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2023-2024 D1 Poll

How might the poll shuffle around this week? I am guessing that the top 6 could be Ohio State, Wisconsin, Minnesota, UMD, Clarkson, and Colgate. I'd guess that Clarkson stays ranked in the top 5 and might even move up.
 
Just curious who votes on the USCHO poll. Trying to figure out how some of the teams are ranked higher than it seems they should be. Or maybe when voters get down to 10-15, they don't really care. LOL. But UConn with losses to BC and a loss to UNH with no wins over anyone seems way too high. And Vermont did beat St. Lawrence back in October but has since lost to Maine (twice!) and BC and Holy Cross. No idea how they are so high. Just crazy to have so many losses to lower ranked teams and still stay up so high in the polls.

As I said, maybe no one cares once you get down that low. Just a curious group of teams in the 10-15 range for sure. I'd probably go Princeton at 10 because they have the best win (over Cornell) and then maybe St. Cloud and Yale. At least those teams don't have the losses against the lower teams. Seems the Hockey East teams will just all beat each other so not sure how good any of them are.

I think it's been on this forum before, but who votes for the USCHO poll?
 
Fantastic question. I believe It's HC 's and maybe some media, if any. It's hard to do a top 15 in this current environment. 10-15 or 7-15 could go in several different ways. At the end of the day it's all about the NPI. That's the law. Great 2023 season so far ... ECAC had a hard go last weekend, I'm sure the WCHA will see a different ECAC come tourney time.
 
tedlasso said:
But UConn with losses to BC and a loss to UNH with no wins over anyone seems way too high. And Vermont did beat St. Lawrence back in October but has since lost to Maine (twice!) and BC and Holy Cross. No idea how they are so high. Just crazy to have so many losses to lower ranked teams and still stay up so high in the polls.
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FWIW, KRACH has UConn at #12 and Vermont at #14, so pretty close to where they are in the poll. In the Pairwise, both teams are exactly where they are in the poll.

UConn has beaten Northeastern twice, and Vermont has once. I might have ranked Princeton higher, but it's not a slam dunk. The issue is that, when you get down this far in the rankings, you're largely splitting hairs trying to differentiate the teams. I'd bet that there is a lot of variance among the voters in who they have ranked 10-15.
 
WI loses at home to higher ranked team than Tosu loses to at home, but yet Tosu keeps 1 and a vast majority of the 1 votes and UW loses a spot to the rodents? LOL
 
Timothy A said:
WI loses at home to higher ranked team than Tosu loses to at home, but yet Tosu keeps 1 and a vast majority of the 1 votes and UW loses a spot to the rodents? LOL
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You may have forgotten that OSU swept Wisco a couple of weeks ago (well OK, Wisco managed 1 pt). I know you try to block it out, but it happened.
 
Timothy A said:
WI loses at home to higher ranked team than Tosu loses to at home, but yet Tosu keeps 1 and a vast majority of the 1 votes and UW loses a spot to the rodents? LOL
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Third is higher than PairWise or KRACH have you.

I believe that Wisconsin is a better team than Minnesota, but to date, the Badgers haven't shown that. The Gophers will probably go 0-3 this week and save you from your self-inflicted angst.
 
Maybe, if they get lucky, 3-0.

2-1 would be lucky but not as lucky as 3-0 and 2-1 is at least a reasonable goal.

1-2? A little unlucky but not a surprise.

0-3? Very disappointing.
 
Still not sure who the voters are, but seems like the four WCHA teams should be the top 4. I know Clarkson hasn't lost yet, but they haven't had the quality wins that the top 4 WCHA teams have.
 
tedlasso said:
Just curious who votes on the USCHO poll. Trying to figure out how some of the teams are ranked higher than it seems they should be. Or maybe when voters get down to 10-15, they don't really care. LOL. But UConn with losses to BC and a loss to UNH with no wins over anyone seems way too high. And Vermont did beat St. Lawrence back in October but has since lost to Maine (twice!) and BC and Holy Cross. No idea how they are so high. Just crazy to have so many losses to lower ranked teams and still stay up so high in the polls.

As I said, maybe no one cares once you get down that low. Just a curious group of teams in the 10-15 range for sure. I'd probably go Princeton at 10 because they have the best win (over Cornell) and then maybe St. Cloud and Yale. At least those teams don't have the losses against the lower teams. Seems the Hockey East teams will just all beat each other so not sure how good any of them are.

I think it's been on this forum before, but who votes for the USCHO poll?
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Coaches and media. They try to spread out the coaches to be able to represent the different conferences and geographies evenly. It's a little harder to do that with the media only because there aren't always media available to participate. And of course, they get media folks who cover the sport for that particular poll extensively.

They also try to rotate the voters from year to year, especially with the coaches. It's harder to do that with the media.

When I was writing the regular SUNYAC men's column, I had a vote in the D3 men's poll the whole time, which was a long time. And I can't speak for others, but I always took my voting seriously for every position in the poll.

In football, you hear often how coaches pass the voting responsibility onto their SID. I don't know if that happens in hockey, but I do know that the coaches I knew who had votes did it themselves.

Here's a little secret -- they have "backup" voters in case someone doesn't get their vote in and is unreachable. It's usually one of the administrators of the poll or a "formula" of some type. That is why sometimes you might see an odd change from one week going back to the "norm" the following week. But you didn't hear that from me...
 
Besides this weekend's top-15 matchups, some games in early January also should affect the Pairwise and poll:
UMD at Quinnipiac (Jan 5-6)
UConn at Minnesota (Jan 5-6)
St. Lawrence at Colgate, Clarkson at Cornell (Jan 5)
Clarkson at Colgate, St. Lawrence at Cornell (Jan 6)
Given the WCHA's success over Thanksgiving, I imagine that these series will go the Minnesotan teams' way too. I'll see the Saturday UMD-Quinnipiac game.
 
Clarkson sure has snuck up on me as far as pretty impressive record goes. They play Cornell and Colgate right after the break so we'll see how good they really are.
 
Timothy A said:
Clarkson sure has snuck up on me as far as pretty impressive record goes. They play Cornell and Colgate right after the break so we'll see how good they really are.
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Impressive record against not that tough of a non-conference schedule to date: Merrimack, BC, Vermont, Robert Morris and Syracuse; 9-0-1. Also beat SLU twice in non-conf action. Have beaten Quinny 3-1, Prinny 1-0 and Yale 1-0 all at home. Defense and goaltending are as good or better than any team in the ECAC/HE/CHA that I have watched them play. Good forwards but none with the goal scoring capability of a Giguere or Gabel. That is where they will be at a disadvantage against Colgate or Cornell. Cornell did surprise me losing to Quinny/Prinny at home. Colgate and Cornell will be their toughest opponents by far. Will be interesting to see how they do on the road against these 2 teams.
 
Timothy A said:
Clarkson sure has snuck up on me as far as pretty impressive record goes. They play Cornell and Colgate right after the break so we'll see how good they really are.
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Cornell beats Clarkson 3-2 in OT, shots were 30/32. Clarkson beats Colgate 1-0 being outshot 35/24.
Also of interest Q beats UMD 2-1 and ties 2-2.

The EZAC maybe isn't so EZ.....
 
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