2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

[Slap Shot]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

There have been 11 regionals at the host team’s rink:
1994 MSU lost at Munn
1995 Wisconsin won and lost at Dane County Coliseum
1996 MSU lost at Munn
1998 Michigan won twice at Yost
2002 Michigan won twice at Yost
2003 Minnesota won twice at Marriucci
2003 Michigan won twice at Yost
2005 Minnesota won twice at Marriucci
2006 UND won twice at Ralph Englstad Arena
2008 Colorado College lost at Colorado Springs World Arena
2008 Wisconsin won and lost at Kohl Center
record: 14-5 0.739
The host team advanced to the Frozen Four 6 out of 11 times.

Sean

This doesn't tell the whole story though. How often was the host team the higher seed? If the Gophers hosted either of the above regionals at the X would the crowd factor have been any less, "fair"?

 

[ExileOnDaytonStreet]

1994 MSU lost at Munn MSU was a 6-seed (12 team tourney)
1995 Wisconsin won and lost at Dane County Coliseum UW was a 4-seed (12 team tourney)
1996 MSU lost at Munn MSU was a 5-seed (12 team tourney)
1998 Michigan won twice at Yost Michigan was a 3-seed (12 team tourney)
2002 Michigan won twice at Yost Michigan was a 4-seed (12 team tourney)
2003 Minnesota won twice at Marriucci Minny was a 1-seed (16 team tourney)
2003 Michigan won twice at Yost Michigan was a 3-seed (16 team tourney)
2005 Minnesota won twice at Marriucci Minny was a 1-seed (16 team tourney)
2006 UND won twice at Ralph Englstad Arena UND was a 2-seed (16 team tourney)
2008 Colorado College lost at Colorado Springs World Arena CC was a 2-seed (16 team tourney)
2008 Wisconsin won and lost at Kohl Center UW was a 3-seed (16 team tourney)

So, if I have this correct:

When hosts play at their home rink, the higher seed is 13-5.

The only times the host school games didn’t “follow chalk”, so to speak:
In the 12-team, 2-regional system:
1998: #3 Michigan (host) over #2 NoDak
2002: #4 Michigan (host) over #1 Denver

In the current 16-team, 4-regional system:
2003: #3 Michigan (host) over #2 Maine
2003: #3 Michigan (host) over #1 CC
2008: #3 Mich State over #2 CC (host)
2008: #3 Wisconsin (host) over #2 Denver

Only one of them is a “big” upset (where the teams would be more than one seed band apart in today’s system), and in one case the host school was the one that lost.

 

[ExileOnDaytonStreet]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

I feel like this tells us that “playing on your home rink” is less of an advantage than “being within 100 miles from home, and the other team had to travel far”.

 

[dxmnkd316]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

I feel like this tells us that “playing on your home rink” is less of an advantage than “being within 100 miles from home, and the other team had to travel far”.

100% agree. And that follows. A two-hour drive is nothign for a committed fanbase. Open up the home rinks. Make the bidding process more attractive.

 

[TigerFan86-87]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

And the Horned Frogs won that game, but were leap-frogged by the team behind them,

I see what you did there...
Nice

 

[Jon]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

I'm kind of on Slap Shot's side on this one.....

What we have seen, twice in the last 5 years, is that the rules have been tweaked by the committee so that Providence College plays in their home town WITHOUT being the host school. This is, of course, a tremendous advantage. And, both times it has been as a #4 seed band team.

.

This might or might not help your argument but PC played in Providence in 2017. That worked very well. For Harvard.

 

[davyd83]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

Fans make a lot more of the travel than players do. Was the hour and a half bus ride to MSP and the 4 1/2 hour flight time for Minnesota State any more taxing than the bus ride to Bemidji or Houghton? With a 3-0 lead, you’ve pretty much taken that “home” crowd out of the game.

