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2014 Women's D-1 National Tournament

Re: 2014 Women's D-1 National Tournament

JF_Gophers said:
Did UND's coach actually say he was going to schedule easier teams? :confused:

Not sure how that will help him, since his team just lost to "easier" teams, and that's the reason they are at home.
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I don't think he really said that. He said he thought people were telling him to schedule tougher teams, and he said he'd played #1 4 times, #2 4 times, and #3 twice, and that was plenty tough enough. (Wisconsin probably was #2 when he played, anyways, you get the point). I thought he sounded pretty stand-up actually, he ranted briefly, but I didn't think he sounded out of line. He basically said, once he starts winning these games regularly, that a national championship will be near.
 
JF_Gophers said:
Not sure how that will help him, since his team just lost to "easier" teams, and that's the reason they are at home.
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It wasn't just that he lost to "easier" teams, UND lost to the wrong ones. Ohio State was a common opponent of both Mercyhurst and Robert Morris, and Minnesota State was a Mercyhurst common opponent. Then Ohio State moved up to be a TUC, so it was a triple whammy, given UND was 1-3 versus the Buckeyes.

Anyway, Idalski was talking more about the general case than this year specifically, because his team has gotten beaten up in the PWR the last few years by the teams at the top of the WCHA standings. You can't really blame him. On the same day his team loses a final to Minnesota, Mercyhurst loses to RIT. Mercyhurst advances to its 10th straight NCAA; UND falls a little short for the second time in four years.
 
Re: 2014 Women's D-1 National Tournament

And if he had not fallen a little short, chances are he would be playing the Gophers. Again.
 
Re: 2014 Women's D-1 National Tournament

Idalski is partially right. The PWR doesn't reward a weak schedule per se, but it does reward a certain kind of weaker schedule. It doesn't do you much good to just beat up on bad teams as that barely budges your RPI. What you really want to do, because of the flawed Record vs. TUC criterion, is to play a bunch of games against the 12th to 15th best teams in the country by RPI. If you win those you both help your RPI and you fatten your record vs. TUC. What you want to avoid is games against the top 2-3 teams, because what help you'll get in RPI is more than offest by the way that those teams are likely to kill your record vs. TUC. That's what happened to both North Dakota and Quinnipiac this year. While there's a lot of upside to playing those games if you can win the majority of them the expected payoff just doesn't make them worth it.

Of course, trying to predict which teams are going to be in the top 3 and which are going to be 12-15 isn't that easy, but Minnesota shouldn't be expecting teams with national tournament hopes to be banging down their door to schedule non-conference series.
 
Goon said:
No he didn't say that... Or at Wednesday Media Day, he said there needs to be more non-conference play, especially for the WCHA teams.
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The article is kind of slanted:
UND beat Wisconsin (27-7-2, 21-5-2-1 WCHA) twice and Minnesota (36-1-1, 26-1-1 WCHA) once. No eastern school in the NCAA Women’s Division I Hockey Tournament can make that claim. Not a single one.
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That's true, but no Eastern team played both UM and UW, so it was impossible from the onset. Combined, they only played one game against teams in the NCAA field. It's fine to say, "play fewer conference games," but that means an unbalanced conference schedule in some way. Either you play some rivals only at home or only on the road, or you play one-game series. That will increase costs for some programs that likely don't have a ton of extra cash.

The objective isn't to reach the tournament; the objective is to win it. When a team is good enough to do the second part, the first part will take care of itself. It's not yet as level as the field in the men's tournament where lower seeds can win it all.
 
Re: 2014 Women's D-1 National Tournament

ARM said:
The article is kind of slanted:

That's true, but no Eastern team played both UM and UW, so it was impossible from the onset. Combined, they only played one game against teams in the NCAA field. It's fine to say, "play fewer conference games," but that means an unbalanced conference schedule in some way. Either you play some rivals only at home or only on the road, or you play one-game series. That will increase costs for some programs that likely don't have a ton of extra cash.

The objective isn't to reach the tournament; the objective is to win it. When a team is good enough to do the second part, the first part will take care of itself. It's not yet as level as the field in the men's tournament where lower seeds can win it all.
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Lets look at it from this point, no Eastern team has ever won the NCAA title in Women's Hockey, so why should they get the majority of the bids to the Women's tourney every year? Especially if they're not playing the toughest teams in college hockey? I think it's a fair question.... Right?
 
