niagara AHA winner would be 16th and Niagara is still in as an at-large.

That said, fellow AHAer Robert Morris is currently 17th in the PWR and clearly wouldn't be the worst "upset" winner if they were to take the AHA auto-bid. In fact, upon closer review, they are 5-1-1 OOC. Sure they beat newcomer and conference-exploder Penn State twice, but they also took three of four points from Ohio State in a H&H (winning on the road), beat PWR #3 Miami 1-0 in a tournament final ("neutral" site), and split a pair of 4-0 results AT current #1 Quinnipiac.

Still a lot going on around the bubble, but it's not inconceivable that RMU might rise up another notch or two and fall within the top 16 regardless of the auto-bid (although they might have to take the AHA final to do it).

In any event, if the tourney were seeded today with both RMU and MC making the tourney, RMU would get the higher seed.

Even so, let's stipulate that RMU is in and takes the 16 seed. How does that impact Niagara being in Manchester only as a 15 or 14?

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From a by-the-book, attendance-blind perspective, 16 would go where 1 is, if possible. Unless you think UNH is going to be #1, then who #16 is won't impact who is in Manchester other than by not being that team. The exception would be if the league configuration of Band 4 mandated moving things around to avoid 1st round match-ups - in which case Niagara being in the same band would allow the flexibility to not move #16. Of course, if 16 is elsewhere and Niagara is in the same band, then their odds of going to Manchester improve to 1-in-3. Still, I don't see why they couldn't be in the 3rd band (or 2nd or 1st, dep on where UNH falls) and also be in Manchester.

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From a real-world, ticket-selling perspective, the NCAA would probably like to have Q and Y in Providence as draws for short-drive travelling fans. Similarly, Dartmouth would be better in NH (and they wouldn't have three ECACs in one RI regional, even if there were five of them in the tourney). UNH will be in Manchester regardless. BC could be in either building and sell, but if Q and Y are already in RI, then better to have UNH and either Dartmouth or BC in NH to have better chances of having good draw for the final. Q and BC would still work in RI, but UNH and Y wouldn't work as well in NH, unless Dartmouth is in the mix. Not awful, but not as well. Hour-plus to either venue from Boston, but Providence is a vastly different drive from New Haven than Manchester.

If there actually are one or two more HE teams, they might want to have someone in RI. In that case, with NH-adjacent UML and MC being the likely candidates, one would probably go to Manchester, BC could be in RI, and the remaining team might be west-bound.

Of course, if UNH and Q sell out the venues on their own, then we're really talking about attendance for atmosphere and visuals instead of actual sales $ (assuming that Regional tix are sold package-only, and not by game or day). UNH/BC in the final isn't necessarily more of a financial windfall than UNH/Dartmouth or UNH/UML or UNH/Manchester Mites, because: A) You can't (legally) sell the same seat twice. Arenas are not airplanes (would they bump you to the next regional?). If UNH sells out the building, they sell out the building. If the opponent is BC, the NCAA doesn't get more money for realllly selling out the building. B) During the NCAAs, the taps are shut off - but that money would go to the arena and the local bars anyway.

In any event, that makes the identity of other two seeds kind of irrelevant, certainly in Manchester, if there are two HE teams there or if both UNH and Dartmouth are there. Not from a competition standpoint, but from a fiddling-with-the-bracket one. If they have two HEs and Dartmouth, then that only leaves one slot for anyone, Niagara or otherwise. That said, I don't know that Dartmouth is enough of a draw, historically, that they would work things around to keep them in NH unless it fell that way.

This is the first time I see a potential issue with which band Niagara is in. If UNH is a 1 or a 2, then the 2nd HE team can't be a 4 or a 3, respectively. If UNH is a 1, BC a 2, and UML and MC 3s, then we'd probably have 1 and 3 from HE in NH (unless Q and Y end up a 1-4 pair, ...). Whatever the HE configuration, Niagara would need to be in a different band than the 2nd NH HE team (and/or Dartmouth) in order to be put in NH, but we're weeks away from knowing who that is or what band they are in. In fact just recently, HE had the bottom of the bracket nearly filled so Niagara would have to have been in the 3rd band.

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Which brings us to the other end of the $ issue, why would the NCAA purposely send Niagara to Manchester?

