What's new
By:
USCHO Fan Forum

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • The USCHO Fan Forum has migrated to a new plaform, xenForo. Most of the function of the forum should work in familiar ways. Please note that you can switch between light and dark modes by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right of the main menu bar. We are hoping that this new platform will prove to be faster and more reliable. Please feel free to explore its features.

2015 Pairwise Discussion & Predictions

Re: 2015 Pairwise Discussion & Predictions

Thinking outside the box (so congratulate me for expanding the scope of this thread's universe) but also thinking off the top of my head (so what I'm about to say may have some dumb consequences)....

1. I strongly share pokechecker's frustration about the travel rule's resulting in too many cis-conference match-ups in the QF round
2. The CHA autobid, much as we may consider it an anomaly in years when Mercyhurst is not its usual Top 8 self, does have the virtue of increasing the number of trans-conference games
3. An 8-team field, while it provides fun for 4 more colleges than would a 4-team field, and while it mitigates the problem of a season-long dominant team ("Godzilla") being shut out of a 4-team Big Dance by losing a single game in a conference elimination tourney to a "Cinderella" team, tends to increase the number of cis-conference games (as long as the travel rule can't be changed) because in most years 7 NCAA contestants are drawn from only 3 conferences
4. Cis-conference match-ups aren't bad when they re-pit Godzilla versus Cinderella (i.e. Godzilla won the regular season, Cinderella won the conference tourney, now let them have a new shot for NCAA glory)
5. But cis-conference match-ups are boring when they pit Godzilla against a lesser team in their own conference that didn't win either the regular season or the tourney, just had a Top-8 Pairwise (an "Ugly Stepsister")

You see where this post is heading....but it makes surmises without any rigorous statistical analysis of how it might play out in the real world....namely:

6. Might we consider that, in the present state of women's collegiate hockey, given the NCAA's intransigence about the travel rule, a 6-team NCAA tourney might be a good idea (4 conference tourney champions (to include any and all Cinderellas), 2 wild card teams chosen by Pairwise/KRACH/whatever methodology is preferable (2 Godzillas or at least Beautiful Stepsisters), seeding by Pairwise/KRACH/whatever methodology is preferable, byes for #1 and #2, home ice advantage for #3 and #4 in the QF round versus #5 and #6) and paring the field from 8 down to 6 by eliminating 2 Ugly Stepsister teams?

PLUS: The NCAA should be delighted because it would save them bus fares for 2 QF games!
 
Last edited:
Re: 2015 Pairwise Discussion & Predictions

I have to say, I think an 8 team tournament is the perfect size for women's hockey right now. I really don't like byes, partially because I like that the tournament puts everyone on an even playing field and says "go," but partially because I really don't think byes are an advantage.

Hockey East had a bye for the top 2 teams for like 3 years or so and the top two teams keep playing terrible in the Hockey East semis/finals with the 2 week break and so they ditched it and threw the bottom two teams to the wolves to keep the top two teams fresh.

Sounds silly I know but that's absolutely what happened.
 
Re: 2015 Pairwise Discussion & Predictions

TonyTheTiger20 said:
Hockey East had a bye for the top 2 teams for like 3 years or so and the top two teams keep playing terrible in the Hockey East semis/finals with the 2 week break and so they ditched it and threw the bottom two teams to the wolves to keep the top two teams fresh.

Sounds silly I know but that's absolutely what happened.
Click to expand...

That does not sound silly, I think it makes a lot of sense.

What I hate is the travel rule....the NCAA is so flush with money that they can easily afford to maintain bracket integrity, which should be what the tourney is all about. The NCAA had a net revenue of $871,000,000.00 2011/2012.
 
Re: 2015 Pairwise Discussion & Predictions

Watson Rink said:
Thinking outside the box (so congratulate me for expanding the scope of this thread's universe) but also thinking off the top of my head (so what I'm about to say may have some dumb consequences)....

