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Minnesota Gopher Season Thread: 2014-15 (Continued)

Re: Minnesota Gopher Season Thread: 2014-15 (Continued)

Koho said:
Thanks. Answered 2 questions, but missed most important; when? (Must have been too distracted, thinking about Jaimie still, or maybe bacon?)
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They play #4 seed Wisconsin at 5:00pm on Friday. Gophers got the No. 1 seed thanks to BC getting upset by BU in their Hockey East Tournament. BU then lost to Wisconsin in the NCAA quarters.

If the Gophers beat Wisconsin they will play the winner of the Harvard-BC game (8:00pm Friday) for the championship at 3:00pm on Sunday.

No TV for any of the games, but it will be streamed for free.
 
Re: Minnesota Gopher Season Thread: 2014-15 (Continued)

goofy gopher said:
Man the pairwise rankings seem outta whack compared to years past. UMD finishing 5th in their conference and getting swept in the first round of the conference playoffs, and they are a #2 seed with a chance at a #1? St. Cloud St. Barely above .500 and they are a solid position. Crazy! The eye ball test does not seem right.
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UMD's chances at a #1 seed are very slim. Also keep in mind that SCSU has to finish at .500 or better to earn a bid; meaning they have to at least win 1 game next weekend (NCHC plays a 3rd place game, which could knock SCSU out of the tournament simply by being sub .500).

Bottom line, the NCHC cleaned up in non-conference games this year and that has boosted all of their RPI's (in addition to a lesser-felt advantage in the record against common opponents component). It's not the first time this has happened. Remember when Wisco qualified despite being a game BELOW .500? The effects are a little more extreme on a conference-wide scale now due to the quality win bonus, but even without it Duluth would be a high 2 seed and SCSU would only slide 2 spots to 14.


A few great results for MN tonight. Providence and Yale both lost and may not be able to pass MN even if the Gophers go 1-1 next weekend. BC lost and has an RPI within reach of MN. And it looks like effects from conference tournament "upsets" are very likely to be minimal. Most of the teams that are in the final weekend are either already safely in the tournament, or are right on the bubble. Those on the bubble will probably move into the at-large field by winning their conf. tournament and will knock 1 or 2 bubble teams from their conference out of contention in the process.
There are a few specific scenarios that could throw a monkey wrench into that (UNH beating Lowell in the championship; SLU beating QU in the championship; Ferris beating BGSU in the championship).

So...it looks like 14 is very likely to be the cut-off, at least for MN (if MN doesn't win the B1G tournament, whoever does will steal a spot from the at-large bids). I'm not sure MN will stay at 14 or better by going 1-1, but it does at least look possible.
 
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Re: Minnesota Gopher Season Thread: 2014-15 (Continued)

goofy gopher said:
Man the pairwise rankings seem outta whack compared to years past. UMD finishing 5th in their conference and getting swept in the first round of the conference playoffs, and they are a #2 seed with a chance at a #1? St. Cloud St. Barely above .500 and they are a solid position. Crazy! The eye ball test does not seem right.
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The "outta whack" reflects the parity and the extraordinary amount of upsets in college hockey this season. That's evident from 5 teams @ 20+ wins on the other side of the bubble and only .0072 adjusted RPI points separating teams sitting at PWR 10-16. The issue with SCSU has been the NCHC controls the top PWR 1-8, so it doesn't matter as much at this point in the season what their W% is. SCSU has been peaking lately for a playoff run and that's resulted in a 6-3 record all against high ranking NCHC teams, the second highest QWB total in the PWR; and most importantly IIRC 6 COp's in their back pocket, all in the last 4 weeks. That's good for them, but bad for PWR integrity in college hockey.

This is why I'm an advocate for a nationwide NCAA scheduling change to mix more NC games throughout the season to remove this intrinsic confound in the PWR that essentially can result in an inaccurate NCAA seeding. Secondly, the NCAA needs to reevaluate at the autobid system. I'd like to see the tournament field extended to 20 teams to allow 20+ win teams a better chance of making the tournament instead potentially losing that chance to an autobid team in a 16 team format.

