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2013-2014 Women's D-I PairWise Contentions and Affirmations

TonyTheTiger20 said:
Would they really send a #5 North Dakota to a #1 Minnesota? Serious question because I'm not really sure we know.
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I think it depends what else is out there. They clearly don't mind a couple of flights, but I doubt they want four flights in the quarters and have a bracket where four flights to a Frozen Four in Connecticut is a possibility. When some of the teams are very close, then it is easier to sell. For example, if that hypothetical No. 5 UND was in a cluster with the bottom four rather than lumped near the top five.
 
Re: 2013-2014 Women's D-I PairWise Contentions and Affirmations

TonyTheTiger20 said:
[BRACKET #2]
#6 North Dakota @ #1 Minnesota (BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND!)
#8 Boston College @ #2 Wisconsin
#5 Robert Morris @ #3 Cornell
#7 Clarkson @ #4 Harvard

Which results in the one flight to Wisconsin and pretty much gives a pair of high-flying middle fingers to bracket integrity.
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Wrong. The official radius to differentiate between busing and flying is 300 miles. Both Potsdam to Cambridge and Pittsburgh to Ithaca are longer than that. The latter is only slightly over and about the same distance as Grand Forks to Minneapolis (which by the NCAA's rules should be considered a flying distance but they fudge it so that they can send them here every year and call it a bus ride). But it's a minimum of two flights to seed the tourney this way.

Edit: I should hedge this. I don't know whether the NCAA uses straight line distance or how far you'd have to actually drive. If it's the former, all of these are bus trips except BC to Madison. The catch is that you can't drive any of them in anything approaching a straight line.
 
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Re: 2013-2014 Women's D-I PairWise Contentions and Affirmations

Eeyore said:
Wrong. The official radius to differentiate between busing and flying is 300 miles. Both Potsdam to Cambridge and Pittsburgh to Ithaca are longer than that. The latter is only slightly over and about the same distance as Grand Forks to Minneapolis (which by the NCAA's rules should be considered a flying distance but they fudge it so that they can send them here every year and call it a bus ride). But it's a minimum of two flights to seed the tourney this way.
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Man I really need to look at a map before I say things. I tend to get the locations of Cornell, Clarkson, RPI, and RIT all completely mixed up.

How much would the NCAA fudge things? Clarkson to Harvard is only another half hour or so compared to Minnesota to North Dakota.

And yeah I had said earlier that one of the questions would be whether or not the NCAA would consider Robert Morris to Cornell a flight. Same question, I suppose, applies to Clarkson to Harvard.
 
Re: 2013-2014 Women's D-I PairWise Contentions and Affirmations

It's also worth noting that right now we're in another situation where RPI and the Pairwise significantly underrate North Dakota relative to more sophisticated systems like KRACH and Rutter. Right now, weed out St. Anselm and UND is the #3 team in KRACH. That won't make any difference in the seedings but it's worth keeping in mind.
 
Re: 2013-2014 Women's D-I PairWise Contentions and Affirmations

TonyTheTiger20 said:
Would they really send a #5 North Dakota to a #1 Minnesota? Serious question because I'm not really sure we know.
Click to expand...

ARM said:
I think it depends what else is out there. They clearly don't mind a couple of flights, but I doubt they want four flights in the quarters and have a bracket where four flights to a Frozen Four in Connecticut is a possibility. When some of the teams are very close, then it is easier to sell. For example, if that hypothetical No. 5 UND was in a cluster with the bottom four rather than lumped near the top five.
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Didn't they do the same essentially sending UMD to UW, maybe 2011? UW an overwhelming #1 and UMD #4 or #5? I recall a press conference after selections and an incredulous, and p i s sed Mark Johnson.
 
Re: 2013-2014 Women's D-I PairWise Contentions and Affirmations

brookyone said:
Didn't they do the same essentially sending UMD to UW, maybe 2011? UW an overwhelming #1 and UMD #4 or #5? I recall a press conference after selections and an incredulous, and p i s sed Mark Johnson.
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I remember Minnesota and BC were definitely the #5 and #4, so UMD must have been 6... I think?
 
TonyTheTiger20 said:
I remember Minnesota and BC were definitely the #5 and #4, so UMD must have been 6... I think?
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I think UMD was #7. The problem was defending champ UMD was very close to the teams above it, while 11-loss Dartmouth was quite a bit weaker. UW thought that the #1 seed should be protected a little more.
 
Re: 2013-2014 Women's D-I PairWise Contentions and Affirmations

ARM said:
I think UMD was #7. The problem was defending champ UMD was very close to the teams above it, while 11-loss Dartmouth was quite a bit weaker. UW thought that the #1 seed should be protected a little more.
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The UW 'press guide' 'record book' pdf shows a "(7)" next to UMD for that game, meaning they were #7 at the time in the USCHO poll.

(I remember a very tense game - 2-to-1 final - that "everybody" in Madison, at least, felt was the de facto national championship game. It was also the day of the largest of the protests against Gov Walker, more than 100K at the Capitol. I went from the protest to the Kohl Center, after a stop for some pizza. Memorable day.)
 
