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Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2012-13 edition

Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2012-13 edition

Due to size constraints in post size, here's one based off pts. I wasn't too happy with ignoring ties as well, but it highlights the still weaknesses in the stated tiebreaking procedure from HEA. How do ties affect the H2H ranking? Prepare for another wall of text.

Please note that this is all predicated on the purely speculative results shown in post 113.

<table>
<tr><th>RRRs</th><th>BC</th><th>UML</th><th>UNH</th><th>PC</th><th>MC</th><th>BU</th><th>Pts</th><th>Total</th></tr> <tr><td><b>BC</b></td><td> </td><td>2-1-0</td><td>1-1-1</td><td>1-1-1</td><td>2-1-0</td><td>2-1-0</td><td>18</td><td>8-5-2</td></tr> <tr><td><b>UML</b></td><td>1-2-0</td><td> </td><td>0-3-0</td><td>2-1-0</td><td>1-2-0</td><td>3-0-0</td><td>14</td><td>7-8-0</td></tr> <tr><td><b>UNH</b></td><td>1-1-1</td><td>3-0-0</td><td> </td><td>0-2-1</td><td>1-2-0</td><td>2-1-0</td><td>16</td><td>7-6-2</td></tr> <tr><td><b>PC</b></td><td>1-1-1</td><td>1-2-0</td><td>2-0-1</td><td> </td><td>1-1-1</td><td>0-2-1</td><td>14</td><td>5-6-4</td></tr> <tr><td><b>MC</b></td><td>1-2-0</td><td>2-1-0</td><td>2-1-0</td><td>1-1-1</td><td> </td><td>0-3-0</td><td>13</td><td>6-8-1</td></tr><tr><td><b>BU</b></td><td>1-2-0</td><td>0-3-0</td><td>1-2-0</td><td>2-0-1</td><td>3-0-0</td><td> </td><td>15</td><td>7-7-1</td></tr></table>

1 BC still wins this one so they get removed.
1. BC

<table>
<tr><th>RRRs</th><th>UML</th><th>UNH</th><th>PC</th><th>MC</th><th>BU</th><th>Pts</th><th>Total</th></tr> <tr><th>UML</th><td> </td><td>0-3-0</td><td>2-1-0</td><td>1-2-0</td><td>3-0-0</td><td>12</td><td>6-6-0</td></tr> <tr><th>UNH</th><td>3-0-0</td><td> </td><td>0-2-1</td><td>1-2-0</td><td>2-1-0</td><td>13</td><td>6-5-1</td></tr> <tr><th>PC</th><td>1-2-0</td><td>2-0-1</td><td> </td><td>1-1-1</td><td>0-2-1</td><td>11</td><td>4-5-3</td></tr> <tr><th>MC</th><td>2-1-0</td><td>2-1-0</td><td>1-1-1</td><td> </td><td>0-3-0</td><td>11</td><td>5-6-1</td></tr> <tr><th>BU</th><td>0-3-0</td><td>1-2-0</td><td>2-0-1</td><td>3-0-0</td><td> </td><td>13</td><td>6-5-1</td></tr></table>

UNH and BU are tied at 13 points
First Tiebreaker: H2H
UNH was 2-1-0 against BU so UNH wins and is removed.
2. UNH


<table>
<tr><th>RRRs</th><th>UML</th><th>PC</th><th>MC</th><th>BU</th><th>Pts</th><th>Total</th></tr> <tr><th>UML</th><td> </td><td>2-1-0</td><td>1-2-0</td><td>3-0-0</td><td>12</td><td>6-3-0</td></tr> <tr><th>PC</th><td>1-2-0</td><td> </td><td>1-1-1</td><td>0-2-1</td><td>6</td><td>2-5-2</td></tr> <tr><th>MC</th><td>2-1-0</td><td>1-1-1</td><td> </td><td>0-3-0</td><td>7</td><td>3-5-1</td></tr> <tr><th>BU</th><td>0-3-0</td><td>2-0-1</td><td>3-0-0</td><td> </td><td>11</td><td>5-3-1</td></tr></table>

UML wins this now and is removed.
3. UML

<table>
<tr><th>RRRs</th><th>PC</th><th>MC</th><th>BU</th><th>Pts</th><th>Total</th></tr> <tr><th>PC</th><td> </td><td>1-1-1</td><td>0-2-1</td><td>4</td><td>1-3-2</td></tr> <tr><th>MC</th><td>1-1-1</td><td> </td><td>0-3-0</td><td>3</td><td>1-4-1</td></tr> <tr><th>BU</th><td>2-0-1</td><td>3-0-0</td><td> </td><td>11</td><td>5-0-1</td></tr></table>

BU wins this one and is removed.
4. BU

<table>
<tr><th>RRRs</th><th>PC</th><th>MC</th><th>Pts</th><th>Total</th></tr>
<tr><th>PC</th><td> </td><td>1-1-1</td><td>3</td><td>1-1-1</td></tr>
<tr><th>MC</th><td>1-1-1</td><td> </td><td>3</td><td>1-1-1</td></tr></table>

PC & MC season series is tied at 1-1-1
League wins is next tie breaker

PC ends with 13 wins
MC ends with 14 wins
MC wins.