 

[mookie1995]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

I spoke to a friend of mine at the last Yale game who is a Fire Battalion Chief in New Haven, he responded to an automatic fire alarm at Skull and Bones the other night and some young man appeared at the door shouting "you can't come in here!" One of the truck company guys shouldered him aside and the crew took care of business resetting the false alarm. They all got a good tour of the place and it is as creepy as the rumours.

that poor young man was prolly at the receiving end of "thank you sir, may i have another"'s too

 

[Fishman'81]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

Thanks. The RPI (school) website has a ranking called KASA, which means KRACH Adjusted for Site Advantage. It's the same math, with the slight change that there is a constant nation-wide advantage to playing at home. Whatever that advantage is can also be determined purely mathematically in the same way as KRACH does now. This makes it slightly more robust, in my eyes.

I agree that PWR, with its possible dependence on the very small data set of H2H games and CommOpp games, is poorer as a result of those things.

I also think that KASA or KRACH have zero chance of ever being adopted. In reality, the present PWR math is very complicated, but it seems conceptually easy. KRACH or KASA is conceptually difficult, but not as complicated. For example. I have a very simple EXCEL spreadsheet for the NHL, which, if kept updated with games played and results, can be used to calculate the Bradley-Terry Rankings for all teams in about 3 minutes, manually doing the iterations. I could write a simple VBA which would automate, that, I think. And, It might take me an hour to write the code. It's probably quicker than calculating PWR, simply because it consists of simply adding a bunch of fractions. But, it's conceptually difficult, so it won't be adopted.

I personally think that the math guys at the NCAA have micromanaged their RPI definition to try to make it mimic the KRACH results. I say that because the RPI is a very complicated beast right now. Differing weights for home and away games. 21/25/54...where does that come from? Nowhere, really. It's just an empirical number. And, the quality win bonus is very bogus. It's all clearly a magic formula. So, I'm okay with it. It's close to KRACH. And, I think that's the best we get.

But, that doesn't really answer this question: I would consider KASA or KRACH to be NOT predictive formulas. They merely postdict the season. You may say they give you odds on the next game in a way, but I don't really think they are robust enough to be considered predictive.

The discussion here led me to believe that you had something else in mind. Was I mistaken?

Thanks.

I was just a little frustrated.

My point was there's no possible way to predict outcomes without some previous data upon which to base the predictions. ("Cart before the horse" type of thing.)

But, that's probably my Dunning-Kruger kicking-in.

Thursday is going to be fun. My ex- has a shot to win it all, and she asked me to fill her bracket out... If that ain't love, what is?

 

[ExileOnDaytonStreet]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

FWIW:

Big Ten's*Deputy Commish (or whatever his title is… the guy who runs B1G hockey) Brad Traviolia was on the USCHO podcast yesterday and advocated for on-campus regionals. To what extent he envisions that, or how to handle the logistical issues, went unsaid.

 

[alfablue]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

FWIW:

Big Ten's*Deputy Commish (or whatever his title is… the guy who runs B1G hockey) Brad Traviolia was on the USCHO podcast yesterday and advocated for on-campus regionals. To what extent he envisions that, or how to handle the logistical issues, went unsaid.

They were a heck of a lot of fun before. Much better than the anonymous host locations. Bring them back.

 

[ExileOnDaytonStreet]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

Atmosphere-wise, I have no doubt of the benefits.

Probably attendance, too, although there are some questions worth asking on this front. (Namely: 5000 fans is sort of the bottom line for failure in terms of regional attendance, and there are probably only 10 programs that average that many in their own rinks)

But the logistics of having all those barns available (and the presumed hit on profitability inherent in doing so)… that I remain very skeptical about.

 

[J.D.]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

FWIW:

Big Ten's*Deputy Commish (or whatever his title is… the guy who runs B1G hockey) Brad Traviolia was on the USCHO podcast yesterday and advocated for on-campus regionals. To what extent he envisions that, or how to handle the logistical issues, went unsaid.

