D1 Tournament: waiting for the credit due

[Maine-iac]

Just waiting for the mea culpa from Candace Horgan on the DI Tournament .... not that it's really expected. I give all the credit in the world for standing out in front and making predictions and assessments ...., but I think more credit is due "eastern schools." I'll agree that the WCHA is the strongest conference, and that they have the best historical track record; but I think the bias went too far. I have/had no horse in this race so I'll speak as a fan; admittedly one from the HE/ECAC neighborhood.
She doesn't think the selection committee got it right ....... noting an issue with Dartmouth (#8) playing Cornell (#2) and UMD (#7) playing UW (#1). Dartmouth was about 0.030 RPI points lower than UMD, not 0.300 as she stated. You have to compare #1 UW to the absolute bottom D-1 teams to get a 0.300 differential. Anyway, if "Defending National Champion" UMD was so great why were they the #7 seed? Whether UMD played Cornell or UW, I don't think they were likely to win; so no one in those two quarter final match-ups got it easy or got hosed. As for the other two games, different methods had them ranked 3 thru 6; so be it. I gather that she thought Minn and Mercyhurst should have been the home teams. Even that they weren't she still predicted them to win: saying that Mercyhurst will "likely" beat both BU and Cornell; and that for BC to win, that Molly Shaus may have to "steal" it. Maybe given the results that should be re-thought. Before someone screams "home ice advantage", I'm gonna say I doubt it. Please read Moskowitz book on "Home Field Advantage" and tell me that about 600 fans in those arenas caused the officials to bias the game. Seriously ? No way. And Minny is used to playing in front of larger hostile crowds than that; so they shouldn't have been intimidated.
Finally I'm not the only one (see responses to her blog, please) that took exception to the statement that the top eastern schools need to schedule more games against WHCA teams. Maybe it's the WCHA teams that need to come east more often ?
So the final four is one WCHA team (which should be the favorite to win it), one ECAC and two HE teams. She predicted two WCHA, one each: CHA, HE and ECAC. I don't see the supposed anti-WCHA bias unless one truly believes that UMD would have beaten Cornell; no, only a UMD/WHCA-fan would call that. And I know all about being a fan; I am the fan-atic that is still smiling that my (men's) Red Raiders have won two overtime games to get to the ECAC semifinals, knocking off the #5 and #1 seeds.

 

[FlyingPig]

Re: D1 Tournament: waiting for the credit due

What credit? A smacking is what's due.....
And yes, I believe UMD could have given Cornell a run for their money. But that's not the point.
The game that was supposed to happen didn't happen. That's the end of the story.
As a hockey fan, I feel cheated. I'm sure I'm not the only one. It's not exact science, but I have every reason to believe that they didn't try to put the teams in position to put the best 4 teams in the FF.

 

[brookyone]

Re: D1 Tournament: waiting for the credit due

Finally I'm not the only one (see responses to her blog, please) that took exception to the statement that the top eastern schools need to schedule more games against WHCA teams. Maybe it's the WCHA teams that need to come east more often ?

Same difference. It's been mentioned several times in the earlier discussions, Minnesota scheduled Clarkson and Harvard (and one against Maine originally that didn't happen when Maine decided to opt out) so with the WCHA schedule, that's about as much as we could hope for. I'd also like to see more NC series between the WCHA teams, HE and the ECAC of course...better than some of the NC series vs. CHA opponents...other than Mercyhurst that is. No offense to the rest of the CHA...maybe those will be more favorable in the future too. You have to have a willingness from all to travel on a reciprocal basis though. I wonder if a situation as happened with Maine and their planned trip to Minnesota and SCSU would make teams hesitant when constructing the coming seasons schedule? Something like that is less than ideal towards promoting NC play between East & West.

 

[dave1381]

Re: D1 Tournament: waiting for the credit due

So far, all that's happened is BC took advantage of a home game against a WCHA team that would've been seeded higher if any sensible seeding criteria had been in place. No need for a mea culpa from Candace yet. If Wisconsin loses to BC on neutral ice, then maybe you have a point.

It's not exact science, but I have every reason to believe that they didn't try to put the teams in position to put the best 4 teams in the FF.

