is this how everyone thought it would play out this year?

[mookie1995]

1_______Minnesota (B1G-1)
2_______Boston College (HEA-1)
3t______Union (ECAC-1)
3t______St. Cloud State (NCHC-2)
5_______Wisconsin (B1G-2)
6_______Ferris State (WCHA-1)
7_______Quinnipiac (ECAC-3)
8_______Massachusetts-Lowell (HEA-2)
9_______North Dakota (NCHC-1)
10______Notre Dame (HEA-7)
11______Providence (HEA-3)
12______Michigan (B1G-3)
13t_____Cornell (ECAC-4)
13t_____Vermont (HEA-8)
15______Northeastern (HEA-5)
16______Colgate (ECAC-2)
_________________________________
AHA_____Mercyhurst

we've had 3 regular season's end, 2 will end this coming weekend, and the final in two weeks. so it's not too early to start to review and discuss (especially considering my team will be done at this time next week )

we have SIX hockey east teams in the top 16
FOUR ecac teams
THREE b1g squads
TWO nchc
and one WCHA.

right now colgate (ecac) would lose out due to the autobid to the AHA.

6 hea teams is more than i thought.
b1g seems about right.
i thought nchc would have 3 or 4.
wcha has the 17th team right now, but if we get upsets it is going to be tough to move down that list and get teams in.
ecac will get 3? ok.

i figured the b1g super conference would hurt themselves as the parity/beating up each other would have a lot of teams with records that wouldn't fly and ****** their chances of making the ncaa tournament. that outcome really impacted the nchc though. you have three teams (4-6) with .500'ish records that are not getting in and have decent ooc marks this year (~ 6-3-3).

so are conferences going to rethink how they schedule? nchc on the face of it has too many conference games. notre dame is 7th in hea with a .500 record but went 11-3-0 ooc. those 11 wins are more ooc games than some nchc had available to play.

and after uconn moves to hea next year, there will be 21 teams in two conference that probably have the 2 slots (add another if an upset occurs in their conf tournament) to make the ncaa tournament. 36% of the teams then get 12.5% while 64% get 87.5%. is that healthy to the 'growth'?

[uaafanblog]

Re: is this how everyone thought it would play out this year?

There's every reason to expect two WCHA teams in the tourney ... even if Mankato doesn't somehow move up from 17. Any one of whatever 4 teams get to the WCHA Final "Five" could win it which in my math book means 75% chance of a 2nd team (unless Ferris Bueller's Wheel doesn't get to the tournament then it's 100%).

[Red Cows]

Re: is this how everyone thought it would play out this year?

As far as NCHC teams beating up on one another, to big effect, I give you no better example than UNO.

3rd place in the conference, with an outside shot at the league title, still, with two conference games left to play. Yet UNO is unranked (deservedly--and not even receiving any votes) and is currently 28th in Pairwise, despite a conference record in supposedly the "toughest" conference in college hockey of 12-8-2 while also currently tied for the league lead in conference scoring while also having the conference's leading scorer on their team. And UNO has season splits with the two teams that are "for sure" going to the NCAA tourney, to boot, while also administering one of the bigger beatings either of those two teams took during the entire season.

Why? Because UNO is 3-7-0 in non-conference play. Getting swept at home by Cornell and getting swept at New Hampshire basically doomed UNO's season.

If you had told me everything I said before the last paragraph above before the season started, I'd have said UNO was going to be an NCAA tournament team. Instead, despite all the positives, they really aren't even close. A couple of bad conference series didn't help, either.

So, no, this isn't how I figured it would go. I thought the NCHC would consistently get 3 or 4 teams in the tourney.

I think it is entirely plausible, though, that somebody besides North Dakota and SCSU gets in by winning the conference tourney since I think at least 5 of the teams have legitimate shot at doing so.

[Bonin21]

Re: is this how everyone thought it would play out this year?

Anyone have the aggregate NC records by conference offhand?

[Numbers]

Re: is this how everyone thought it would play out this year?

Do you mean this?

http://www.collegehockeynews.com/rep...-interconf.php

Note that HEA swept WCHA.
NCHC did poorly as a conference against both ECAC and HEA.

Therein lies all the explanation you need. NCHC is down not only because of what was posted above for UNO, but also, since the conference did poorly against those eastern conferences, their oppwin% and Oppoppwin% is not as high as it would have been, this keeping down the RPIs of the teams doing well in conference play.

Basically, in the RPI (KRACH,too for that matter), your OOC record and your conference's OOC record make a huge difference. And, that highlights the fact that in a purely objective system, the more OOC play you have, the better the math is going to do at picking the best teams.

[Bonin21]

Re: is this how everyone thought it would play out this year?

Exactly thank you

[mookie1995]

Re: is this how everyone thought it would play out this year?

hockey east will lose 2 ooc when uconn moves over next year... which of course will open up spots for teams to invite aha squads to play

[mookie1995]

Re: is this how everyone thought it would play out this year?

no changes in the roster. a few flip-flops, and michigan dropped two to 14t with northeastern.