Watson Rink
Registered User
Like Doctor Johnson's remark that the best view of Scotland is over your shoulder as you leave?
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NCAA Tournament Selection
- Thread starter TonyTheTiger20
- Start date
Like Doctor Johnson's remark that the best view of Scotland is over your shoulder as you leave?
Watson Rink
Registered User
Having 5 ECAC teams in the bottom 8 of the bracket this year plus Hvd's buddy-joined-at-the-hip UMD is an anomaly that may never repeat (fortunately).
Preserving bracket integrity while avoiding intraconference (plus UMD) matchups was impossible, but I think the committee did do the best it could, at least in theory.
Pairing 'Gate and Y had an extra dimension of bracket integrity in that it rewards the top 5 teams with first-round byes. Dropping one of them into a first-round matchup would have been a heavy blow.
Adjusting the first-round matchups as the committee did to avoid intraconference confrontations violates bracket integrity to the extent of giving Q and Syr one-slot easier opponents and Wisco and Clarky one-slot harder opponents. Other possible matchups would apparently have involved greater violation of bracket integrity: for instance, a bracket consisting of Wisco/Hvd, Q/Syr and UMD/Clarky would have given four teams a one-slot easier opponent but two teams would have had a two-slot harder opponent. And the pairing of UMD/Hvd follows pure bracket integrity and isn't quite like an intraconference game anyway since the two teams only meet every few years.
All of the foregoing is on a purely theoretical basis, of course, assuming that every team is exactly one quantum of excellence better than the team one slot below and exactly one quantum of excellence worse than the team one slot above. This year, the fourth autobid produced quite a violation of that assumption, and Wisco may believe with some justification that it is paying a stiff price for the committee's decision to avoid intraconference matchups.
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FiveHoleFrenzy
Well-known member
With one of Yale or Colgate going to the Frozen Four, there is a chip and a chair for the ECAC to get 4 teams in the Frozen Four. If Clarkson or Harvard get there that would be an impressive 2 wins to do it.
It's optional. I believe the NCAA only pays for so many airline tickets. You can use the $$ for the plane or buy a bus.
Most recent published policy for D1 is anyone over 400 miles flies, under by bus. Teams over 400 can fly if they tell the NCAA that arranging air travel is too difficult and NCAA will reimburse those schools the lesser of the actual ground transportation costs or what the rejected flight would have cost the NCAA. Teams also get ground transport reimbursed if the NCAA makes them travel to a larger airport further away to save money than a closer but smaller one. joecct is right about the maximums. For DI NCAA the maximum travel party is 34 though it was upped to 39 last year to allow for extra team staff to help with COVID protocols.
Quite a bit of provisions in the policy are specific to 20-21 academic year and COVID-related provisions/exceptions. Hard to know if anything changed back without the document dated for 21-22.
Source: https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/cha...elPolicies.pdf
The title of the web page will say 2010-11 but the doc itself was updated in early May of last year.
Quite a bit of provisions in the policy are specific to 20-21 academic year and COVID-related provisions/exceptions. Hard to know if anything changed back without the document dated for 21-22.
Source: https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/cha...elPolicies.pdf
The title of the web page will say 2010-11 but the doc itself was updated in early May of last year.
ARM
Fan of chipmunk-like mascots.
The path for "Q" is looking very challenging as well, even allowing that the Bobcats will be a heavy favorite over Syracuse.
Lurky McLurkface
New member
Way too late and not like you couldn't take ten seconds and find it yourself, if you didn't see the selection program already, here's a link. A. J. Mleczko, Angela Ruggiero and some guy doing the yackety-yack.
ARM
Fan of chipmunk-like mascots.
Clay Matvick, an SCSU graduate and I think mostly a lower-tier ESPN announcer these days.
robertearle
Well-known member
It (almost) always comes down to money, and Colgate is locked in a spot where there is no other matchup beforehand for them to be a host. The No. 4 seed gets shafted a bit with just one game IMO :-/
ARM
Fan of chipmunk-like mascots.
I wonder how much value the average fanbase places on getting to host a game that doesn't involve the home team? For those that do, I agree with what you're saying, but then the #4 seed is one spot removed from not getting to host at all. The home game involving their team has to be at least 90% of the value, so only a 10% shaft.
robertearle
Well-known member
Not sure, ARM...my philosophy is that good teams win at home, but better teams win on the road. Colgate certainly did that this weekend, and both Y/Q had home ice of sorts. Being in the same conference, it's not like the atmosphere at Colgate is anything new to Yale. Just another bus ride.
Just meant that it would have been nice to host a tournament with multiple teams, but as the #4 seed, it's not meant to be. It miraculously happens to work in the NCAA's favor $$$ because Class of '65 Arena is no Mariucci.
Just meant that it would have been nice to host a tournament with multiple teams, but as the #4 seed, it's not meant to be. It miraculously happens to work in the NCAA's favor $$$ because Class of '65 Arena is no Mariucci.
For those of us who were hoping for WCHA/ECAC match-ups in the NCAA tournament, things came out fairly well.
In the "Round of 11," 2 of the 3 games pit the conferences against each other. In the Quarterfinals, there's a decent chance of 2 more match-ups. If the Buckeyes can win the regional we're hosting, one of the Semi-Finals will be such a pairing.
More head-to-head competition would require some significant upsets, as you suggest. And OK, since the two conferences account for 9 of the 11 participating teams, maybe the harvest isn't as bountiful as I'm making it sound. Finally, as you point out, one of the regionals is set-up to guarantee the ECAC a spot in the FF. That's not for the best.
But overall, I think there will be enough inter-conference action to satisfy. Four or five WCHA/ECAC games would certainly give us some material to dissect during the off-season.
FiveHoleFrenzy
Well-known member
I don't know how you avoid that. Hockey East not being as competitive this year certainly contributes to that happening as well as the strength of the WCHA and the ECAC.
Wisconsin and Clarkson being in Northeastern's bracket will be interesting to watch play out.
Basically with a 12th team. I didn't feel as strongly as Nicole H. did. But she is right; a 12 team field would have been both more normal and better. And in this specific case, the #5 team would have needed two games to get the Frozen Four. Including a win against a non-ECAC team. (Eastern, yes; but still inter-conference)
Absolutely!
That is in another league called Utopia.
Ha! Even if Utopia is not up and running, I wonder if adding Stonehill and RMU gets the math to a point where we’ll get a 12th team soon.