1. I strongly share pokechecker's frustration about the travel rule's resulting in too many cis-conference match-ups in the QF round
2. The CHA autobid, much as we may consider it an anomaly in years when Mercyhurst is not its usual Top 8 self, does have the virtue of increasing the number of trans-conference games
3. An 8-team field, while it provides fun for 4 more colleges than would a 4-team field, and while it mitigates the problem of a season-long dominant team ("Godzilla") being shut out of a 4-team Big Dance by losing a single game in a conference elimination tourney to a "Cinderella" team, tends to increase the number of cis-conference games (as long as the travel rule can't be changed) because in most years 7 NCAA contestants are drawn from only 3 conferences
4. Cis-conference match-ups aren't bad when they re-pit Godzilla versus Cinderella (i.e. Godzilla won the regular season, Cinderella won the conference tourney, now let them have a new shot for NCAA glory)
5. But cis-conference match-ups are boring when they pit Godzilla against a lesser team in their own conference that didn't win either the regular season or the tourney, just had a Top-8 Pairwise (an "Ugly Stepsister")

You see where this post is heading....but it makes surmises without any rigorous statistical analysis of how it might play out in the real world....namely:

6. Might we consider that, in the present state of women's collegiate hockey, given the NCAA's intransigence about the travel rule, a 6-team NCAA tourney might be a good idea (4 conference tourney champions (to include any and all Cinderellas), 2 wild card teams chosen by Pairwise/KRACH/whatever methodology is preferable (2 Godzillas or at least Beautiful Stepsisters), seeding by Pairwise/KRACH/whatever methodology is preferable, byes for #1 and #2, home ice advantage for #3 and #4 in the QF round versus #5 and #6) and paring the field from 8 down to 6 by eliminating 2 Ugly Stepsister teams?

PLUS: The NCAA should be delighted because it would save them bus fares for 2 QF games!
Click to expand...


So this year the two "wild cards" (BC and Minny) could have an extra week to prepare for the two winners of an all-Cinderella QFs (RIT, Dartmouth, Mankato, Providence)? That doesn't seem fair.

By the way, ARM has pointed out that Bye has two appearances this weekend in the CHA tourney, and no one should miss his assessment of their chances:

http://www.uscho.com/2015/02/26/playoff-previews-cha/
 
Last edited:
Re: 2015 Pairwise Discussion & Predictions

TonyTheTiger20 said:
I have to say, I think an 8 team tournament is the perfect size for women's hockey right now. I really don't like byes, partially because I like that the tournament puts everyone on an even playing field and says "go," but partially because I really don't think byes are an advantage.

Hockey East had a bye for the top 2 teams for like 3 years or so and the top two teams keep playing terrible in the Hockey East semis/finals with the 2 week break and so they ditched it and threw the bottom two teams to the wolves to keep the top two teams fresh.

Sounds silly I know but that's absolutely what happened.
Click to expand...

a bye only helps if your team is beat up and need the extra time to recuperate
otherwise it is a disadvantage to sit around and wait to play

I bet the NCAA spends more on drinks and whores-d-over during one of their meetings than it cost to fly UND out east
 
Last edited:
Re: 2015 Pairwise Discussion & Predictions

Here comes the fun. I'm pretty sure that if Clarkson beats Dartmouth tomorrow, Dartmouth falls off the TUC cliff, but I think it's going to be really close. So, is there a scenario in which Dartmouth loses tomorrow, falls off the cliff, but hangs on by its fingernails and pulls itself back up due to other games played after they are eliminated? Is there a possible outcome that pulls up their strength of schedule just enough?
 
Re: 2015 Pairwise Discussion & Predictions

pokechecker said:
I bet the NCAA spends more on drinks and whores-d-over during one of their meetings than it cost to fly UND out east
Click to expand...

THIS! If the women could fill venues & had a string of corporate sponsors lined up to attach themselves like so many lampreys to the game you'd see a 16 team bracket with championships played in Dallas, Tampa and LA.
 
Re: 2015 Pairwise Discussion & Predictions

pokechecker said:
ah, but it does matter grasshopper
Click to expand...

I meant more for the amount of whining involved not for the brackets. But even at that, as other pointed out, No way the NCAA is going to send UND out East unless there are 5 WCHA teams in the final 8. The N￠AA only runs this thing because they are requred to, so they run it to spend as little as possible. I am not as convinced of the superiority of the WCHA 4th place over ECAC 2nd although it does appear that way to my prejudiced eyes there just is not enough inter-conf play to be sure every year
 
ne7minder said:
I meant more for the amount of whining involved not for the brackets. But even at that, as other pointed out, No way the NCAA is going to send UND out East unless there are 5 WCHA teams in the final 8. The N￠AA only runs this thing because they are requred to, so they run it to spend as little as possible. I am not as convinced of the superiority of the WCHA 4th place over ECAC 2nd although it does appear that way to my prejudiced eyes there just is not enough inter-conf play to be sure every year
Click to expand...