I'm not too worried about where the Gophers are in the PWR now going into the weekend. I expect SCSU (SCSU/UND) and Bowling Green (BG/MTU) to fall on Friday, and hopefully Quinnipiac will continue to win and negate a ECAC autobid. Good news is the Providence Friars probably ended their NCAA tourney chances with an upset loss against UNH, which sent them into a freefall from PWR 9 to 14 in one day. So if the Gophers win on Friday against "whoever" and that likely scenario plays out, we'll land in a solid 11th and should make the NCAAs. If we lose. we still might come out ok, but it might be close depending on the autos. Personally, I've only got AHA winning an AQ (Gophers may win but won't need it).
 
Re: Minnesota Gopher Season Thread: 2014-15 (Continued)

After looking at the PWR thread and using the Pairwise Predictor, looks like I made some mistakes in my estimates.

Primarily, Providence can still pass MN even if the Gophers go 1-1. The Friars' season doesn't look to be over yet, Harley. I was also thinking they were really screwed, but there look to be a number of plausible scenarios that have them in the field.
Also, MN could lose Friday and still make the tournament.

I still think it is quite likely the cut-off for MN will be 14.
 
Re: Minnesota Gopher Season Thread: 2014-15 (Continued)

Stauber1 said:
After looking at the PWR thread and using the Pairwise Predictor, looks like I made some mistakes in my estimates.

Primarily, Providence can still pass MN even if the Gophers go 1-1. The Friars' season doesn't look to be over yet, Harley. I was also thinking they were really screwed, but there look to be a number of plausible scenarios that have them in the field.
Also, MN could lose Friday and still make the tournament.

I still think it is quite likely the cut-off for MN will be 14.
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Oh, the Predictor is up! Let me take a look.
 
Re: Minnesota Gopher Season Thread: 2014-15 (Continued)

Stauber1 said:
After looking at the PWR thread and using the Pairwise Predictor, looks like I made some mistakes in my estimates.

Primarily, Providence can still pass MN even if the Gophers go 1-1. The Friars' season doesn't look to be over yet, Harley. I was also thinking they were really screwed, but there look to be a number of plausible scenarios that have them in the field.
Also, MN could lose Friday and still make the tournament.

I still think it is quite likely the cut-off for MN will be 14.
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According to Jim Dahl, Providence still has a pretty solid chance of making the field, which is surprising to me as well. http://collegehockeyranked.com/
 
Re: Minnesota Gopher Season Thread: 2014-15 (Continued)

So the pessimists are bummed that Dahl has us getting in in about 35% of the cases and the optimists are happy that USCHO has us getting in in about 71% of the cases. Chris Eckes makes a good point that the Dahl model doesn't take into account the likelihood of some of the better teams beating the worse teams (i.e., BU is more likely to beat UNH which is how USHCO has it...whereas Dahl has the outcome as equally likely).

Really the USCHO numbers have winning the conference championships in there. So in other words, the MN number is inflated by the likelihood of winning the B1G tourney. Interestingly, USCHO has MI's chance of making the NCAAs at 26%, MSU at 22%, PSU at 4%, UW at 4% and OSU at 3%. These are obviously strictly USCHO's thoughts on the likelihood of winning the B1G tourney...as that's the only way these guys are getting in. Interesting that they've still got MI's chances at 26% of going through three games including MSU and possibly MN to win it all. And only have MSU at 22%. But importantly, simple math has USCHO's thoughts on MN winning the B1G at 42%. And if I have this right, MN's chance of winning without the B1G...USCHO would have exactly half of the remaining cases (29% out of 58%).

So assuming USCHO has predicted outcomes effectively, MN has a 42% of winning the B1G and beyond that, a 50/50 chance of getting in in any other scenario (although I'm guessing a loss in the first game is not predicted in the USCHO model and would be an instant killer).
 
