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Predicting who gets in the 2021 NCAA Tournament

Z

zambonidriver

New member
This is really tough especially with all the upsets this last week.
I thought the ECAC would get two based on Clarkson's reputation but losing to St. Lawerence puts a cloud on that.
The WCHA should get 4 as the 4 top teams have beat up on each other.
The only way the CHA gets two is if Penn State stumbles in the CHA playoffs.
Which leaves the Hockey east. I am thinking they get 2 maybe one with BC already out.
Will be interesting to see how things play out this weekend.
 
zambonidriver said:
Which leaves the Hockey east. I am thinking they get 2 maybe one with BC already out.
Will be interesting to see how things play out this weekend.
Click to expand...

Hockey East is doing their own conference version of an RPI like calculation, but have not updated it since BC lost, and Providence won; I'd be interested in seeing how close the two are now in that ranking with those results.. Providence beat BC two out of three in the regular season; if they win their semi-final, I wouldn't be all that surprised to see them get picked over BC for the NCAAs

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Adding: As I think about it, am I starting to make a decent argument for HE getting three teams in? Providence and BC are close to 'equal'; how do you pick one over the other? Similar to 'the four WCHA teams are not all that well differentiated; how do you leave one out?' I guess naming nine teams would be easy; naming eight is harder. :-o
 
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robertearle said:
Hockey East is doing their own conference version of an RPI like calculation, but have not updated it since BC lost, and Providence won; I'd be interested in seeing how close the two are now in that ranking with those results.. Providence beat BC two out of three in the regular season; if they win their semi-final, I wouldn't be all that surprised to see them get picked over BC for the NCAAs

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Adding: As I think about it, am I starting to make a decent argument for HE getting three teams in? Providence and BC are close to 'equal'; how do you pick one over the other? Similar to 'the four WCHA teams are not all that well differentiated; how do you leave one out?' I guess naming nine teams would be easy; naming eight is harder. :-o
Click to expand...

Hockey East will get only 2 max, maybe 1. IF WCHA gets 4 which is reasonable, CHA gets 1, ECAC gets 1, HE gets 1. That leaves 1 assuming no leaders lose in their conference playoffs. It will come down to Clarkson vs BC.
 
Rightnut said:
Hockey East will get only 2 max, maybe 1. IF WCHA gets 4 which is reasonable, CHA gets 1, ECAC gets 1, HE gets 1. That leaves 1 assuming no leaders lose in their conference playoffs. It will come down to Clarkson vs BC.
Click to expand...

Clarkson is 8-9-1, including two wins over LIU.
 
Looking at it top down, we have Northeastern and Wisconsin that are one and two in some sort of order. I'd put Ohio State a notch down. I think that they've proven than they are steadier than the rest, but they wind up on the wrong end of the final score more often than the top two. Penn State is the team that I'd put into the hard pile, in that they are better than most recent CHA teams, but because they didn't play out of conference and the top of the CHA hasn't ranked that high of late, I'm not sure where the Nittany Lions best align.

After that, we get this soup of teams that might be better or worse than teams ranked next to each other, but it probably changes every other day. Maybe Colgate is a bit better, but they seem to be more a product of parity than not. Clarkson, UMD, BC, Minnesota, Providence, St. Lawrence -- maybe you can throw RMU and Mercyhurst in the mix, I don't know. It looks like you could skate them out there wearing the uniforms of one of the others and not be able to tell the difference. On a good day, they can ruin the season of one of those teams I listed above. On a bad day, they can lose to UConn. The Huskies have proven they can be a dangerous postseason team, but you can't let them dominate you and leave us believing that the NCAAs require your presence.
 
zambonidriver said:
This is really tough especially with all the upsets this last week.
I thought the ECAC would get two based on Clarkson's reputation but losing to St. Lawerence puts a cloud on that.
The WCHA should get 4 as the 4 top teams have beat up on each other.
The only way the CHA gets two is if Penn State stumbles in the CHA playoffs.
Which leaves the Hockey east. I am thinking they get 2 maybe one with BC already out.
Will be interesting to see how things play out this weekend.
Click to expand...

Prediction:

Northeastern
Wisco
UMD
Minnesota
Penn State
Providence
Colgate
CHA (Should PSU lose) or Clarkson or BC
 
EMPTYNETTER said:
Prediction:

Northeastern
Wisco
UMD
Minnesota
Penn State
Providence
Colgate
CHA (Should PSU lose) or Clarkson or BC
Click to expand...

I think NE, BC, Penn St, Colgate, WI and OSU will be in. Should Penn St and, say, Colgate not win their conference tournaments, then I think the WCHA gets only 2 teams. Max the WCHA will get is 3 and the third should be MN who played a much tougher schedule than UMD. As a WCHA fan I hope I am wrong, but I just don’t see the committee giving one conference 4 teams.
 
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I haven't followed the teams in the conferences outside of the WCHA this season to have an informed opinion. I'd say Ohio State SHOULD be in but if they win their first round playoff game against Duluth then I'd say they're locked in for sure.
 
Rightnut said:
Other than Northeastern the HE is very weak this year. They deserve 1 max but I can see them getting 2.
Click to expand...

Again, if you discount wins over LIU and Sacred Heart, the ECAC is Colgate and three teams under .500. They deserve one, max.

So, (and again, unless there are upsets), I see one for ECAC, one for CHA, and then either two and four for HE and WCHA or three and three.
 
