The BC womens hockey coach was also on the committee....funny how that works.
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NCAA Tourney Team Selection Options
- Thread starter DrunkTrainPolka
- Start date
The BC womens hockey coach was also on the committee....funny how that works.
lakersparty
New member
As a Lake State Lakers fan, I'm getting encouraged by our current coach and our very successful former coach both being on the committee.
That's the funny thing about the smoke filled room. You can use whatever argument you want.
If we ignore the fact that UMD had a representative on the committee and Minnesota did not, they probably went with UMD finishing in second in the WCHA and Minnesota fourth (even though their records were almost indistinguishable) and UMD had a slightly better record against OSU and Wisconsin, due to the fact that UMD only played four games against them (2-2) while Minnesota was 2-7-1 against those teams.
I remember back in 1983, when the men's bracket still included just 8 teams, there was a similar issue in play between UND and UMD. UND finished ahead of UMD in the standings (also 2nd vs. 4th) but UMD had won the season series against UND. Both lost in the semi's of their league tournament. UMD was selected ahead of North Dakota in that case, and as I recall the case being made, it was due to the head to head results.
The Committees can decide what they want, then tailor their logic to fit the result. I expect the same from the men's bracket this year.
John J. MacInnes
Coach Emeritus
I've never seen a committee where a member who is affiliated with a school under consideration isn't recused from discussing their own school. So unless you're implying that some other under-the-table deal was made for the support of another school in exchange, this road doesn't lead very far.
MagnessMan
D-1 Hockey Nut
UNO deserves the bid but yet isn’t a lock in my opinion.
MagnessMan
D-1 Hockey Nut
If Bobby Mo gets an at large on the men's side, that is wrong and BC should absolutely be the team that gets to prove that!
Just like St. Cloud did in 2019?!
John J. MacInnes
Coach Emeritus
No team in the NCAA tournament flies commercial. The NCAA has a contract with multiple charter airlines and each team goes direct.
I see Adam Wodon over at CHN wrote a piece this weekend either speculating or advocating (with Adam you can never really tell) that the Committee will go with 9 western teams and 7 eastern teams, but absolutely load up the western regionals. Basically send one of the #1 seeds from out west to Albany, but leave the other 7 eastern teams out there. He got brackets that looked like UND v. BG and MN v. SCSU in Fargo, and MSU-M v. Omaha and Michigan v. UMD in Loveland.
This is exactly the sort of thing that I speculated on earlier, and is one of my fears. Now, Adam has a history of getting these things wrong, so I can take some comfort in that, but such an arrangement would be unfortunate for the game. I don't know why there is the fear of air travel, since there are a lot of studies that suggest there is little or no spread of Covid on an airplane.
Adam does trot out the "who can really say" argument, again, regarding comparisons between teams and conferences. I think that is one of the stupidest arguments that is being made. I can say. Anyone with a functioning brain can say. Anyone who has followed college hockey for longer than a couple of months can say.
This idea that somehow Covid spread around a bunch of pixie dust and suddenly the AHA or WCHA is the best conference, with the top teams, is just silly. It would be like someone saying "hey, North Dakota is really good in football this year, undefeated. They should probably be considered for a spot in the four team football playoff."
This is exactly the sort of thing that I speculated on earlier, and is one of my fears. Now, Adam has a history of getting these things wrong, so I can take some comfort in that, but such an arrangement would be unfortunate for the game. I don't know why there is the fear of air travel, since there are a lot of studies that suggest there is little or no spread of Covid on an airplane.
Adam does trot out the "who can really say" argument, again, regarding comparisons between teams and conferences. I think that is one of the stupidest arguments that is being made. I can say. Anyone with a functioning brain can say. Anyone who has followed college hockey for longer than a couple of months can say.
This idea that somehow Covid spread around a bunch of pixie dust and suddenly the AHA or WCHA is the best conference, with the top teams, is just silly. It would be like someone saying "hey, North Dakota is really good in football this year, undefeated. They should probably be considered for a spot in the four team football playoff."
Andrew J Carter
New member
Thanks for the clarification, John.
purpleinnebraska
Well-known member
But the point isn't which conference is better. No one disputes that the NCHC is better, top to bottom, than the WCHA. But that's not the issue. The issue comes down to individual teams, and without nonconference games, there's really no objective way to say specifically that Omaha is better than BGSU, for instance.
John J. MacInnes
Coach Emeritus
The frustrating thing is that the NCAA had a chance to make this better.
If anyone with prescience noticed that there were going to be more tournament worthy teams in the West and they really wanted to eliminate travel, they blew it when they got the gift of Manchester cancelling their host site. But instead of finding a more central location, they buried the replacement site way up in the northeast again in Albany. If that site was moved to somewhere in Ohio, you're much closer to a lot more teams and have better options.
If anyone with prescience noticed that there were going to be more tournament worthy teams in the West and they really wanted to eliminate travel, they blew it when they got the gift of Manchester cancelling their host site. But instead of finding a more central location, they buried the replacement site way up in the northeast again in Albany. If that site was moved to somewhere in Ohio, you're much closer to a lot more teams and have better options.
They might say it's a fear of travel due to COVID but with limited fans at regionals/FF...revenue is down. So limiting flights is limiting costs.
Agree on the conference evaluation. Anyone saying RMU or Army should get an at large can GTFO. If anything, the lack of PWR will only help a conference like the WCHA this year. I think there's a legit shot they get 3 in. I bet in a PWR year, Notre Dame would be higher ranked than they are being thought of right now. Same for the Hockey East cluster of UConn/PC/NU.
Do we know who was even interested/capable of taking that regional on short notice? A 9-7 edge for western teams isn't a big enough swing to move away from two eastern sites. The bigger limiting travel mistake is Loveland. Now I have no idea if anyone else would be interested in taking the regional but they should have tried to push Loveland aside for a year.