Well the criteria, however flawed, is pretty close to a deterministic process, and or the most part when they've deviated from the USCHO Pairwise it's been predictable. The budget has been tougher to predict, but it's pretty consistent apart from 2005 when they broke the bank and said so.

 

[ARM]

Re: D1 Tournament: waiting for the credit due

Whether UMD played Cornell or UW, I don't think they were likely to win; so no one in those two quarter final match-ups got it easy or got hosed.

There is some merit to most of your post, but this sentence is rather simplistic. Do you think Cornell would have beaten UMD 7-1, or Dartmouth would have taken Wisconsin to the final seconds and nearly forced OT? Road teams have now won 7 of 28 quarters, and UMD and SLU are the only teams to have won more than one. So in a tourney where it is all about advancing, any team that earned the right to face the last team into the tournament and had to instead face an opponent more capable of beating them did get hosed.

 

[MN. Fan]

Re: D1 Tournament: waiting for the credit due

Before someone screams "home ice advantage", I'm gonna say I doubt it. Please read Moskowitz book on "Home Field Advantage" and tell me that about 600 fans in those arenas caused the officials to bias the game. Seriously ? No way. And Minny is used to playing in front of larger hostile crowds than that; so they shouldn't have been intimidated.

Here are a few more reasons why it is important to play at home. The home team gets last change. The home team has practiced and played in that one said arena the whole year. The players and coaches know the little things about the ice and arena that make all the difference in the world. As you can see It’s not just the fan base that makes it better to have the home ice advantage.

 

[IceIsNice]

Re: D1 Tournament: waiting for the credit due

Before someone screams "home ice advantage", I'm gonna say I doubt it. Please read Moskowitz book on "Home Field Advantage" and tell me that about 600 fans in those arenas caused the officials to bias the game. Seriously ? No way.

Just making a point.... I'm not sure that home ref bias is necessarily driven by the quantity of home fans. I think it's quite possible to have home ref bias because of league affiliation, coaching connection, familiarity with players...... not saying this was necessarily the case this weekend, but you can't fully discount the potential for home ref bias just because the crowds were small.

 

[Blackbeard]

Re: D1 Tournament: waiting for the credit due

So in a tourney where it is all about advancing, any team that earned the right to face the last team into the tournament and had to instead face an opponent more capable of beating them did get hosed.

Simplistically, factually and pointedly said.

I wonder if the "nobody got hosed" proponents would be singing the same tune if UMD had won.

 

[Maine-iac]

Re: D1 Tournament: waiting for the credit due

Here are a few more reasons why it is important to play at home. The home team gets last change. The home team has practiced and played in that one said arena the whole year. The players and coaches know the little things about the ice and arena that make all the difference in the world. As you can see It’s not just the fan base that makes it better to have the home ice advantage.

Oh, absolutely the home team has some local knowledge; I think you weigh it more than it's really worth. Conte Forum and Ridder Arena are both NHL-sized ice sheets. I've never been to Ridder, but I am sure that it's quality is such that it doesn't have "dead spots in the parquet of the Garden" (if I can be permitted to mix a sports metaphor). Could Ridder be the best home ice advantage in Women's hockey? Who else has their own arena? If so is Minn really as good as their record, or is it inflated due to the home ice in half their games? No, I'll maintain they are that good and it is not due to another advantage.

 

[ARM]

Re: D1 Tournament: waiting for the credit due

Oh, absolutely the home team has some local knowledge; I think you weigh it more than it's really worth.

Local knowledge can be huge. For example, I'm not used to seeing Minnesota's goalie redirect pucks ringed around the boards into the slot. Could the boards have caused an unfamiliar bounce? Don't know, but if they did, then that had a huge impact on Saturday's game. BTW, this isn't an excuse, because I believe that BC deserved home ice over Minnesota and any advantages that may have come with it.

Could Ridder be the best home ice advantage in Women's hockey?

Isn't UNH's record at the Whit, particularly in Hockey East play, at least until the last couple of seasons, rather astounding? Both the dimensions of the ice sheet and the lighting are different from most rinks and could require a period of adjustment for visitors.

 

[Maine-iac]

Re: D1 Tournament: waiting for the credit due

So far, all that's happened is BC took advantage of a home game against a WCHA team that would've been seeded higher if any sensible seeding criteria had been in place. No need for a mea culpa from Candace yet. If Wisconsin loses to BC on neutral ice, then maybe you have a point.


