Alright....so how do NCAA invitations shake out?

[DumbStruck]

1 Wisconsin 11 28-2-2 .9062 2 .6610* 1
2 Cornell 10 25-1-1 .9444 1 .6390* 2
3 Boston University 9 24-4-4 .8125 4 .6091* 3
4 Minnesota 8 22-7-2 .7419 5 .5898* 4
5 Mercyhurst 7 26-5-0 .8387 3 .5891* 5
6 Minnesota-Duluth 6 18-7-3 .6964 7 .5823* 6
7 Boston College 5 20-6-5 .7258 6 .5806* 7
8 North Dakota 4 17-10-3 .6167 11 .5521 8
9 Dartmouth 3 17-9-0 .6538 9 .5375 10
10 Providence 2 19-11-1 .6290 10 .5415 9
11 Quinnipiac 1 20-10-2 .6562 8 .5325* 11
12 Harvard 0 14-9-4 .5926 13 .5314


Read more: http://www.uscho.com/rankings/#ixzz1EGbEsiSU

 

[DumbStruck]

Re: Alright....so how do NCAA invitations shake out?

If #1 Wisco plays #8 North Dakota...in conference but travel doable.
# 2 Cornell plays #7 Boston College...a bus ride away
#3 Boston University plays # 6 Minn Duluth... would NCAA support travel? Great match up.
#4 Minnesota vs #5 Mercyhurst...again travel, but what a great test for Mercyhurst.

Granted plenty of conference tournament upsets & outcomes. But interesting and compelling match ups.

 

[OnMAA]

Re: Alright....so how do NCAA invitations shake out?

If #1 Wisco plays #8 North Dakota...in conference but travel doable.
# 2 Cornell plays #7 Boston College...a bus ride away
#3 Boston University plays # 6 Minn Duluth... would NCAA support travel? Great match up.
#4 Minnesota vs #5 Mercyhurst...again travel, but what a great test for Mercyhurst.

Granted plenty of conference tournament upsets & outcomes. But interesting and compelling match ups.

You will most likely have at least 3 east-west matchups. If my memory is correct 3 east west matchups Last year Clarky travelled to Minny, UNH traveled to UMD and BU travelled to Erie. The fourth quarter was an all ECAC affair between Cornell and Harvard in Beantown.

 

[OnMAA]

Re: Alright....so how do NCAA invitations shake out?

If #1 Wisco plays #8 North Dakota...in conference but travel doable.
# 2 Cornell plays #7 Boston College...a bus ride away
#3 Boston University plays # 6 Minn Duluth... would NCAA support travel? Great match up.
#4 Minnesota vs #5 Mercyhurst...again travel, but what a great test for Mercyhurst.

Granted plenty of conference tournament upsets & outcomes. But interesting and compelling match ups.

I would not bet on this being the final lineup. I would expect at least one big surprise in the autobids that would knock one of these teams out. Most likely candidates would be Quinny in the ECAC and PC in HE.

 

[ARM]

Re: Alright....so how do NCAA invitations shake out?

Last year Clarky travelled to Minny, UNH traveled to UMD and BC travelled to Erie.

Wrong "B". BC only participates in the tourney in odd years.

 

[freak]

Re: Alright....so how do NCAA invitations shake out?

Alright....so how do NCAA invitations shake out?

I'm betting that it will be the conference tournament winners from the WCHA, Hockey East, and the ECAC, and five at-large bids, which will most likely mirror the Pairwise rankings.

 

[IceIsNice]

Re: Alright....so how do NCAA invitations shake out?

Wrong "B". BC only participates in the tourney in odd years.

BU traveled to Erie, meanwhile, in the prior year I believe Dartmouth traveled to either Minny or Duluth.

 

[IceIsNice]

Re: Alright....so how do NCAA invitations shake out?

I'm betting that it will be the conference tournament winners from the WCHA, Hockey East, and the ECAC, and five at-large bids, which will most likely mirror the Pairwise rankings.

Genious...... pure "Freak"'n genious!

 

[ARM]

Re: Alright....so how do NCAA invitations shake out?

... in the prior year I believe Dartmouth traveled to either Minny or Duluth.

Are you talking 2009? Dartmouth went to Madison; BC was in Minneapolis; UMD played in Durham.

 

[TonyTheTiger20]

Re: Alright....so how do NCAA invitations shake out?

If BC ended up 6th, would the NCAA have BC play BU in the quarters?

 

[OnMAA]

Re: Alright....so how do NCAA invitations shake out?

Wrong "B". BC only participates in the tourney in odd years.

Ooops....Corrected....Thanks.

 

[OnMAA]

Re: Alright....so how do NCAA invitations shake out?

If BC ended up 6th, would the NCAA have BC play BU in the quarters?

Very possible. This is what they did with Cornell and Harvard last year. Suspect it may depend a bit on which other teams get into the final eight.

Either way, the top 4 seeds will have a home date, and the rest is filled in from there. Not sure how cast in stone the rest of the order would be.

 

[TonyTheTiger20]

Re: Alright....so how do NCAA invitations shake out?

Very possible. This is what they did with Cornell and Harvard last year. Suspect it may depend a bit on which other teams get into the final eight.

Either way, the top 4 seeds will have a home date, and the rest is filled in from there. Not sure how cast in stone the rest of the order would be.

4 through 7 is very tight, it should be a fun race to the finish.

 

[dave1381]

Re: Alright....so how do NCAA invitations shake out?

Very possible. This is what they did with Cornell and Harvard last year. Suspect it may depend a bit on which other teams get into the final eight.

Either way, the top 4 seeds will have a home date, and the rest is filled in from there. Not sure how cast in stone the rest of the order would be.