5. MC
6. PC.


1. BC.
2. UNH
3. UML
4. BU
5. MC
6. PC
7. UVM
8. UMA

Quarterfinal Matchups on points:

8. UMA @ 1. BC
7. UVM @ 2 UNH
6. PC @ 3 UML
5 MC @ 4. BU

Quarterfinal matchups with ties ignored (last post - probably flawed):

1 BC
2 UML
3 BU
4 MC
5 PC
6 UNH
7 UVM
8 UMA


8. UMA @ 1. BC
7. UVM @ 2. UML
6. UNH @ 3. BU
5. PC @ 4 MC

Much different, eh?
 
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Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2012-13 edition

WrathOfAramark said:
Hold on, I have another wall of text based off pts.
Click to expand...

Ok, but even ignoing ties 6-5 is over .500 where 6-6 is .500. So UNH would still be 2 winning h2h with bu.

Or

Am I missing something?
 
Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2012-13 edition

After Fri 3/1:
BC 3 @ PC 2
MC 0 @ UML 4
UMA 2 @ UNH 2
UVM 1 @ BU 3
NU 1 @ ME 3

--- Home Lock - 34 (Top 5) ---
BC 30 - 36 [1-6]
UML 30 - 36 [1-6]
UNH 29 - 35 [1-6]
BU 28 - 34 [1-6]
PC 28 - 34 [1-6]
MC 27 - 33 [1-6]
--- Home Eligible - 28 (BU/PC) ---
--- In - 24 (ME/UMA) ---
UVM 19 - 25 [7-9]
UMA 18 - 24 [7-10]
ME 18 - 24 [7-10]
NU 13 - 19 [8-10]
--- Out - 18 (UMA/ME) ---

Remaining LEAGUE storm-adjusted schedules:
BC - PC, @UVMx2
UML - @MC, PC/@PC
UNH - UMA, MEx2
BU - UVM, @NU/NU
PC - @BC, @UML/UML
MC - UML, UMA/@UMA
UVM - @BU, BCx2
UMA - @UNH, @MC/MC
ME - NU, @UNHx2
NU - @ME, BU/@BU


Shuffle the deck...

Including tbs, we had:
BC and UML move up from 3/4 to 1/2. BC wins the H2H tb, 2-0-1.
UNH falls out of a tie for 1st, but only drops from 2 to 3.
BU jumps up from 6 to 4, by virtue of a 2-0-1 tb over PC.
PC holds still and drops from 1st seed to 5th and out of Home Ice.
MC also stands pat, but since it started the night a point back of the top four, only loses one place from 5 to 6 when hurdled by BU.

----
For BC/PC, BC now takes the season H2H tb, which it currently leads 1-0-1. Worst case for BC, PC would draw even tomorrow to make it 1-1-1, but with 2 games to go, PC couldn't be tied with BC and make up the gap in wins, which is the 2nd tb.

That means that if BC wins Saturday, they will be four points ahead of PC, with the tb and two games to play. Depending on what else happens to impact possible RR options, BC might clinch a spot ahead of PC, making them no lower than 5th. If MC were also to lose or tie, BC would be four points up on MC with two to play and a 2-1-0 tb.

Possible that BC could clinch Home Ice in the right scenario tomorrow.
----
For UML/MC, the tb is 1-1-0 and the gap is three points. If either wins Saturday, they take the H2H tb. UML would be 5 up with 2 games to play, so that tb would be moot. If MC were to win, they'd be a point back with 2 games to play, so UML would have to take more points from PC next weekend then MC took from UMA, or they would fall behind (pending a RR tb).

If they tie Saturday, the tb would be even 1-1-1, the spread would still be three and MC would have one extra tie. In that case, the only way that this tb would matter would be if MC swept UMA and UML got a single point from PC. H2H 1-1-1, identical 14-9-4 records. 3rd tb would depend on who the top teams were and in what order. Note: If MC got three and UML got zero, UML would take the tb on wins, as MC would have 5 ties to UML's 3 (therefore 1 fewer win to hit same point total - specifically 13-9-5 vs 14-10 -3).

UML swept current 28-pointer BU, but still has two to play with PC to wrap up the RS, so even with a win tomorrow, UML cannot clinch in combination with PC and BU losses.

----
BU's victory over UVM severs the last slender tie between the top six and the bottom four.

----
UMA's tie-breaking goal with :65 to play seemed as if it would draw them even with UVM for 7th.

UNH's EAG with :04 to go re-tied the game, leaving UMA in a tie with ME for the 8/9 pivot. As discussed, the possibilities for ties at this end don't bode well for ME, so they will need to pass either UMA or UVM to make the playoffs - and now the three are within a single point 19/18/18.

----
That late UNH goal also may, at first glance, have kept NU's season alive by 4 seconds, but let's see what the numbers say.

Had UMA won, that would have put UVM and UMA in a tie at 19, which is where NU's Max fell to after their loss to Maine.

Best case for NU would have been a three-way tie at 19. In a RR tie with UVM/UMA/NU, we get 4-2-0/3-3-0/2-4-0, respectively. The primary impact is UVM's 3-0-0 sweep of NU, as opposed to 2-1-0 splits elsewhere.

