Re: 2013-2014 Union Dutchmen - Can U Three Peat? (Part II)
I quoted the NCAA handbook and you quoted CHN and I'm flat out wrong? Nice try but I'm going to trust the NCAA handbook. PWR is used to get the correct 16 teams in. After that the NC$$ has done some funny things to protect the mighty dollar.
Since the committee has gone against its own rules, time and time again, you have to follow their practices over the years which CHN has done an exception job on. See
http://www.collegehockeynews.com/info/?d=pwcrpi right column.
Seeding Process
Overview: There have generally been two sacrosanct philosophies when it comes to the seeding process. 1. teams that are hosting a regional must be placed in that region; 2. avoid first-round games (and second-round, if possible) against teams from the same conference. Other factors, such as maximizing gate revenue, and limiting travel have become de-emphasized since the tournament went from 12 to 16 teams in 2003.
How the seeds are determined: Since the advent of the objective system of Comparisons, there has always been a step-by-step methodology to determining the seeds. But since going to a 16-team tournament, the methodology has become highly straightforward. For one, there was a time when the emphasis was more upon individual comparisons. Now, the Pairwise Comparison chart, as described above, is used to rank the teams in a straight 1-16.
(Note: This methodology is not outlined in the Ice Hockey manual, it has simply become the practice of the committee over time -- and was determined by the media via observation.) The teams are then grouped into four "bands" of four, with teams 1-4 given No. 1 seeds (Band 1), 5-8 given No. 2 seeds (Band 2), 9-12 given No. 3 seeds (Band 3), and 13-16 given No. 4 seeds (Band 4). Ties among teams in the amount of team-to-team comparisons they have won, at one time, were broken by looking at those individual comparisons among the teams in question. Now such a tie is generally broken by simply looking at the RPI.
No. 1 seeds: The No. 1 seeds are ranked 1-2-3-4, and then placed, in that order, in the region closest to home as possible.
The rest: For the remaining teams, the current practice no longer favors geography, but instead places a strong premium upon maintaining a "serpentine" order. i.e. 1 vs. 16, 2 vs. 15, 3 vs. 14, etc... with the second-round set up to preserve, if possible, a 1 vs. 8, 2 vs. 7, 3 vs. 6, 4 vs. 5 setup. The committee will mix and match teams within bands in order to preserve the two sacrosanct issues mentioned above, but will not move teams outside their band. Generally speaking, in order to avoid an intra-conference matchup, the committee prefers flip-flopping the No. 3 seeds within their band to different regionals, as opposed to No. 2 seeds. Either way would work, but they have usually chosen the former.
Frozen Four: The regional winners that will face each other in the national semifinals (the Frozen Four semis) are pre-determined prior to the start of the tournament under the assumption that the four No. 1 seeds will advance. The region of the No. 1 overall seed is matched with the region of the No. 4 overall seed, and same for No. 2 and 3. This holds even if the No. 1 seeds get eliminated in the regional.
Also, USCHO are lightweights. They had to borrow CHN's algorithm for calculalting pairwise.