Well the criteria, however flawed, is pretty close to a deterministic process, and or the most part when they've deviated from the USCHO Pairwise it's been predictable. The budget has been tougher to predict, but it's pretty consistent apart from 2005 when they broke the bank and said so.

I don't think BC has to beat UW ...... I don't think that "eastern teams" have been underestimated by the tournament seeding. I believe that Candace saw it as a bias against the WCHA. I think that based upon the numbers, having not seen UW in person, UW is the better team and would likely win. ........

I can't agree with you "sensible seeding criteria" viewpoint; I think you've made a conclusion on a result which disagrees with what your heart wants because you have another measuring stick which could give you a different option. The selection and seeding process has guidelines. KRACH seems to be a better predictor/evaluator than RPI and Pairwise; but I also know that neither is perfect. KRACH seems too often to become a crutch, when the disgruntled speak.

 

[zoofer]

Re: D1 Tournament: waiting for the credit due

2 points....Brooky, I hope that you guys will come along with your team as they visit UNH this coming year, with UNH heading west in 2013....no matter the season, the Atlantic and lobsters are still fun to take in! ARM, I know that the Whitt has given UNH a distinct advantage however with that said, UMD seemed to connquer it in 2009.....

 

[brookyone]

Re: D1 Tournament: waiting for the credit due

2 points....Brooky, I hope that you guys will come along with your team as they visit UNH this coming year, with UNH heading west in 2013....no matter the season, the Atlantic and lobsters are still fun to take in! ARM, I know that the Whitt has given UNH a distinct advantage however with that said, UMD seemed to connquer it in 2009.....

Born and raised in the upper Midwest...I can stare contentedly for hours at any ocean (and related beach scenery) when I get the chance. Haven't jumped in since I saw "Jaws" though. Lobster...bring it on, it's a favorite.

 

[Maine-iac]

Re: D1 Tournament: waiting for the credit due

There is some merit to most of your post, but this sentence is rather simplistic. Do you think Cornell would have beaten UMD 7-1, or Dartmouth would have taken Wisconsin to the final seconds and nearly forced OT? Road teams have now won 7 of 28 quarters, and UMD and SLU are the only teams to have won more than one. So in a tourney where it is all about advancing, any team that earned the right to face the last team into the tournament and had to instead face an opponent more capable of beating them did get hosed.

Apologies that I am a full response behind you now ...... I am both a little slow and I gotta do some work too.

I agree that sentence was simplistic. UMD being 1-3 (going into the game) against UW and given other numerical assessments (e.g. KRACH, RPI) wouldn't have been predicted to win. UMD vs Cornell had no direct results, but then too the numerical assessments would have favored Cornell. I'm certainly no expert, but I'd believe that they would have given the nod to Cornell. Even Candace (who I clearly believe sees through WCHA-glasses) predicted a Cornell win. Any evaluation of each team's strengths and weaknesses would have been a paragraph of transitive (A vs B and B vs C) comparisons at best.

Do I think Cornell would have won 7-1 or Dartmouth would have taken Wisconson to the final seconds .... no. But then again I would not have predicted Cornell 7-1 vs Dartmouth and would have thought UW to win by a couple goals. However as you say, the Tourney is all about advancing .... which means that the score differential is not important. So it is merely a matter of predicting the better team; and I think that Cornell and UW are better than UMD, this year.

Anyone that takes stats into their discussion (I know the someone is thinking about Figures and Liars quote) gets my attention. Since you might know better in the seven years of quarter finals history how many 1st and 2nd seeded teams lost in the quarters? I'd be surprised if it was more than one or two of those 7 road team victories.


p.s. Love the Tagline. "IF" might be the best poem ever !!! "If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue...."

 

[ARM]

Re: D1 Tournament: waiting for the credit due

Since you might know better in the seven years of quarter finals history how many 1st and 2nd seeded teams lost in the quarters? I'd be surprised if it was more than one or two of those 7 road team victories.

I believe the correct answer is "two" -- SLU over UMD in 2005 (when host UMD wasn't playing in their home rink or even their home city) and UMD over Mercyhurst in 2007. The #4 seed fell at home four straight years from 2007-2010.

And you're correct that KRACH and Rutter would have picked Cornell over UMD, but with a lower frequency than they would have picked them over Dartmouth.