Now that we have the league verifying Top-Down RR breaks, that trio would resolve as UVM atop the three, then NU v UMA H2H. NU takes that 2-1-0, so would be ahead of UMA, but would have to await the ME results v UNH to see if that three-way RR is for 8-10 (in which case UVM takes the last slot and NU beats out UMA for the best team not to make the playoffs), or 7-9 (so NU would take the last seed)

----
If we add ME to the mix at 19, the impact on these three adds 2-0-1/1-1-1/1-1-1 to the records above, so NU doesn't gain on the other two. ME would be the reciprocal of those records, so UVM/UMA/NU/ME goes 6-2-1/4-4-1/3-5-1/2-4-3. Interestingly, only one of the four, UVM, is above .500 within the group. UVM is four games over, while both NU and ME are two games under.

Promote UVM to 7 and reset.

UMA/NU/ME = 2-3-1/3-2-1/2-2-2 ME split both series 1-1-1, so it is the 2-1-0 NU over UMA series that is the deciding factor. NU is 8th.

UMA and ME are 1-1-1, but - to the extent it matters - UMA would take the pride of 9th on league wins (do we know if the league bothers to break ties for 9/10, since these are playoff tbs and 9/10 is not for the playoffs?).

---
With UVM/NU H2H and UMA/ME stuck at 18, obviously NU makes the playoffs, but it is as 8 seed as UVM has the 3-0-0 sweep.

NU is down to its point of wiggle room.

In ties with UMA (NU won 2-1-0) or ME (1-1-1, NU has more wins) or both (UMA/ME split 1-1-1), NU should come out ahead.

So its Max could fall to 18, if UMA and ME stay put, or it can handle UMA and/or ME rising to its current Max of 19, as long as it runs the table to reach that Max. It can't handle both dropping a point and having either UMA or ME rise.

---
So: NU could still squeak in at 8 even with three or four at 19, but cannot rise above UVM for 7 (which also means that UVM cannot fall to 10). Whether they get to reach 8 depends not only on NU winning out, but on ME and UMA getting no more than 1 pt each.

Since NU cannot pass UVM, and UVM is the first promotion out of any tb within the bottom four that includes NU, it doesn't matter whether UVM loses out or not, from NU's perspective. UVM's 19 points might as well be 39, for all the difference it makes to NU's post season at this stage.

Interestingly, if NU does win out and UVM and UMA are at 19, whether Maine stays at 18 or gains a point to 19, the end result is the same. The bottom four would finish UVM/NU/UMA/ME.

----
None of the benchmarks move, only some of the indicators change.

----
After all these years of HE taking a little bit of pride in actually having the RS decide something other than seeding for every team in the playoffs, it's odd to think that this is the last year that the RS will eliminate any teams. I believe the plan next year is for all 11 to make the playoffs.

Since reducing 11 to 8 (for normal 2^n playoff formatting) requires eliminating three teams, I expect (not sure if they have announced) that they would have the bottom six play (6-7-8 host 11-10-9), while the top five await opponents. The top four would still get Home Ice, but for Round Two. The 5th seed would get a bye, but be on the road to 4 for the 2nd round. 6/7/8 would get to host in the first round. That would give us the odd situation where lower seeded teams (6-8) get to host games, while a higher seeded team (5), does not.
 
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Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2012-13 edition

Priceless said:
Hockey East just tweeted this:



Does that jive with what they've said before?
Click to expand...

Based on the thread posted by Todd above (and you can see my comments in that thread) I'm 100% convinced Hockey East does whatever it takes to make Jack Parker happy, including when it comes to tiebreakers. For years they had the tiebreaker so that 5 way tie would have BU out and UMass in. Then the weekend going into the series, all of a sudden it switches to BU in and UMass out? I call BS. Of course, it didn't happen. But it could have, and I tend to hold grudges when people try to screw my favorite team over, whether or not they are successful.
 
Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2012-13 edition

Todd said:
For those of you scoring along at home...

Todd said:
... I detailed last weekend an unusual "3-goal" streak involving BU.
That's seven of the ten games with three-goal leads or responses - or both. In fact, seven 3-plus-goal leads and three 3-plus-goal answers in ten games gives about even odds that you'll see one or the other.
Click to expand...
Well... Harvard scored four straight on Monday to take a 6-3 lead <i>en route</i> to a 7-4 final, then Maine trailed by two before ripping three straight on the PP before the BU equalizer for Friday's 3-3 result, so add two more to that skein.
Click to expand...
So that makes 8 three-goal leads and 4 three-goal responses in 12 BU games since Denver through the BU/ME tie last Friday.

On Saturday, BU trailed ME 1-0 before ripping four-in-a-row (Three-goal-lead? Check!), only to give up three straight (Three-goal-comeback? Check!) in regulation before the last-rush OT win. That's 9 leads and 5 responses in 13 games.

BU's freakish streak continued into UML's 3-0 win Friday. Saturday's game was 3-1, but it was 2-0, not 3-0, when BU got a SHG to avoid the shutout.

Tally through this weekend... 10 three-goal leads and 5 three-goal responses (by either team) in the 15 BU games since 12/30/12.
Click to expand...
When we last left off, it was 10 and 5 over 15 through the UML/BU series.

Continuing the 3-goal streak in BU games, we pick up with BU going up 5-0 on MC (Three-goal-lead? Check!) Tuesday night, but they stopped the MC response at only two goals. Friday night UVM took a 1-0 lead before BU - well, Matt Nieto - scored three straight (Three-goal-comeback? Check!).

So: 11 three-goal leads and 6 three-goal responses (by either team) in the 17 BU games since 12/30/12. Still averaging out to 1 per game (and that doesn't double count things like having more than one three goal lead by the same team in the same game, otherwise the total would be higher).