I'm not even convinced of the superiority of the WCHA 4th place over the ECAC 5th place let alone comparing them to the 2nd place?
 
Re: 2015 Pairwise Discussion & Predictions

Eeyore said:
Here comes the fun. I'm pretty sure that if Clarkson beats Dartmouth tomorrow, Dartmouth falls off the TUC cliff, but I think it's going to be really close. So, is there a scenario in which Dartmouth loses tomorrow, falls off the cliff, but hangs on by its fingernails and pulls itself back up due to other games played after they are eliminated? Is there a possible outcome that pulls up their strength of schedule just enough?
Click to expand...

If so, I highly suspect it would relate to Clarkson winning the conference tourney. And, I say that because they have played Clarkson more than other teams, so it seems like if Clarkson raises its win%, that helps them more than anything else could.

Just ran this scenario on Tony's simulator. (by the way, that's a nice tool, but it seems a little clunky. Might be because my computer is slow, though).

Clarkson winning ECAC didn't even budge Dartmouth's RPI. So, it appears that after tonight, Dartmouth will likely be out of TUC contention.

This does a couple of things:
1 - raises Minnesota over BC
2- Helps UMD in a comparison or 2, and puts them temporarily back in the field if they even their series with a win tonight. However, in the case of UMD, if they lose on Sunday, right back out.
 
Last edited:
Re: 2015 Pairwise Discussion & Predictions

Bhikukhu said:
I'm not even convinced of the superiority of the WCHA 4th place over the ECAC 5th place let alone comparing them to the 2nd place?
Click to expand...

No, no I was not. I was commenting on Pokecheckers statement. I think you are wrong but I would not make either statement
 
Re: 2015 Pairwise Discussion & Predictions

Bhikukhu said:
I'm not even convinced of the superiority of the WCHA 4th place over the ECAC 5th place let alone comparing them to the 2nd place?
Click to expand...
I'm not convinced that the ECAC first place team is superior to the ECAC second place team, so one problem is trying to make any comparisons based on the ECAC. Take Quinnipiac -- do we use the Bobcats on their best or their worst day to determine their worth? And if we try to average it out, we're all going to evaluate them differently in our minds. The WCHA has a similar issue, if not as severe. Is the league's #4 really better than its #5, even if it comes back to win that quarterfinal? There are a lot of teams between the two leagues that are very similar in strength, and there are several teams that post very erratic results. Bemidji State is capable of beating anyone in the ECAC -- or losing to any of the playoff teams, and maybe Colgate as well on a bad day. SLU is truly all over the map.

It would be great to get some crossover NCAA Tournament games to sort some of this out, but thanks to the lame bracket building that the NCAA undertakes, I doubt that we will.
 
Re: 2015 Pairwise Discussion & Predictions

Just ran this scenario on Tony's simulator. (by the way, that's a nice tool, but it seems a little clunky. Might be because my computer is slow, though).
Click to expand...
It's because it's a HUGE file being run via the cloud. Your computer is probably fine haha

Just wait until you guys see what I have for you tomorrow night!

As for BC/UM it does appear to me that Dartmouth is TUC Toast if they lose. I'm curious to see what the committee would do if BC won Hockey East and Minnesota lost to Mankato, though, because you'd have a decent sized RPI gap and TUC would be a squeaker.

Not that Minny is going to lose to Mankato, just an interesting case study, because if Minny loses to anyone else it will flip TUC back to BC anyway.
 
Re: 2015 Pairwise Discussion & Predictions

TonyTheTiger20 said:
As for BC/UM it does appear to me that Dartmouth is TUC Toast if they lose. I'm curious to see what the committee would do if BC won Hockey East and Minnesota lost to Mankato, though, because you'd have a decent sized RPI gap and TUC would be a squeaker.
Click to expand...
There is a point where if the RPI gap gets large enough, the committee quits worrying about COp and TUC. I don't know how big that gap has to be in RPI, but I was told by a former committee member that was the case when the UND vs UW discussion came up a couple of years ago as it related to UND's comparison with SLU.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top