I finally put in the effort to try and do an objective run through of comparing teams from different conferences:

https://www.bcinterruption.com/bosto...n-wisconsin-bc

There is a A LOT there, probably too much to make it an interesting read, honestly, but I'll try and summarize all my thoughts by copying a bunch of my tweets on the subject from this morning:

First off, the ECAC is the only major conference to have scheduled non-conference games, and they played vs. the NEWHA and CHA. Because the ranking systems can't distinguish between conferences this year, it treats the NEWHA as an average conference, and that gave a HUGE inflated boost to the ECAC's numbers which the other conferences didn't get. Clarkson is 6-9-1 against teams that are not LIU. I respect the fact that they played Colgate 10 times, but Colgate's numbers were inflated too, and so were Quinnipiac's, all of which have a compounding effect on all four teams' numbers.

Now, having said that, the four team "mini-ECAC" on the whole is very good because they aren't dragged down by having terrible teams at the bottom of the standings. But playing the NEWHA and CHA washed that out. In the end, for me, Clarkson is just really not in the discussion right now.

Second off, I am very against the idea of the WCHA getting in four teams, because #EasternBias obviously, but also because *the WCHA has literally never gotten four teams in* since the field expanded to eight 15 yrs ago. HOWEVER, there are also fewer good teams playing this year (No Cornell!). And if you apply historical conference strength to this year's "RPI" (the main subject of the article!), UMD should be in, if only because who else do you put in over them? Certainly not Clarkson. If there's a surprise autobid, though, I feel (subjectively) UMD should be the first team out.

As an aside, there are some people out there who think UMD should be in over the Gophers. The intra-WCHA KRACH & RPI numbers *strongly* do not support this, and Minnesota was 2-0-0 against UMD. Duluth's strength of schedule was comical compared to the others, I'm sorry. Also, don't lose to Bemidji!

Lastly, it seems clear to me that BC is squarely on the bubble, but with a handful of other teams. If no surprises, the bracket should be NU/UW, OSU, and then an absolute mess from 4-7 (BC, Colgate, Minnesota, UMD), then the CHA in 8th regardless of whether PSU wins it. The committee should be able to just focus on seeding a compelling tournament (with no "minimizing flights" to worry about) with the clear top 8 ---- *IF* there are no surprises in the conference tournaments. But if there is even one surprise autobid, the infighting on the committee to determine who is left out is going to be intense.

Anyway, Go NU!
 
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TonyTheTiger20 said:
I finally put in the effort to try and do an objective run through of comparing teams from different conferences:

https://www.bcinterruption.com/bosto...n-wisconsin-bc

There is a A LOT there, probably too much to make it an interesting read, honestly, but I'll try and summarize all my thoughts by copying a bunch of my tweets on the subject from this morning:

First off, the ECAC is the only major conference to have scheduled non-conference games, and they played vs. the NEWHA and CHA. Because the ranking systems can't distinguish between conferences this year, it treats the NEWHA as an average conference, and that gave a HUGE inflated boost to the ECAC's numbers which the other conferences didn't get. Clarkson is 6-9-1 against teams that are not LIU. I respect the fact that they played Colgate 10 times, but Colgate's numbers were inflated too, and so were Quinnipiac's, all of which have a compounding effect on all four teams' numbers.

Now, having said that, the four team "mini-ECAC" on the whole is very good because they aren't dragged down by having terrible teams at the bottom of the standings. But playing the NEWHA and CHA washed that out. In the end, for me, Clarkson is just really not in the discussion right now.

Second off, I am very against the idea of the WCHA getting in four teams, because #EasternBias obviously, but also because *the WCHA has literally never gotten four teams in* since the field expanded to eight 15 yrs ago. HOWEVER, there are also fewer good teams playing this year (No Cornell!). And if you apply historical conference strength to this year's "RPI" (the main subject of the article!), UMD should be in, if only because who else do you put in over them? Certainly not Clarkson. If there's a surprise autobid, though, I feel (subjectively) UMD should be the first team out.

As an aside, there are some people out there who think UMD should be in over the Gophers. The intra-WCHA KRACH & RPI numbers *strongly* do not support this, and Minnesota was 2-0-0 against UMD. Duluth's strength of schedule was comical compared to the others, I'm sorry. Also, don't lose to Bemidji!

Lastly, it seems clear to me that BC is squarely on the bubble, but with a handful of other teams. If no surprises, the bracket should be NU/UW, OSU, and then an absolute mess from 4-7 (BC, Colgate, Minnesota, UMD), then the CHA in 8th regardless of whether PSU wins it. The committee should be able to just focus on seeding a compelling tournament (with no "minimizing flights" to worry about) with the clear top 8 ---- *IF* there are no surprises in the conference tournaments. But if there is even one surprise autobid, the infighting on the committee to determine who is left out is going to be intense.

Anyway, Go NU!
Click to expand...

Thanks for the work, and the post, and largely quantifying what my gut has been telling me. :-)

The one 'quibble' is with Penn State and the CHA. With the jumble at 4-through-7, if somebody pulls the upset of Penn State, I'd be inclined so say 'screw it' and give the CHA two slots. In this year's weird context, I just can't see leaving a 16 or 17 win, 3 loss team out.
 
robertearle said:
The one 'quibble' is with Penn State and the CHA. With the jumble at 4-through-7, if somebody pulls the upset of Penn State, I'd be inclined so say 'screw it' and give the CHA two slots. In this year's weird context, I just can't see leaving a 16 or 17 win, 3 loss team out.
Click to expand...
I mean there's a case to be made for the "screw it" method hahaha -- one thing I mentioned in an article about the men's tournament is that if you are on the bubble this year, you wouldn't have made it in a normal year with everyone playing, and there's always the "you should have just won your conference tournament" argument.
 
Quick wwcha stats...UM UW OSU UMD records against each other:

UW 8-3-1
OSU 7-5
UM 4-7-1
UMD 2-4

Does UMD deserve to get in based on 2 quality wins and only 6 games against quality opponents? I'm thinking not. UM only has 4 quality wins and a tie but has 12 games against quality opponents. They are in.
 
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