Re: Fun With Numbers '14-'15: USCHO Posters Poll, Pairwise What-Ifs, and Other Goodie
I will admit I am new to this forum as well as the College game so I hope somebody can explain the following to me in regards to BC:
1. How is BC ranked #1 when they haven't beat a quality opponent (or anyone from the WCHA) in the last 2 years?
2. Why doesn't BC travel to play an occasional WCHA team?
3. Why is attendance so low at BC home games?
Not trying to be a smart axx, just trying to understand the arrogance of BC.
These are all reasonable questions (except the bit about arrogance -- BC itself isn't arrogant, and fans of successful programs are arrogant no matter where they come from).
On 1, to answer the narrow "How?" question, the ranking is done by polling people involved in women's hockey, so what we're seeing is the aggregate of a number of different people's impressions. I don't know if anyone polled has seen both Minnesota and BC play live this year -- in fact, I don't know if anyone at all has seen both Minnesota and BC play live this year, except possibly Brian Durocher. So the #1 rating is a bit of a guess. But everyone polled has voted BC #1, no matter where they're from. Jim Plumer's Vermont split with NoDak and Bemidji, and he said after Vermont's first BC game that BC are the best team he's seen in Div 1 hockey. People take various things into account such as what they've seen of the play, as archived games or highlight reels, or what they've heard of the team's performance. Arlan and Candace, neither of them Hockey East homers, have been very complimentary about BC's speed, depth and flair in the Wednesday Women columns. Without having seen them play a really good team it's hard to be sure, but clearly you can believe BC are the best in the country without being crazy.
The RPI ranking is supposed to take account of strength of schedule -- it weights the opponents' win % almost as highly as the team's win % -- and under that, BC is also rated #1. You can argue that the calculation should take quality into account more, but that's what we've got, officially.
(I personally have BC ranked #2, because even though I'm a BC fan I'm even more of an Excel nerd, and if you look at OPWP as a predictor of WP it turns out that Minnesota are outperforming their predicted WP more than BC are, even with a lower absolute WP. (If you rank purely by how much teams are outperforming their SOS, I have a current top ten of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Boston College, St. Lawrence, Quinnipiac, Clarkson, Bemidji State, Boston University, Cornell, Princeton, Minnesota-Duluth). )
On the quality opponents: BC was very short on quality wins last year, though they did split a road series with Cornell and went 4-1-0 with BU. The year before they beat Harvard twice and Cornell once, lost to Mercyhurst in Erie, went 1-1-1 with the BU team that made the national final, and gave Minnesota the second-toughest game of its perfect season. This season it's not bad: Cornell, Harvard (possibly x2 with Beanpot), Quinnipiac, a very solid Princeton, and 3x BU and Vermont teams who could both show up to play (and who can both argue to be considered in the same breath as NoDak and Bemidji, if not UMD). But I agree, it would be good to see them play more Western teams. BU seem to be better, having taken on Minnesota this year and Wisconsin this year. I enjoy the curbstompings BC deals out, but the best game they played last season was a 1-1 tie against Harvard and I'd love to see them take on more, tougher opposition.
(You can ask the question the other way round, too. Wisco's OOC games are Lindenwood (?), UNH (??? -- they come all the way out East and only play UNH?), and Clarkson. Minnesota's are the slightly more respectable Penn State, BU, Princeton (though again, if you're coming out East, why play a series against Princeton instead of taking on Quinnipiac?). UMD is Connecticut, Lindenwood, and Cornell. If WCHA teams are so good, why are they scared to come and play the proper Eastern teams and prove it?)
Why is attendance so low? I wish it wasn't. I don't think it demonstrates anything about the quality of the team, but I wish these great players had more fans. A problem is that in Boston there are so many other sports options to consume -- very successful pro teams from the big four sports and soccer, a lot of teams from medium sized colleges rather than one big one, a hockey culture that's strong but not dominant the way it is in Minnesota, even a women's pro team to go and watch instead. I do my bit to encourage people to the games, but it's an uphill struggle. Why don't you come out east and come to one sometime?