If the bracket falls that way so they fall in the same 4/5/12/13 or 3/6/11/14 stack as UNH, that's one thing. There is the NCAA history of that UNH/Niagara pairing, but the local fans that know about that don't remember it fondly, and they're buying tickets anyway.

From a ticket-$ perspective, after Miami, Niagara is in a small group of next-closest draws in Toledo that wouldn't be better- or equally-served in Grand Rapids. Depending on who survives the bubble, that group could also include SLU (could meet somewhere and bus-pool with Niagara, but 20 to above-the-bubble is a long way). RPI and/or Union (see "20") would be draw better in the east, but local fans could zip out the interstates for longer easily-navigable drives. Western is clearly better in GR. Notre Dame is good in either GR or Toledo. Since they're CCHA cities, I don't know that it matters much about which WCHA teams (or Alaska) go where other than marquee name recognition. So really, it looks like Niagara is the 2nd best "local" for Toledo - unless Notre Dame goes to Toledo so the WCHA schools can help fill GR, but I don't see how GR is appreciably easier to get to than Toledo for WCHA fanbases. Certainly not enough to blow up bracket integrity.

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All of that, and I still don't see why you think that Niagara's appearance in Manchester depends on them being a 15 or 14 at this point.

I don't see why the NCAA would go out of their way to maneuver them to NH at all (if it happens, it happens).

To my eye, 14, 15, 11, 8, ... it all depends on the rest of the bracket and none of those seeds seems any more likely than any other.

What am I missing?

[jjmc85]

Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2012-13 edition

That's great. I have nothing against Todd, but that's what is great about the world. You can have more than one opinion and more than one person can share his thoughts.

What the hell do I know? I've been in a bad mood lately and unfortunately it has nothing to do with the terrible team I follow. Sorry if I stepped out of line.

[jeteye1717]

Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2012-13 edition

All this number-crunching is fascinating to contemplate; just imagine how much fun we HEA fans will have after Lowell beats BC at Conte Forum tomorrow night, and Merrimack ties BU in HAA, resulting in a 5-way tie for first ('tho technically BC and UML would lead the pack with 13 wins, and BC would be seeded 1st by having beaten the Eagles 2-1-0 in their season series) with just 2 weeks to go! I can't recall the league standings being this compressed at the top in quite some time; home ice may yet turn on a single point won or lost in an otherwise unremarkable early-season ot contest back in October!

[Patman]

All this number-crunching is fascinating to contemplate; just imagine how much fun we HEA fans will have after Lowell beats BC at Conte Forum tomorrow night, and Merrimack ties BU in HAA, resulting in a 5-way tie for first ('tho technically BC and UML would lead the pack with 13 wins, and BC would be seeded 1st by having beaten the Eagles 2-1-0 in their season series) with just 2 weeks to go! I can't recall the league standings being this compressed at the top in quite some time; home ice may yet turn on a single point won or lost in an otherwise unremarkable early-season ot contest back in October!

IIRC, the first tiebreaker is h2h, the second is wins

[jeteye1717]

Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2012-13 edition

IIRC, the first tiebreaker is h2h, the second is wins

Yes, but doesn't that apply just for 2-way ties? I don't believe that HEA uses a round-robin of H2H results (as I think the ECAC still does) to break 3- and 4- etc., way ties, but sorts first by total league wins to winnow the field to group(s) of two, and then breaks that tie by the H2H record between just those two teams. That's how I remember it anyways, 'tho I could be totally out to lunch ...

[WrathOfAramark]

Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2012-13 edition

Playing with the what-if simulator for Hockey East, there is a possibility, however very remote, that the top 6 teams finish with 32 points each.


It would require the following results with points taken/available noted.

BC:
Lose to Lowell 0/2
Split with Providence 2/4
Split with Vermont 2/4

BU:
Lose to Merrimack 0/2
Sweep Vermont 4/4
Sweep Northeastern 4/4

MC:
Beat BU 2/2
Split with Lowell 2/4
Take only one point from Amherst 1/4

UML:
Beat BC 2/2
Split with Merrimack 2/4
Split with Providence 2/4

PC:
Split with BC 2/4
Split with Lowell 2/4

UNH:
Split with Amherst 2/4
Split with Maine 2/4