Goon said:
Lets look at it from this point, no Eastern team has ever won the NCAA title in Women's Hockey, so why should they get the majority of the bids to the Women's tourney every year? Especially if they're not playing the toughest teams in college hockey? I think it's a fair question.... Right?
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They get the majority of the bids because they have the majority of the teams. The WCHA has had quite a few seasons where it has three teams in the eight-team field, which is good considering it has about a quarter of the teams. I don't know how one would put together a system that looked at prior year's results when deciding who gets in. UND was lousy the year before the Lams arrived; should that record have been considered? Not in my opinion.
 
Re: 2014 Women's D-1 National Tournament

ARM said:
They get the majority of the bids because they have the majority of the teams. The WCHA has had quite a few seasons where it has three teams in the eight-team field, which is good considering it has about a quarter of the teams. I don't know how one would put together a system that looked at prior year's results when deciding who gets in. UND was lousy the year before the Lams arrived; should that record have been considered? Not in my opinion.
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I didn't say we should go back, I am saying they're getting a majority of the bids and maybe they shouldn't. I think that a fair point to be looked at.
 
Goon said:
I didn't say we should go back, I am saying they're getting a majority of the bids and maybe they shouldn't. I think that a fair point to be looked at.
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It will get worse before it gets better from that perspective, because the CHA gets an auto bid next year. Had they had one this season, a team would have needed to finish in the top six in the PairWise to get in as an at-large team.
 
Re: 2014 Women's D-1 National Tournament

Goon said:
I didn't say we should go back, I am saying they're getting a majority of the bids and maybe they shouldn't. I think that a fair point to be looked at.
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WCHA has 8 of 34 teams for women or 23.5%........and 23.5% of 8 tournament spots would be 1.88spots(2 spots)......
 
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Re: 2014 Women's D-1 National Tournament

ARM said:
It will get worse before it gets better from that perspective, because the CHA gets an auto bid next year. Had they had one this season, a team would have needed to finish in the top six in the PairWise to get in as an at-large team.
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Though, in fairness, if RIT gets an autobid they would have replaced Mercyhurst, so the CHA representation would have remained the same.
 
Eeyore said:
Though, in fairness, if RIT gets an autobid they would have replaced Mercyhurst, so the CHA representation would have remained the same.
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Yes, and the discussion of who deserved to be No. 7 in the PairWise would have been moot.
 
Re: 2014 Women's D-1 National Tournament

Quinnipiac is really looking forward to hosting the Women's Frozen Four and is planning on some new features:

• Thursday Practices Open to the Public
• Thursday's Press Conferences to be streamed to the Video Boards for all to see in the basketball venue
• Red Carpet Arrival for all four teams, when they arrive for Thursday's Banquet and for every game
• Much, Much more
 
FredDavenport said:
Quinnipiac is really looking forward to hosting the Women's Frozen Four and is planning on some new features:

• Thursday Practices Open to the Public
• Thursday's Press Conferences to be streamed to the Video Boards for all to see in the basketball venue
• Red Carpet Arrival for all four teams, when they arrive for Thursday's Banquet and for every game
• Much, Much more
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Sounds great; anything you can do to make the players feel special is a good thing. Per other posts, ticket sales seem to have gone well. Nothing like playing in front of a big crowd. :)
 
Re: 2014 Women's D-1 National Tournament

Goon said:
Lets look at it from this point, no Eastern team has ever won the NCAA title in Women's Hockey, so why should they get the majority of the bids to the Women's tourney every year? Especially if they're not playing the toughest teams in college hockey? I think it's a fair question.... Right?
Click to expand...

the present system favors the ECAC, and since they make up the majority of the teams, I wouldn't expect them to be changing the system that DOESN'T favor them

as far as UND goes, last year I felt sorry for them, this year not
they have had 11 chances to beat the Gophers the last two years, and they only managged to do it once, and what happened after that?
MN got better, UND got worse

UND does not deserve to be in the tourney this year, they lost 3 of 4 games this year to the Gophers, then they got beat in the WCHA tourney

if they were in the tourney they'd be playing the Gophers, no way do they deserve another shot at them, they didn't deserve a second chance last year either, at least not without first beating one of the eastern teams, but they DID deserve to be in the tourney last year, they were the second best team in the nation, but the sucking system made them play the Gophers first

neither team deserved that, and the fans deserved better too
 
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