----
Compare that to games like the UML/ME OT contest from Feb 3, that I noted a while back, where it was a 4-3 final, but the two teams were only not tied for 6:24, and 5:30 of that was in one chunk. The two other one-goal leads were :14 and :40 long, plus the OT goal (:00 lead time).

----
As it happens, that was the most recent loss for UML (a month ago) - and that weekend, where UML lost to both MC (Fri) and ME (Sun) on the road, were the only losses by UML since consecutive 5-2 losses to UNH back on Nov 30 / Dec 1. 16-2-1 in their last 19 games. If "Last 20" or "Last 16" were still a PWR criterion, you have to think that UML would be picking up a couple more pairs, even though they're already up to a tie for 7th (seeded 8th) in the PWR as of now.

----
In another odd streak, UML has only lost when also not winning an adjacent game. UML has nine losses this season so far. Eight of those were in four back-to-back pairs. The odd loss in their season's second game followed a tie in their season opener.

UML has also been oddly consistent when it comes to the outcomes of their games vs particular opponents.

Not only did they lose to UNH 5-2 on consecutive nights, but their other UNH game was also a three-goal loss, 3-0. They have lost to Maine twice by a 4-3 score (winning the other 2-1). They have gone to overtime with NU twice tied at 4, once ending 4-4 and winning the other 5-4. Last weekend, UML would likely have beaten BU by identical 3-0 scores, if not for a heads-up effort for a steal and SHG to get BU's lone goal on the weekend.

If the RS is any indicator, UML's success in the conference tourney may depend upon the matchups, perhaps more than any other team in HE.
 
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Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2012-13 edition

jjmc85 said:
Based on the thread posted by Todd above (and you can see my comments in that thread) I'm 100% convinced Hockey East does whatever it takes to make Jack Parker happy, including when it comes to tiebreakers. For years they had the tiebreaker so that 5 way tie would have BU out and UMass in. Then the weekend going into the series, all of a sudden it switches to BU in and UMass out? I call BS. Of course, it didn't happen. But it could have, and I tend to hold grudges when people try to screw my favorite team over, whether or not they are successful.
Click to expand...
Well:

A) As has been discussed here many times, the guy in the league office that handles the tbs had no idea what all of us that were contacting him were talking about (changing the methodology) until it was spelled out in painstaking detail. Then he just went away. Don't know if he was embarrassed, or still didn't get it and was too frustrated to continue the conversation(s). Either way, hardly the stuff of conspiracy theory.

B) Let me continue by saying that I don't often get to the end of a game and focus on how good or bad the officiating was. In fact, I will defend officials during the game when I think fans are being ridiculous. If a game sticks out to me for officiating, it's got to be pretty egregious. Further, I would hope by now that people would see me as fairly objective - in fact, I was also as concerned as you were about BU having "clinched" when they wouldn't have by past precedent. That's what started the delving into the new tb interpretation, going so far as to contact the league office directly for clarification. So take the following comment in that context, as I would say the same thing if I noticed it about Umile or Whitehead or Bazin or ... , but I am addressing your comment about the league's relationship with Parker specifically.

You should watch tape of the BU games after Parker makes a comment in the press about how particular penalties are being called. If he makes a comment about how the refs [call/don't call], say, diving, all of a sudden BU will get a rash of diving calls where they weren't called at all before, or certainly not anywhere near as much. Pretty obvious that the refs are - at least sub-consciously, if not intentionally - responding with an "Oh yeah? You want us to call that? Be careful what you ask for..." Refs are human beings. Comments get stuck in their heads, too. Still, early in the season, BU was one of the lowest penalized teams. Once Parker made a comment about officiating after one game, and then another soon after that, the parade to the box for the Terriers began and their PM went through the roof.

If Hockey East was doing whatever they could to make him happy, that wouldn't happen.

It's not the only example, but it's one of them.

C) Look, these legends about leagues having favorite coaches or teams or players - valid or not - happen in every sport at every level.

I'm pretty sure Jordan got away with moves that other players wouldn't because he was Michael Jordan (tm). It has been demonstrated over time that officials tend to call games ever so slightly in favor of the teams that they think are going to win, or players with better reputations for talent. Michael Irvin could push off and get away with it and Deion Sanders could bump a little more than other DBs while the ball was in the air. It probably took a lot less of a touch to get called for interference defending Gretzky than it would covering some grinding fourth-liner trying to spring a counter-attack.

Without spinning this off into a doctoral thesis - and I think there are pages of discussion to be had on this topic - what you'll notice is central to this premise is that these fan legends always surround successful teams/players/coaches. No one complains that the three-win team at the bottom of the league is getting all the calls.

I will put to you that perhaps this mindset you have about the league office being in the tank for Parker filters down from the '90s when BU and Maine were arguably the two most successful programs in the league and led by two coaches that drew a lot of attention by their dynamic personalities. Walsh drew a lot of negative press after the recruiting scandal, so opposing fans would dismiss him as a Cheater, regardless of all of the good things he did not only for his team, but for the league. In Parker's case, since he was vocal, opposing fans always think he's somehow swaying something by arguing this or working that.

(It's pretty childish of them, but, hey, what are you going to do? If you're a fan and your team keeps losing, the other coach as to be evil, right? If you have tape or data, show it - which is something that Walsh was excellent at doing - see "Gionta Rule". Otherwise, if you are hypothesizing a fantasy, that's just yet another story.)