It depends. I think they'd go BU-BC if bracket integrity clearly demanded it. There is a sizeable gap I think between No. 5 and No. 6, so they wouldn't stick BU with Mercyhurst to avoid intraconference. But BC and UMD I think are closer and they wouldn't have a problem sending UMD to BU. If BC opens up a gap with UMD, I could see the intraconference matchup. If they close the gap with Mercyhurst or Minnesota, probably NCAA will avoid it.

I also think the committee would generally like avoid conference tourney retreads in NCAAs. I believe they've only had one such game Wisconsin @ Minnesota, and I think that matchup was sufficiently panned that they may try to avoid it. The other intraconference games I recall Dartmouth@Harvard in '08 and Cornell@Harvard last season were not conference tourney retreads.

I think in the case of Cornell the matchup was more about rewarding Cornell rather than saving travel costs. They could just as well of sent UNH to Harvard if they wanted to reduce costs. I thought almost all season UNH was headed to Harvard but they were so mediocre down the stretch they ended up at UMD instead.

 

[dave1381]

Re: Alright....so how do NCAA invitations shake out?

Dartmouth could be 8th in the PWR by the end of the weekend.

They were always the team in the best position to jump North Dakota.

 

[dave1381]

Re: Alright....so how do NCAA invitations shake out?

A Win over Minnesota would be huge for North Dakota -- otherwise their NCAA hopes probably rest on beating Wisconsin in the WCHA semis, ouch.

Also, given that BC is 1-1-2 in its last 4, BU is 4-3-1 in its last 8, and Cornell was 11 GF, 11 GA in its last 4 games against ECAC playoff teams, I wouldn't count on the ECAC and Hockey East autobid all coming from among these three teams.

 

[hockeyfan111]

Re: Alright....so how do NCAA invitations shake out?

The funny thing about statistics is its all about the spin you put on it. Thinking deeper about the situation, teams like BC have played 9 games in the last 20 days and gone 6-1-2. A record most schools would be envious of especially since it meant beating the #3 team along the way and winning a very emotional Beanpot championship. It's easy to think that every game is the 7th game of the Stanley Cup for the girls, but the reality is some games are more important than others. BC, BU have clinched the top spots in HE over a week ago, one has won the Beanpot tournament, they have played more games than most recently, they are tired, midterms are in full swing, there's been no time to recoup from injury.... So I would say each of these teams has done remarkably well and based upon the first 30 games of the year proved they are a top 8 team. Of course things could change, but the teams from HE have proven to be very competitive throughout the full year.

"Also, given that BC is 1-1-2 in its last 4, BU is 4-3-1 in its last 8, and Cornell was 11 GF, 11 GA in its last 4 games against ECAC playoff teams, I wouldn't count on the ECAC and Hockey East autobid all coming from among these three teams."

 

[dave1381]

Re: Alright....so how do NCAA invitations shake out?

There have been plenty of teams that have come close to running the table in their conference regular seasons and then gone on to run the table in the their conference tournaments. BU and Cornell looked like they'd be pretty close to doing that -- or at least in the case of BU, BC was probably the only team that could beat them, and BC's a top 8 team anyway. So it looked like it might be pretty unlikely there'd be an upstart autobid (i.e. one from outside the top 8).

But now it looks a lot less certain that there won't be an upstart autobid from these leagues than a month ago. BU does not look as dominant as 2006 or 2008 UNH, and Cornell does not look as dominant as 2007 Dartmouth or 2008 Harvard. But a month ago, these teams looked about as dominant as those teams. That's why I brought up those results. These results definitely matter to anyone forecasting whether there will be an upstart autobid from these leagues, even yes, I agree there's potentially some late-season lack of focus involved.

 

[granddaddyscout]

Re: Alright....so how do NCAA invitations shake out?

The funny thing about statistics is its all about the spin you put on it.


"

Would a good example be the way you choose to use the last 9 games instead of the last 12, which would be 7-3-2. BU is 8-3-1 over its last 12 games, both have losses and ties to very mediocre teams (NH and Maine), this clearly shows they are beatable. Lots of excuses, but these are games that top ranked teams “should” win. All I hear Dave saying is that these teams could be knocked off creating an interesting selection challenge for the NCAA. In addition ND beating Minny should solidify their status.

 

[dave1381]

Re: Alright....so how do NCAA invitations shake out?

That all said, it'll be an interesting decision if the 8th spot comes down to a North Dakota-Dartmouth comparison.

So let's suppose both Dartmouth and UND have similar quarterfinal results, and then Dartmouth loses in the ECAC final to Cornell, and UND loses in the WCHA semis to Wisconsin.

Then the comparison looks like this
--- RPI, really close, probably North Dakota has the edge, but Dartmouth would also get a boost from having a conference semifinal win. I think North Dakota would be slightly ahead, but I'm not sure.
--- Dartmouth TUC record would be 4-6 (assuming TUC remain the same), North Dakota would be 6-9. It's a draw there, yet completely absurd in the sense the North Dakota's TUC opponents are ranked 1,3,4,&6 in the PWR while Dartmouth's are 2&7&10&12. I don't think I've ever seen an "even" TUC comparison where the SOS of the TUC were so blatantly in favor of one team!!! I'd hope the committee would give such a comparison to North Dakota.
--- Only common opponent, Vermont!! North Dakota took 3 of 4 points from Vermont. Dartmouth beat Vermont.

So the comparison comes down to how subjectively you weight these factors. Personally, I would say that North Dakota's impressive TUC results are important than the fact North Dakota tied Vermont, and even if Dartmouth ended up with a thin edge in RPI. I'm not sure how much leeway the committee has to judge the strength of those TUC results.