TonyTheTiger20 said:
Man I really need to look at a map before I say things. I tend to get the locations of Cornell, Clarkson, RPI, and RIT all completely mixed up.

How much would the NCAA fudge things? Clarkson to Harvard is only another half hour or so compared to Minnesota to North Dakota.

And yeah I had said earlier that one of the questions would be whether or not the NCAA would consider Robert Morris to Cornell a flight. Same question, I suppose, applies to Clarkson to Harvard.
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RMU to Ithaca is about 5.5 hours drive. Unless they get a charter (which doesn't always happen), there's no easy way to fly to ithaca from PIT.
 
Re: 2013-2014 Women's D-I PairWise Contentions and Affirmations

Eeyore said:
The catch is that you can't drive any of them in anything approaching a straight line.
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That Boston to Clarkson trip is anything BUT a straight line. It seems to go through every nook in the Adirondack park. Having said that, flying from Boston to Potsdam ain't that simple either. Still requires at least one hour of busing each way to the airport, unless you wanna fly a prop plane into Massena or Ogdensburg.

I would think that anything within a reasonable distance will be bussed.

BTW, Airplanes tend to fly straight lines, so maybe that is indeed what they do use for their calculations. :D
 
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Re: 2013-2014 Women's D-I PairWise Contentions and Affirmations

TonyTheTiger20 said:
I see everyone is as eager to sort out this mess as the committee will be :p
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Perhaps "everyone" has more vested interest than the Committee. :D

More seriously. Still a lot of contests and water under the bridge before the final order is established. Teams can get hot or cold. Me thinks, other than Minny in top spot, all else is still fairly fluid. Having said that, I think they should send the 8th seed to Minny and then sort out the rest accordingly after that.
 
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Re: 2013-2014 Women's D-I PairWise Contentions and Affirmations

OnMAA said:
I think they should send the 8th seed to Minny and then sort out the rest accordingly after that.
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If UND is in 5-8 positions (or WI for that matter)I don't see how they can not send them to Minnesota....the NCAA has set the precedence. To not send them to Minny means they had no reason to send them in the past.
 
Re: 2013-2014 Women's D-I PairWise Contentions and Affirmations

mnpokecheck said:
If UND is in 5-8 positions (or WI for that matter)I don't see how they can not send them to Minnesota....the NCAA has set the precedence. To not send them to Minny means they had no reason to send them in the past.
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Just the one reason I guess...saving on travel expense. I agree with ARM's earlier observation that going forward, for that to be the standard year after year gets tired and in fact does diminish the tournament.

...and mark this day on the calender...I agree with OnMAA. That 1 should get 8 and go from there. If #1 and #8 are conference rivals so be it.
 
Re: 2013-2014 Women's D-I PairWise Contentions and Affirmations

mnpokecheck said:
To not send them to Minny means they had no reason to send them in the past.
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Unless by some miracle they decide to realize and correct their past cheap-***** behavior. :rolleyes:
 
Re: 2013-2014 Women's D-I PairWise Contentions and Affirmations

OnMAA said:
More seriously. Still a lot of contests and water under the bridge before the final order is established. Teams can get hot or cold. Me thinks, other than Minny in top spot, all else is still fairly fluid. Having said that, I think they should send the 8th seed to Minny and then sort out the rest accordingly after that.
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Oh I know that -- I just think that this particular top 8 is an interesting case study.
mnpokecheck said:
If UND is in 5-8 positions (or WI for that matter)I don't see how they can not send them to Minnesota....the NCAA has set the precedence. To not send them to Minny means they had no reason to send them in the past.
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I'm not sure we have the precedent of North Dakota being a 5 or 6 though. They haven't done it with that much of a destruction of bracket integrity.

EDIT: Actually... in 2007, didn't they send #6 Harvard to #1 Wisconsin and #8 Boston College to #3 Dartmouth? So maybe there is precedent.
 
Re: 2013-2014 Women's D-I PairWise Contentions and Affirmations

TonyTheTiger20 said:
EDIT: Actually... in 2007, didn't they send #6 Harvard to #1 Wisconsin and #8 Boston College to #3 Dartmouth? So maybe there is precedent.
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They did, and Harvard and Wisconsin complained, so now the committee doesn't worry about trying to create an interesting tournament anymore. When the Badgers were unhappy playing UMD in 2011, it was partly a mess that they'd helped create by not realizing the value of avoiding conference matchups in 2007. By the seeds, it isn't like WCHA teams have ever had it that rough. The greater problem is that the PWR errs in ranking the teams to start with, so #1 can wind up playing a team that some ranking systems would have second or third, like UND last year. Oh well, it's imperfect, but at the end of the day, you just have to go play and try to win three games.
 
Re: 2013-2014 Women's D-I PairWise Contentions and Affirmations

D2D said:
Unless by some miracle they decide to realize and correct their past cheap-***** behavior. :rolleyes:
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Did the board administrators just edit out the word "skate?" That's pretty ironic for this board. Does that mean they will similarly edit *****79's handle?
 
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