Now, however, people talk about the Big Four like it's an established thing because UNH has become about as successful in the league on a multi-year basis as BU and Maine (yes, I know, no NCAA titles for UNH yet), and BC has been among the most successful teams in the nation for around a decade (some would claim best outright, and three of the last five NCAA titles certainly helps that argument), along with winning six of the last eight league tourneys (with BU taking the other two).

So riddle me this, Batman: If you were to look at this objectively - say you were to create a conspiracy theory anew - given the recent successes of all the teams in the league, do you think it's more likely that the league would be in Jack Parker's pocket... or Jerry York's?

I'm not saying that it's either - but I am suggesting it's time to get a new roll of Reynolds Wrap for your hat. The one you have is a little worn.
 
Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2012-13 edition

Todd's last 3 posts:
1:47 a.m.
2:48 a.m.
4:12 a.m.

Todd, I'm sticking to what I said last week about your caffeine intake. :-)

Excellent continued analyses, and well-reasoned/written.
 
Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2012-13 edition

goblue said:
Todd's last 3 posts:
1:47 a.m.
2:48 a.m.
4:12 a.m.

Todd, I'm sticking to what I said last week about your caffeine intake. :-)

Excellent continued analyses, and well-reasoned/written.
Click to expand...

or he has sleeping issues like some of us:(:o
 
Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2012-13 edition

As soon as the league appears to change a rule in the middle of a season (or actually, the end of the season) to benefit BC, I will call them out on it. To my knowledge, this hasn't happened. If it has and I missed it, you can let me know.

However, to my knowledge, the league did appear to benefit BU with a rule change at the end of the season. There two other explanations I can think of:

1) They were trying to screw UMass.
2) They screwed up and forgot how they applied the tiebreaker the previous few seasons seasons.

I don't think it's 1). Why would the league waste it's time screwing over a mediocre program? Trying to get low hanging fruit?

I find 2) hard to believe as well. How do you all of a sudden forget when people like you and I knew what the tiebreaker was? If you are in charge of breaking the ties, and you forget how it's done, that incompetence at it's highest level.

I know it's not a big deal to others. I'm one of the few (only?) UMass posters here. It is a huge deal to me though, just like it would have been a huge deal to others they switched the rules without notice and their team would have been left out.
 
Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2012-13 edition

jjmc85 said:
the league did appear to benefit BU with a rule change at the end of the season.
Click to expand...

Bertanga makes another on my #KeepParker campaign! You guys better jump on before there's no room
 
Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2012-13 edition

jjmc85 said:
As soon as the league appears to change a rule in the middle of a season (or actually, the end of the season) to benefit BC, I will call them out on it. To my knowledge, this hasn't happened. If it has and I missed it, you can let me know.

However, to my knowledge, the league did appear to benefit BU with a rule change at the end of the season. There two other explanations I can think of:

1) They were trying to screw UMass.
2) They screwed up and forgot how they applied the tiebreaker the previous few seasons seasons.

I don't think it's 1). Why would the league waste it's time screwing over a mediocre program? Trying to get low hanging fruit?

I find 2) hard to believe as well. How do you all of a sudden forget when people like you and I knew what the tiebreaker was? If you are in charge of breaking the ties, and you forget how it's done, that incompetence at it's highest level.

I know it's not a big deal to others. I'm one of the few (only?) UMass posters here. It is a huge deal to me though, just like it would have been a huge deal to others they switched the rules without notice and their team would have been left out.
Click to expand...

Win more games and you won't have to visit the grassy knoll
 
Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2012-13 edition

jjmc85 said:
As soon as the league appears to change a rule in the middle of a season (or actually, the end of the season) to benefit BC, I will call them out on it. To my knowledge, this hasn't happened. If it has and I missed it, you can let me know.

However, to my knowledge, the league did appear to benefit BU with a rule change at the end of the season. There two other explanations I can think of:

1) They were trying to screw UMass.
2) They screwed up and forgot how they applied the tiebreaker the previous few seasons seasons.

I don't think it's 1). Why would the league waste it's time screwing over a mediocre program? Trying to get low hanging fruit?

I find 2) hard to believe as well. How do you all of a sudden forget when people like you and I knew what the tiebreaker was? If you are in charge of breaking the ties, and you forget how it's done, that incompetence at it's highest level.

I know it's not a big deal to others. I'm one of the few (only?) UMass posters here. It is a huge deal to me though, just like it would have been a huge deal to others they switched the rules without notice and their team would have been left out.
Click to expand...
Short answer: #2, precisely. Well done.

I had a conversation with him. You can see part of it in the retro links several posts ago. He stated multiple times that they hadn't changed anything. We've covered it multiple, multiple times here every season since it happened. They had no idea that they were doing anything differently. Period. End of story. This is not an Agatha Christie tale, nor a Dan Brown novel. There certainly aren't any Illuminati working on ties at the league office.

If they were competent, yet up to something nefarious, as you suspect, there were a lot of other ways to handle it so as to remain undetected. Among the simplest of those was to say that they had made the decision to change the interpretation earlier in the season. Then there's no story. Denying it just made it more of an issue. Once it was clear that those of us contacting the league knew what we were talking about early on, there were other avenues to take as well - but they kept saying nothing had changed. If they knew what they were talking about, they would have seen that we did too, so denying the change would be pointless.