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Re: Minnesota Gopher Season Thread: 2014-15 (Continued)

5mn_Major said:
So the pessimists are bummed that Dahl has us getting in in about 35% of the cases and the optimists are happy that USCHO has us getting in in about 71% of the cases. Chris Eckes makes a good point that the Dahl model doesn't take into account the likelihood of some of the better teams beating the worse teams (i.e., BU is more likely to beat UNH which is how USHCO has it...whereas Dahl has the outcome as equally likely).

Really the USCHO numbers have winning the conference championships in there. So in other words, the MN number is inflated by the likelihood of winning the B1G tourney. Interestingly, USCHO has MI's chance of making the NCAAs at 26%, MSU at 22%, PSU at 4%, UW at 4% and OSU at 3%. These are obviously strictly USCHO's thoughts on the likelihood of winning the B1G tourney...as that's the only way these guys are getting in. Interesting that they've still got MI's chances at 26% of going through three games including MSU and possibly MN to win it all. And only have MSU at 22%. But importantly, simple math has USCHO's thoughts on MN winning the B1G at 42%. And if I have this right, MN's chance of winning without the B1G...USCHO would have exactly half of the remaining cases (29% out of 58%).

So assuming USCHO has predicted outcomes effectively, MN has a 42% of winning the B1G and beyond that, a 50/50 chance of getting in in any other scenario (although I'm guessing a loss in the first game is not predicted in the USCHO model and would be an instant killer).
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It's possible that I don't understand what USCHO is doing, but as I understand it their percentages are based entirely off of the scenarios that people have prepared using the predictor. In other words, I don't think their percentages are calculated based upon someone sitting down and figuring out probabilities using KRACH or anything like that.
 
SJHovey said:
It's possible that I don't understand what USCHO is doing, but as I understand it their percentages are based entirely off of the scenarios that people have prepared using the predictor. In other words, I don't think their percentages are calculated based upon someone sitting down and figuring out probabilities using KRACH or anything like that.
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That's my understanding as well. WI at 4% simply means that 4% of the unique user-tested pairwise predictor scenarios had WI winning the B1G tournament.
 
Re: Minnesota Gopher Season Thread: 2014-15 (Continued)

SJHovey said:
Shows those with time on their hands to play with the pwr predictor have quite a bit of faith in MN. :)
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I don't really play with it until after Friday's games. Scary that we'll have to play with it even if the Gophers win.
 
Re: Minnesota Gopher Season Thread: 2014-15 (Continued)

Bonin21 said:
I don't really play with it until after Friday's games. Scary that we'll have to play with it even if the Gophers win.
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I honestly don't think MN is going to have trouble getting in, and I really don't think it matters a ton what happens to them in the first game.

I suspect their fate will be determined by Quinnipiac, BU and Mankato. Those three teams lose in the first round, I'd start sweating. But if they win, you guys are golden.
 
Re: Minnesota Gopher Season Thread: 2014-15 (Continued)

I think the Gophers will get in because we are going to win the B1G tourney. We are starting to click, Wilcox is looking much better and we are getting goals from guys who were quiet a chunk of the year but are starting to put the puck in the net.
 
Re: Minnesota Gopher Season Thread: 2014-15 (Continued)

Starting to click? The Gophers have looked good for only two games in a row.
 
Re: Minnesota Gopher Season Thread: 2014-15 (Continued)

Three absolutely pathetic losses. 7-3 is not that great of a run given the opponents.
 
Re: Minnesota Gopher Season Thread: 2014-15 (Continued)

I think its safe to say the Gophers have been quite good but quite inconsistent. Right now it seems like we could/should roll through the tourney. But we thought this in the past and came up supremely flat...and we seem to always have trouble for MSU. I'm hoping we see a strong yet tired MI team (they did everything they wanted against MSU but put the puck in the net).
 
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