Monday morning guess the new Top 10

[Fishhawk]

I try to guess the new USCHO poll ranking every week. Anyone care to play?

1. Boston University
2. North Dakota
3. Harvard
4. MN State
5. Lowell
6. MN Duluth
7. Miami
8. MI Tech
9. MN
10. Providence

[Tater]

Re: Monday morning guess the new Top 10

1. Harvard
2. NoDak
3. BU
4. Miami
5. UMass-Lowell
6. Minn-Duluth
7. Minn St
8. Minnesota
9. Bowling Green
10. Mich Tech

Bubble: Vermont, Denver, Providence

[Red Cows]

Re: Monday morning guess the new Top 10

With yesterday's new (as useless as the paper it is written on) USCHO poll, UNO, now enjoys it's sixth consecutive week of being the school with the biggest disparity between it's Pairwise ranking and it's USCHO poll ranking.

By disparity, I mean their USCHO poll ranking being lower than their Pairwise ranking. The difference this week for UNO has fallen to 7 places difference after being as much as 10 places for a couple weeks. On 12-15, for example, UNO was 2nd in Pairwise and 12th in the poll! Now they are 6th in Pairwise and 13th in the poll.

This, despite UNO having wins against North Dakota (road), Minnesota State, Miami (road), and Minnesota Duluth all while playing the overall 3rd toughest schedule in the nation.

Interesting that Bowling Green just missed out this week to "tie" UNO in this regard. The difference in their case is 6 spots. 5th in Pairwise and 11th in the USCHO poll.

Then, on the other side of this coin, we have the University of North Dakota, who is #1 in the new USCHO poll and is only 8th in Pairwise, a difference of 7 in the opposite direction.

College Hockey polls make College Football polls look positively intelligent by comparison.

This is clearly because North Dakota is "name brand" while UNO and Bowling Green are not. It's also probably the same reason (albeit to a lesser degree) that Harvard isn't the #1 team in the poll despite, in my estimation, them being so by quite a little bit. If you look at all the D-1 stats, Harvard is the only team that is at or near the top of almost every category you can name outside of their not having a big name, big scorer, Hobey Baker-type on their team. On paper and on the ice, they look like a team with very few flaws and are 5-0-1 against the ranked teams they have played (and all were against top 10 teams except for one of those games).

Additionally, how anybody could give 1st place votes to BU over Harvard after Harvard beat them, at BU, is totally beyond me.

Anyway, where I am going with this is besides the fact that poll watching in college hockey is a useless exercise since they are totally meaningless, the pollsters take what little fun there is out of even looking at them since most of the voters appear to be utterly clueless and somewhat biased, besides. I mostly look at the poll each week and shake my head in wonderment.

I think picking stocks is easier than guessing what the USCHO pollsters will pull out of their collective you-know-whats each week.

[UncleRay]

Re: Monday morning guess the new Top 10

For your wine: http://cheesestorecedarhurst.com/yah...110825_std.jpg

[MplsSioux]

Re: Monday morning guess the new Top 10

With yesterday's new (as useless as the paper it is written on) USCHO poll, UNO, now enjoys it's sixth consecutive week of being the school with the biggest disparity between it's Pairwise ranking and it's USCHO poll ranking.

By disparity, I mean their USCHO poll ranking being lower than their Pairwise ranking. The difference this week for UNO has fallen to 7 places difference after being as much as 10 places for a couple weeks. On 12-15, for example, UNO was 2nd in Pairwise and 12th in the poll! Now they are 6th in Pairwise and 13th in the poll.

This, despite UNO having wins against North Dakota (road), Minnesota State, Miami (road), and Minnesota Duluth all while playing the overall 3rd toughest schedule in the nation.

Interesting that Bowling Green just missed out this week to "tie" UNO in this regard. The difference in their case is 6 spots. 5th in Pairwise and 11th in the USCHO poll.

Then, on the other side of this coin, we have the University of North Dakota, who is #1 in the new USCHO poll and is only 8th in Pairwise, a difference of 7 in the opposite direction.

College Hockey polls make College Football polls look positively intelligent by comparison.

This is clearly because North Dakota is "name brand" while UNO and Bowling Green are not. It's also probably the same reason (albeit to a lesser degree) that Harvard isn't the #1 team in the poll despite, in my estimation, them being so by quite a little bit. If you look at all the D-1 stats, Harvard is the only team that is at or near the top of almost every category you can name outside of their not having a big name, big scorer, Hobey Baker-type on their team. On paper and on the ice, they look like a team with very few flaws and are 5-0-1 against the ranked teams they have played (and all were against top 10 teams except for one of those games).

Additionally, how anybody could give 1st place votes to BU over Harvard after Harvard beat them, at BU, is totally beyond me.

Anyway, where I am going with this is besides the fact that poll watching in college hockey is a useless exercise since they are totally meaningless, the pollsters take what little fun there is out of even looking at them since most of the voters appear to be utterly clueless and somewhat biased, besides. I mostly look at the poll each week and shake my head in wonderment.

I think picking stocks is easier than guessing what the USCHO pollsters will pull out of their collective you-know-whats each week.

If you wanted to condense this write-up, you could say 'polls are useless'. Something that I think everyone has agreed on for a while. I wouldn't feel too bad about your team not getting its due respect by the voters because the Mavs have plenty of chances to earn it with postseason play (assuming UNO doesn't drop off the map in the 2nd half).