Also, keep in mind that we're talking about what were moment-in-time tie-breakers with multiple games still to be played, and a press release over whether some team had clinched yet or would have to wait for another game's outcome. This wasn't the end of the season.

Further, press releases aren't legally binding. If they had seen that they had made a mistake with a couple of games to play, they could have always issued a correction. "Oh, wait, our bad. Team X didn't clinch yet. They could still be knocked out on a 5-way tie-breaker with Teams A, B or L, Q, and R (but not if Z is involved), as long as Q and R have two ties instead of splitting 1-1-0. We missed that one. Thanks to the eagle-eyed readers of USCHO for pointing that out."

Most importantly, it's not like they actually iced UMass out of the playoffs or down a seed on BU's (or anyone else's) behalf. They predictively broke hypothetical ties and inadvertently did the math wrong. Ultimately, when all the games were done, all the ties were broken and the results were exactly the same as they would have been in any other season. No one got screwed or benefited from anything.

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Could someone have benefited? Sure. In fact, had UVM/NU/UMA been in a tie for 7-9, the team that would have been screwed is NU and the team that would have benefited is UMass. As well-documented elsewhere many times, under the old Bottom-Up rules, UMA would be tossed and NU would end up 1st (well, 7th) over UVM. Switching to Top-Down, UVM would be promoted and UMA would take out NU H2H. Bottom-up, it's NU/UVM/UMA and UMA misses the playoffs. Switch to Top-Down and it becomes UVM/UMA/NU and the Huskies miss out.

So UMass benefits from the very rule-interpretation change you're conspiracy-theorying about! How are they getting screwed again?

Or is it that Toot was a BU alum (and he played under Parker... AHA!!!) and all coaches with BU ties have the league at their beck and call? I'm sure that Blaise's years as an assistant at BU had UML getting a bonus somewhere while he was there. Was McEachern an assistant at NU that year, or is the fact that they got "screwed" by this change the very reason they brought him in? Oh wait, he replaced Brendan Walsh - who played at BU before he was at Maine (Parker and Walsh!!!) - on the Husky staff, so that's a wash...

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Believe it or not, most of the world gets headaches thinking out the whole purpose of this thread, and they're really bad at it to boot - including, apparently, the person in charge of it at the time at the league office.

Sadly, it probably won't be the last time in your life that you'll find that you're more knowledgeable about some topic than the person whose job it is to know about that topic.

Hell, most singers get the words to the pre-game national anthem wrong and most broadcasters don't know how to say numbers over 100 or use the word "literally" correctly. Those (and more) are all true for an unfortunate majority of Americans, it seems, but it's more of an issue for me when it's dropping the ball on a responsibility of the job. If a carpenter doesn't know the words to a song, or a singer doesn't know how to drive a screw, I'm less bothered than when those are reversed.

Don't get me started on the number of years that the same NESN broadcasters would state the same ridiculous and impossible statistics in their annual Beanpot coverage until I finally had to write the station (multiple times with documented proof, of course) to get it to stop.

So: is it possible that the league didn't realize that they had re-interpreted their tie-breaking rules, but a handful of people who use their valuable free time to participate in a thread (much of which is voluntarily written in the wee hours of the morning so people can read it with their morning coffee...) specifically about the multiple variations remaining in playoff seedings and hypothetical ties (most of which will never happen) spotted it first? I would kind of expect it. If you don't yet, you will at some point.

Get used to it.


Addendum:

Here's another difference between how we look at it that should indicate which is the rational approach:

The whole issue matters to me because I care about the principle. I don't care which teams move (note that I repeatedly use the NU example, which has nothing to do with BU). I care about what is fair. It doesn't matter what the rules are as long as everyone knows what they are going into the season. The shootout years were OK because teams could adjust their decisions during the regular season, knowing how the points would be counted. If you screw around with the tie-breaking rules as the season winds down, it steals the opportunity for teams to target their strategies appropriately - and to know when they have to rally-or-die vs hold on for dear life.

I only recognized it initially because it favored BU. In fact, I contacted the league office to explicitly tell them that the team I follow most closely had not clinched yet.

You, on the other hand, have explicitly stated that you are being a total homer. It's a "huge deal" to you because you think UMass was at risk of being screwed and "left out" - and you project that if other people were in your shoes that they would then care - implying that that's the only reason you do care, and if you were in their shoes, you wouldn't.

So your entire argument is, by definition, clouded by emotion.

I, however, was actually knowingly working against my own best interests because I though it was the right thing to do. After a lot of time and (rational) effort on my part, I determined that there was no "there" there. They f'ed up. Honest mistake.

So, using Occam's Razor, which position wins out?

The one that says:

There was a huge league-office-wide conspiracy (because, years later, still no one has leaked it, so they must all be complicit) to turn years of precedent on its head and restructure the league's playoff-decision-making format for the foreseeable future for the sole purpose of giving Jack Parker's BU squad an edge in a hypothetical situation that might never (and did never) come about.
All of the other teams were either co-conspirators or were completely bamboozled by the league's brilliant subterfuge.
The league office would have gotten away with it, too - if it weren't for those meddling kids, er, USCHOers.

- OR -

Three-or-more way tiebreakers can be confusing and most people wouldn't bother to look very hard at them once they get too far out, too complicated, or until they actually mattered after all the games were played - and the person in charge of forecasting in press releases misremembered which arbitrary way - within a poorly-written rule - they had used in the past (and was too busy or lazy or self-assured to check) because the league had NEVER actually had a three-way tie before?
 
