When even Barry Melrose knows your team barely made the tournament, you know that everybody knows it. But, fulfilling my role as a Yale fan and a guy who “actually understands the Pairwise,” as a Minnesotan I met in the Marriott bar two hours before the Championship game called me, I think it’s worth recounting how close Yale was to being out of the tournament, instead of winning it.
First is the one everyone knows: Notre Dame had to beat Michigan on the last day of the season. People focus on this one because it happened after Yale’s season was over, but the Pairwise doesn’t care about when. Obviously, any extra autobid would have kept Yale out. In particular, had BU beaten Lowell in the HE finals, Yale would have been out. I leave it to others to speculate whether it would have been better, knowing what we now know, for Lowell to have thrown that game. Just sayin’.
But autobid shenanigans are the least of the miracles that kept Yale in. On March 1, Yale beat Colgate with an overtime goal with 2 seconds left that bounced off a stick left on the ice behind the net and happened to bounce in front of the net for Josh Balch to bang home. The game can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXEl_dCS9RY and the play occurs at around 2:35 on the video. Suppose that game ends in a tie. Yale is 16th in the Pairwise, and out.
Even odder, though, go back to October 13. Yale’s season hadn’t even started yet. St. Lawrence was in Kalamazoo to play the first of two against Western Michigan. The Saints won in OT. Had they tied that game, Yale is out again.
The Pairwise is, famously, highly unstable. And any rating system is going to be highly unstable for teams on the bubble. But the notion that the season came down to an otherwise unmemorable goal scored in OT in October between two teams who weren’t in the tournament is, I think, still striking, given that it changed the identity of the National Champion.
Let me be clear, these results, and dozens of others I could dredge up (fun with the Pairwise!) are clearly one sided – there were obviously other bounces that went against Yale that would have put them safely in. It’s still striking to consider just how random the last five teams out and the last five teams in really is. The bubble doesn’t really matter in basketball because, as a practical matter in a 64 team tournament, no bubble team has a realistic chance. But in a 16 team tournament with only one true autobid (all the other autobids would have qualified, or been replaced, like Union and Brown, with another autobid who would have qualified), as we now know, you can easily change the National Champion with your selection criteria. Not that I’m complaining.
Let me be clear on one more thing. I’m not saying Yale didn’t “belong” in the tournament. Frankly, I don’t even know what that means. As far as I’m concerned, they belong every year because I’m a Yale fan. The formula determines who gets in, and they got in under the formula. In a smoke-filled backroom, they might well have been replaced by Brown, who played much better down the stretch. And maybe Brown would have won the tournament if they’d been in. Who knows? But while I prefer formulas to back rooms, this does demonstrate that the formula can have a piece of determining who is Champ, which is not, I think what the NCAA really wants, although in a 16 team field in a world of relative parity, they may not be able to help it.
First is the one everyone knows: Notre Dame had to beat Michigan on the last day of the season. People focus on this one because it happened after Yale’s season was over, but the Pairwise doesn’t care about when. Obviously, any extra autobid would have kept Yale out. In particular, had BU beaten Lowell in the HE finals, Yale would have been out. I leave it to others to speculate whether it would have been better, knowing what we now know, for Lowell to have thrown that game. Just sayin’.
But autobid shenanigans are the least of the miracles that kept Yale in. On March 1, Yale beat Colgate with an overtime goal with 2 seconds left that bounced off a stick left on the ice behind the net and happened to bounce in front of the net for Josh Balch to bang home. The game can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXEl_dCS9RY and the play occurs at around 2:35 on the video. Suppose that game ends in a tie. Yale is 16th in the Pairwise, and out.
Even odder, though, go back to October 13. Yale’s season hadn’t even started yet. St. Lawrence was in Kalamazoo to play the first of two against Western Michigan. The Saints won in OT. Had they tied that game, Yale is out again.
The Pairwise is, famously, highly unstable. And any rating system is going to be highly unstable for teams on the bubble. But the notion that the season came down to an otherwise unmemorable goal scored in OT in October between two teams who weren’t in the tournament is, I think, still striking, given that it changed the identity of the National Champion.
Let me be clear, these results, and dozens of others I could dredge up (fun with the Pairwise!) are clearly one sided – there were obviously other bounces that went against Yale that would have put them safely in. It’s still striking to consider just how random the last five teams out and the last five teams in really is. The bubble doesn’t really matter in basketball because, as a practical matter in a 64 team tournament, no bubble team has a realistic chance. But in a 16 team tournament with only one true autobid (all the other autobids would have qualified, or been replaced, like Union and Brown, with another autobid who would have qualified), as we now know, you can easily change the National Champion with your selection criteria. Not that I’m complaining.
Let me be clear on one more thing. I’m not saying Yale didn’t “belong” in the tournament. Frankly, I don’t even know what that means. As far as I’m concerned, they belong every year because I’m a Yale fan. The formula determines who gets in, and they got in under the formula. In a smoke-filled backroom, they might well have been replaced by Brown, who played much better down the stretch. And maybe Brown would have won the tournament if they’d been in. Who knows? But while I prefer formulas to back rooms, this does demonstrate that the formula can have a piece of determining who is Champ, which is not, I think what the NCAA really wants, although in a 16 team field in a world of relative parity, they may not be able to help it.
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