That's the problem. It's easy for people like Chris Dilks on twitter to whine for on campus regional but then when you ask well how would it all work...nobody has an answer.

 

[ExileOnDaytonStreet]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

It’s hardly just him. These boards, the blogs, Twitter… they’re all rife with people longing for it without really answering some of the basic objections.

 

[alfablue]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

That's the problem. It's easy for people like Chris Dilks on twitter to whine for on campus regional but then when you ask well how would it all work...nobody has an answer.

Can you explain how it's hard?

It's worked before, and we all know campuses have lodging for more than hockey, so that's not an issue.

Unless the idea that the highest seed hosts every year.

But just moving the regional hosts back to campuses- that's worked quite well in the past. What has changed so that it would not work?

 

[ExileOnDaytonStreet]

Can you explain how it's hard?

It's worked before, and we all know campuses have lodging for more than hockey, so that's not an issue.

Unless the idea that the highest seed hosts every year.

But just moving the regional hosts back to campuses- that's worked quite well in the past. What has changed so that it would not work?

Correct.

To clarify, my comments are in respect to higher seeds hosting, which makes my points something of a straw man.

We don’t know if Traviolia was referring to higher seed hosting (as was done in the 12-team format until 1992) or campus hosts being eligible for regionals (a la Madison in 2008, Grand Forks in 2006, etc).

One is definitely more workable and reasonable than the other.

 

[chickod]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

Can you explain how it's hard?

It's worked before, and we all know campuses have lodging for more than hockey, so that's not an issue.

Unless the idea that the highest seed hosts every year.

But just moving the regional hosts back to campuses- that's worked quite well in the past. What has changed so that it would not work?

I wonder if they would consider separate formats for the East and West, IMO, clearly the campus sites work better in the West. But here in the East, the regional sites are much more preferable. In the first place, almost any of the sites is within 4 hours or less driving distance from virtually every school. Many on campus sites would not be large enough to accommodate the attendance at Providence or Manchester, for example.

If it's feasible to have separate formats then we have something to talk about. Unfortunately, it's a non-starter if they're not willing to consider that. One size does not fit all. What is practical here is not always practical elsewhere.

 

[alfablue]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

I wonder if they would consider separate formats for the East and West, IMO, clearly the campus sites work better in the West. But here in the East, the regional sites are much more preferable. In the first place, almost any of the sites is within 4 hours or less driving distance from virtually every school. Many on campus sites would not be large enough to accommodate the attendance at Providence or Manchester, for example.

If it's feasible to have separate formats then we have something to talk about. Unfortunately, it's a non-starter if they're not willing to consider that. One size does not fit all. What is practical here is not always practical elsewhere.

That's a fair consideration. Realistically, even here out west, not all campuses can host- you would want a specific minimum number of seats, I would suspect.

(For the 'record'- campus sites that are applied for like from the early 90's until recent is what I am for, not sure if the proposal that is "highest seed" is what they are talking about)

(( second paren.... NCAA Softball does regionals based on highest seed. Works out pretty well. May not be perfect, but it is something in the NCAA playbook))

 

[BlackI]

Knowing the team still has a chance to get in the tournament is what makes the league playoffs worth watching. Otherwise, they're just playing for a trophy that gets displayed for a year.

If that ain’t the bean pot calling the kettle black.

 

[J.D.]

Re: 2019 NCAA Tournament Thread - Regionals are the best weekend of hockey all year

Can you explain how it's hard?

It's worked before, and we all know campuses have lodging for more than hockey, so that's not an issue.

Unless the idea that the highest seed hosts every year.

But just moving the regional hosts back to campuses- that's worked quite well in the past. What has changed so that it would not work?

I'm not even saying an on campus based system can't work. I just like to press people for how they would set it up. For example, do you want to keep 16 teams? Eight hosts? Single elimination or series? Maybe you only want the top four teams hosting a regional type setup of 4 teams at each site? If someone offers a system it at least then allows you to pick it apart or say ok that seems like something that would work.