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Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2012-13 edition

After Sat 3/2:
PC 5 @ BC 1
UMA 0 @ UNH 4
UVM 5 @ BU 2
NU 4 @ ME 4 OT

--- Home Lock - 33 (Top 4) ---
UNH 31 - 35 [1-6]
BC 30 - 34 [1-6]
UML 30 - 36 [1-6]
PC 30 - 34 [1-6]
BU 28 - 32 [2-6]
MC 27 - 33 [1-6]
--- Home Eligible - 30 (BC/UML-PC loser) ---
--- In - 22 (UMA) ---
UVM 21 - 25 [7-9]
ME 19 - 23 [7-9]
UMA 18 - 22 [7-10]
--- Out - 19 (ME) ---
NU 14 - 18 [9-10]

Remaining LEAGUE schedules:
UNH - MEx2
BC - @UVMx2
UML - @MC, PC/@PC
PC - @UML/UML
BU - @NU/NU
MC - UML, UMA/@UMA
UVM - BCx2
ME - @UNHx2
UMA - @MC/MC
NU - BU/@BU


Reshuffle...

UNH, up from 3 to 1, jumping over BC (loss) and UML (idle, plays Sun), into top seed.
PC, up from 5 to 4 over BU (loss), into last Home Ice.
ME, up from 9 to 8 ekes ahead of UMA (loss), into last seed.
NU, over and Out.

----
As noted yesterday, NU only had a point of wiggle room. A tie to Maine is two points "wiggled": one lost by NU, one gained by ME. NU's Max drops to 18, while ME now has 19 in the bank - moving the Out line with them and knocking NU out of the post-season. That leaves only a H2H tie w/ UMA at 18 to keep NU from isolation in the cellar.

To the extent anyone cares, NU would win the tb 2-1-0, but as noted yesterday, I'm not sure that the league cares to break ties between teams outside the playoffs. I seem to remember that they don't. The letter of their rule says: "For playoff seeding purposes, the following tiebreakers will be used at the conclusion of the regular season". If two teams are tied for 9th, they're tied for 9th. There's no such thing, up to this point, as a 10th seed.

----
This also means that it's the fourth year in a row that NU and BU have played to end one of their seasons. This is from the end of last year. If you read the linked article, note the correction in the comments, and due to time-slipping punchiness (I started writing on Fri PM and ended on early Sat AM), you'll have to decipher which day I mean by "tonight" in the article. Hint: Fri was at Matthews and Sat at Agganis.)

----
Home Lock drops to 33. In drops to 22.

Home Eligible moves up to 30, which could be the final total for both BC and a sweep loser of next weekend's PC/UML series (if UML were to also lose to MC Sunday). Either or both of BU/MC could jump past that total and join UNH and UML-PC winner in the Home Ice quartet.

----
Any of the Top 6 could still lose out and drop all the way to 6th.

For example:
Current leader UNH @ 31.
UNH craters out.
BC/BU/MC win out.
UML/PC split.
UNH 6th.

----
Any of the bottom three still in contention could still miss the playoffs by losing out and having the other two win.

----
With three games left, MC's Max is still 33. They could still get to Top Seed by winning out, having UML/PC split, and having UNH and BC each lose. If MC hits 33, BU could not catch them as tonight's loss drops BU's Max to 32. At 32 (or anywhere else), BU would win a H2H tb w/ MC (3-0-0).

If MC were to tie Sunday, their max drops to 32 and with UML going up to 31, either UML or PC would have to hit 33, meaning that MC couldn't get top seed. Obviously a loss would do the same and more. It would lock them behind UML and drop their Max to even with UNH's banked 31 points. MC has that tb.

----
Since BU has only two games left, their Max is now 32. With UML/PC H2H next week and both already at 30, BU's only shot at top seed would be to win a RR at 32 that includes at least those two. Comparing the RRR of just those three, BU's 0-3-0 and 2-0-1 gives them 2 net wins, which is already behind UML's sweep of them, so BU would need help to come out atop a tie at 32. For completeness, here's the three-way grid as a starting point:

<table border="1"> <tr><th>RRRs</th><th>BU</th><th>UML</th><th>PC</th><th>Total</th></tr> <tr> <td>BU:</td> <td></td> <td>0-3-0</td> <td>2-0-1</td> <td>2-3-1</td></tr> <tr> <td>UML:</td> <td>3-0-0</td> <td></td> <td>2-1-0</td> <td>5-1-0</td></tr> <tr> <td>PC:</td> <td>0-2-1</td> <td>1-2-0</td> <td></td> <td>1-4-1</td></tr></table> The Terriers would have to find a way to pick up at least 2.5 games of RRR on UML to have a shot at top seed. Is that even possible?

Of the other teams in the top six, BU and UML both were 1-2-0 vs. BC, so no point in adding in the Eagles here. However, BU swept MC 3-0-0 and UML would be 1-2-0, so that's a two-game gain. Against UNH, BU is a lowly 1-2-0, but UML got swept, so BU picks up another game there. Whatever the rest of the numbers, it's possible that BU could surpass UML, so there's still a chance at the top seed.