 

[OnMAA]

Re: D1 Tournament: waiting for the credit due

Born and raised in the upper Midwest...I can stare contentedly for hours at any ocean (and related beach scenery) when I get the chance. Haven't jumped in since I saw "Jaws" though. Lobster...bring it on, it's a favorite.

Is staring at a big lake not an option for you.
Plenty of those in your neck of the woods.
Besides no sharks in those waters, just lots of rodents, so you can jump right in.

 

[dave1381]

Re: D1 Tournament: waiting for the credit due

I can't agree with you "sensible seeding criteria" viewpoint; I think you've made a conclusion on a result which disagrees with what your heart wants because you have another measuring stick which could give you a different option. The selection and seeding process has guidelines. KRACH seems to be a better predictor/evaluator than RPI and Pairwise; but I also know that neither is perfect. KRACH seems too often to become a crutch, when the disgruntled speak.

It's not that I have one other measuring stick -- it's that I have several other measuring sticks. The polls, the KRACH, the Rutter rankings, the WCHODR -- i.e. any ranking system based on a firm statistical foundation -- suggests that the WCHA was underrated by the RPI. As I've discussed in other threads, the RPI has a clear bias towards East-West parity that works against a strong conference like the WCHA when there are so few East-West games. Doesn't mean every team in the WCHA is way better than every team in the East -- just that the current criteria have the 2nd-6th ranked WCHA teams 2-5 spots lower than they should be.

As for what "my heart wants," my heart wants the NCAA to use a selection criteria that's not as obviously flawed as the RPI, and I've always wanted that. I'm not interested in promoting the WCHA. I'm from the northeast and originally from Boston so I much prefer to have more quarterfinals in the East. I'd be perfectly happy if Hockey East and ECAC get more home quarterfinals in the future -- but I want it to be because they earned them by most any measure, not the blatantly flawed one that the NCAA just happens to use.

If you want to attack my integrity, a legitimate point against me is that I did not take this same strong position in 2005 when the NCAA criteria led the WCHA to seed Wisconsin 5th behind Harvard and Dartmouth, while the polls and KRACH had Wisconsin 3rd. I think that season some kind of record vs. KRACH top 12 criterion could have still elevated Harvard over Wisconsin for the 3rd seed, and Wisconsin probably deserved to host over Dartmouth (and pretty much everyone believed that at the time that Dartmouth didn't deserve to host, including Dartmouth, yet Dartmouth still managed to win). I also take a different position because the WCHA is stronger 1-through-6 now than it was in 2005. Also the extent to which the WCHA has been hurt by the RPI is much stronger than any past year.

 

[brookyone]

Re: D1 Tournament: waiting for the credit due

Is staring at a big lake not an option for you.
Plenty of those in your neck of the woods.
Besides no sharks in those waters, just lots of rodents, so you can jump right in.

They don't sound like an ocean...'cept maybe that one upon which Duluth is situated...and we all know I'm not welcome there.

 

[ARM]

Re: D1 Tournament: waiting for the credit due

... in 2005 when the NCAA criteria led the WCHA to seed Wisconsin 5th behind Harvard and Dartmouth, while the polls and KRACH had Wisconsin 3rd. I think that season some kind of record vs. KRACH top 12 criterion could have still elevated Harvard over Wisconsin for the 3rd seed, and Wisconsin probably deserved to host over Dartmouth (and pretty much everyone believed that at the time that Dartmouth didn't deserve to host, including Dartmouth, yet Dartmouth still managed to win).

Back in 2005, Wisconsin had one or two fans on the board who posted twice a year, and nobody thought the Badgers were a threat except the Bulldog and Gopher fans who tried to tell everyone that they weren't your ordinary 3rd-place team. Oh, the good old days.

They don't sound like an ocean...'cept maybe that one upon which Duluth is situated...and we all know I'm not welcome there.

Once you get past Two Harbors on the North Shore, they haven't heard of you.

 

[dave1381]

And to think in 2004 Mark Johnson spent a whole post WCHA press conference lamenting how the Frozen Four could use fresh blood.

Now his program has 5 Frozen Four appearances, and the other three participants have that many combined.

Someone has pointed out this is the first Frozen Four without either UMD or Minnesota?