[SJHovey]

Re: Monday morning guess the new Top 10

With yesterday's new (as useless as the paper it is written on) USCHO poll, UNO, now enjoys it's sixth consecutive week of being the school with the biggest disparity between it's Pairwise ranking and it's USCHO poll ranking.

By disparity, I mean their USCHO poll ranking being lower than their Pairwise ranking. The difference this week for UNO has fallen to 7 places difference after being as much as 10 places for a couple weeks. On 12-15, for example, UNO was 2nd in Pairwise and 12th in the poll! Now they are 6th in Pairwise and 13th in the poll.

This, despite UNO having wins against North Dakota (road), Minnesota State, Miami (road), and Minnesota Duluth all while playing the overall 3rd toughest schedule in the nation.

Interesting that Bowling Green just missed out this week to "tie" UNO in this regard. The difference in their case is 6 spots. 5th in Pairwise and 11th in the USCHO poll.

Then, on the other side of this coin, we have the University of North Dakota, who is #1 in the new USCHO poll and is only 8th in Pairwise, a difference of 7 in the opposite direction.

College Hockey polls make College Football polls look positively intelligent by comparison.

This is clearly because North Dakota is "name brand" while UNO and Bowling Green are not. It's also probably the same reason (albeit to a lesser degree) that Harvard isn't the #1 team in the poll despite, in my estimation, them being so by quite a little bit. If you look at all the D-1 stats, Harvard is the only team that is at or near the top of almost every category you can name outside of their not having a big name, big scorer, Hobey Baker-type on their team. On paper and on the ice, they look like a team with very few flaws and are 5-0-1 against the ranked teams they have played (and all were against top 10 teams except for one of those games).

Additionally, how anybody could give 1st place votes to BU over Harvard after Harvard beat them, at BU, is totally beyond me.

Anyway, where I am going with this is besides the fact that poll watching in college hockey is a useless exercise since they are totally meaningless, the pollsters take what little fun there is out of even looking at them since most of the voters appear to be utterly clueless and somewhat biased, besides. I mostly look at the poll each week and shake my head in wonderment.

I think picking stocks is easier than guessing what the USCHO pollsters will pull out of their collective you-know-whats each week.

I think poll results, and how they may differ from current PWR rankings, are a combination of a couple of things.

First, I think it is the nature of polls that after the initial poll is released, or voters prepare their initial ballots, all subsequent polls/votes are based primarily on how teams do relative to those around them. That is, I don't think poll voters just put all the teams back into the basket and evaluate 1-59 who is best, second best, etc... UNO started the season with zero expectations due to their young age, but quickly started picking up votes and climbing in the polls. Eventually they got to the point where the voters don't ask whether they are the 10th best team or the 11th best team, but how did they do compared with the teams directly ahead of and behind them. If they had started the season with high expectations, and perhaps a #5 or #6 ranking in the first poll, we probably wouldn't be having this discussion.

Second, I think a lot of voters also don't put a ton of weight on the current pairwise. Like polls, it's pretty much worthless, at least right now.

Finally, I do think there is some "name brand" bias that goes on, but that happens in all sports. I don't think it has a huge impact, but I suspect that some voters may tend to give the nod to a "name" school before one with a lesser hockey reputation.

By the way, the "win" at North Dakota went down as a tie for purposes of UNO's record and PWR numbers, even though you got the point in the shootout.

[Fishhawk]

Re: Monday morning guess the new Top 10

UNO? University of New Orleans has a D1 hockey team?

Sorry just kidding, as a fan of a team who has only recently overcome years of disrespect I feel your pain. Maybe they were under-ranked at 12 on 12/15 but after their weak 4 game holiday performance against the likes of Alabama Huntsville and New Hampshire I expected them to drop more than 1 spot.

[Crimson on the Glass]

Additionally, how anybody could give 1st place votes to BU over Harvard after Harvard beat them, at BU, is totally beyond me.

Yes, thank you. I find myself wondering what more Harvard with one loss has to do to poll higher than BU with 3 losses. A huge pairwise discrepancy here too. Will it be enough to beat BU in the Beanpot? Or will a 3rd win the NCAA tournament be necessary.

[Fishhawk]

Re: Monday morning guess the new Top 10

My guess for 1/12:

1. NDakota
2. MN State
3. BU
4. Harvard
5. MN Duluth
6. Miami
7. Lowell
8. Omaha
9. Bowling Green
10. VT

[Wisko McBadgerton]

Re: Monday morning guess the new Top 10

Yes, thank you. I find myself wondering what more Harvard with one loss has to do to poll higher than BU with 3 losses. A huge pairwise discrepancy here too. Will it be enough to beat BU in the Beanpot? Or will a 3rd win the NCAA tournament be necessary.

Turns out the probable answer to this was "Beat Yale."

[Crimson on the Glass]

Re: Monday morning guess the new Top 10

Turns out the probable answer to this was "Beat Yale."

Well, yes. A week ago it was necessary for Harvard to have been undefeated to be ranked any higher, and now they've gone and lost a second game! At this rate they may soon have 3 or 4 losses, just like the teams ranked above them. So it goes.

[Fishhawk]

Re: Monday morning guess the new Top 10

Turns out the probable answer to this was "Beat Yale."

I agree. Given that NDakota and BU faltered a little, beating a ranked team on TV in a big game atmosphere at MSG might have done it for Harvard.