To do the math, we need to add in MC and UNH to the mix to make a 5-way RR at 32 (and have BC remain below, which puts the Eagles in 6th). Here's the new grid:

<table border="1"> <tr><th>RRRs</th><th>BU</th><th>UML</th><th>PC</th><th>MC</th><th>UNH</th><th>Total</th></tr> <tr> <td>BU:</td> <td></td> <td>0-3-0</td> <td>2-0-1</td> <td>3-0-0</td> <td>1-2-0</td> <td>6-5-1</td></tr> <tr> <td>UML:</td> <td>3-0-0</td> <td></td> <td>2-1-0</td> <td>1-2-0</td> <td>0-3-0</td> <td>6-6-0</td></tr> <tr> <td>PC:</td> <td>0-2-1</td> <td>1-2-0</td> <td></td> <td>1-1-1</td> <td>2-0-1</td> <td>4-5-3</td></tr><tr> <td>MC:</td> <td>0-3-0</td> <td>2-1-0</td> <td>1-1-1</td> <td></td> <td>2-1-0</td> <td>5-6-1</td></tr><tr> <td>UNH:</td> <td>2-1-0</td> <td>3-0-0</td> <td>0-2-1</td> <td>1-2-0</td> <td></td> <td>6-5-1</td></tr></table> Completely unexpectedly (by me, anyway), especially once the initial math showed BU only a game over .500 at 6-5-1, no one has a better RRR within the group than BU. This entire group is all within a game of .500 plus-or-minus. Given that teams sweep, get swept, split 1-1-1, 2-1-0, and 2-0-1 - the results are all over the place - there's no way I would have assumed that they would all match up so evenly. I mean, the UNH portion of the conversation starts with a 5-1-0 record against BU/UML, but their two worst results in the league are against MC and PC, a collective 1-4-1.

So, that still leaves us with BU and UNH at 6-5-1. Here, I think the league would look H2H to split those, promote just UNH and then reset the remaining four. I suppose it's possible that they could call it a tie at Round 1 and move them to the 2nd tb, in which case BU would come out ahead on wins.

Whichever way they do it, this is yet another reason that I think they should do AAO. As a group, this should clearly break out UML 3rd, with UNH and BU in some order at the top and MC and PC in some order at the bottom.

For the sake of argument, take the case where BU gets promoted over UNH. Promote BU out of the stack and theoretical-2nd UNH loses two wins and 3rd place UML loses three. Meanwhile, the bottom pair of MC/PC drop records of 0-3-0 and 0-2-1, respectively. The whole grid gets inverted!

(If we start by promoting UNH, leaders BU and UML just pull away from MC/PC.)

Anyway, the point of this was to see if BU could still get the top seed. If UML gets points from MC Sunday, then BU can't catch one of the UML/PC pair, so that's a "no". Unless UML/PC start at 30 and split to both be at 32 - BU's Max, that's a "no". Starting with that 3-way RR, BU would be behind UML, so that's a "no". The only way for BU to get out from behind UML is this 5-way RR, but that has BU (likely) losing a tb at the top to UNH, so that's a "no". Adding in BC to make it a six-way tie at 32 (still possible!!!) wouldn't help BU as it would add a 1-2-0 to drag BU's RRR down to .500, and BC would be 3 games over for that configuration (8-5-2), so that's at least one team ahead of BU and that's a "no".

All of those "no"s - including my assumption that the league would break the UNH/BU 6-5-1 tie atop the RR using H2H in UNH's favor - lead to me declare that BU can no longer get top seed.

That said, they can clearly get 2nd if:
BU wins out to hit Max 32.
UML wins out, knocking MC's Max to 31 and trapping PC at 30.
UNH gets swept and BC gets no more than 1 pt.

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Since either UML or PC could go beyond 32 or stay at 30, either could still end up 6th. It's just that BU can't pass the field at 32.

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Looking more closely at the comments above about MC and BU, if UML beats MC on Sunday, they are out of reach of MC, so can be no lower than 5th.

They stay ahead of BU in all tbs at 32 until the 5-way RR. However, the whole point of getting to a 5-way was to see if BU could pass UML, so we had to add in both MC and UNH. Once we promote UNH (as we're assuming we do), then UML goes back to irrevocably being ahead of BU in the remaining RR tbs. Of course, if they beat MC, that 5-way is impossible anyway, because MCs Max is dropped to 31.

That means that a UML win Sunday would wrap up Home Ice for the 'Hawks.

With, you know, two whole games to play, someone would finally wrap up Home Ice. So...since it's 2013, should we just pencil in two points for Merrimack now? :rolleyes:
 
Re: Hockey East - Who's in, who's out, who's home: by the numbers - 2012-13 edition

UMLFan said:
Great job again Todd ... but...

No thanks! :)
Click to expand...
So you made it all the way to the end? That's one...

Or did you just skip ahead to see how it turned out?

(Spoiler alert:

Despite losing by three goals three times in the RS, UML beats UNH in the HE final, en route to Pittsburgh.

Oh, and...

the Rs in redrum are backwards,
she's a dude,
he's dead already,
the boat sinks,
Rosebud is a sled.)
 
Todd said:
So you made it all the way to the end? That's one...

Or did you just skip ahead to see how it turned out?

(Spoiler alert:

Despite losing by three goals three times in the RS, UML beats UNH in the HE final, en route to Pittsburgh.
Click to expand...
Also read to the end. I like this ending too. Here's hoping it works out that way! :)
 
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