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Selection Show

Re: Selection Show

GWHFan said:
...So putting all the current complaints and biases aside lets look at a rather radical approach.
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It's radical in the sense that it overtly uses conference results instead of statistical formulas to select teams.

Personally I believe that approach fits the current situation in Women's D-1 rather well. If it was my choice, some variation of your plan would be implemented. I'm not hugely optimistic. But one function of USCHO is to do exactly this kind of brainstorming.

There are 4 conferences, call them A, B, C and D. Each conference selects it’s number 1 and number 2 teams. They can do this selection any way the conference chooses, a tournament, season won/lost record, conference record, coaches pole, lottery, whatever. The teams are designated A1, A2, B1, B2, etc. Home ice goes to the #1s in the quarter finals.
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This would be my first choice. Keep the eight team field, two teams from each conference. Home ice as you describe.

But no matter how appealing this is from a competitive standpoint, we're likely to be told there's no money for the first round travel. In that case, I'd go with some variation of the PuckRush plan. (4 teams, 1 from each conference)

Semi-finals and final played at a designated site.
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In any case I would keep the Frozen Four neutral site format, and would continue to utilize the Frozen Four name.

The number one teams are seeded by overall season win/lose record.
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While I would select teams based on conference results, I'd prefer to use a statistical formula to do the seeding. I'll defer to the stats people as to which formula would be ideal. From a lay person's point of view, it seems clear that the current Pairwise procedure isn't the one. But whether KRACH or something else is best, experts in the field should decide.

Or, I wouldn't use seedings at all. See below.

Assume, for this discussion, that the team from conference A has the best win/lose record, the team from conference B has the second best win/lose record, etc. So the #1 seed goes to A1, the #2 seed goes to B1, #3 seed to C1 and #4 seed goes to D1. The A1 and D1 teams are placed in the upper bracket and B1 and C1 are placed in the lower bracket.
Next B2 and C2 are placed in the upper bracket with A1 and D1 and A2 and D2 are placed in the lower bracket. If B2 has a better won/lost record than C2, B2 will play D1 in the quarter final game, otherwise they will play A1. Use the same process for A2 and D2 in the lower bracket.
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Or, you could just go with a fixed rotation of first round opponents and let the chips fall where they may. Example from a Hockey East perspective: Year 1 HE vs. ECAC; Year 2 HE vs. CHA; Year 3 HE vs. WCHA; and so on.

Or, the Round of 8 could always be Hockey East vs. ECAC & WCHA vs. CHA. That would cut travel costs, at least in the East. It would also give you a FF with 2 Eastern teams and 2 Western/Central teams every year. (I get that some CHA members will object to being labeled Central, much less Western. But everyone knows which teams I'm talking about.)

So this year the brackets would be as follows: (Assuming I did this correctly!)

Upper Bracket
Boston College (A1) vs Clarkson (C2)
Mercyhurst (D1) vs Minnesota (B2)

Lower Bracket
Wisconsin (B1) vs Syracuse (D2)
Quinnipiac (C1) vs Northeastern (A2)

Have at it!! Let the teams decide the outcome.
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That would be a fine tournament, and would address most of the concerns that this year's process raised.

Benefits:
Strictly objective bracket placement. No selection committee BS.
No intra conference match ups until the final.
If two teams from the same conference end up in the final game, so be it.
NCAA wouldn’t be getting crap about the process.
Much less fan gripping.
No conference could send 3 teams to the tournament.

Negatives:
Teams could schedule weaker teams to improve there season win/lose records. Some say they already do.
More air travel.
A weaker team could get in the tournament. They already can with the auto-bid.
No conference could send 3 teams to the tournament.
Not everyone will be happy.
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Agreed that limiting conferences to 2 teams apiece would be an improvement -- under current conditions. Keeping alive the possibility of three teams from one conference is a key reason we use stats for team selection rather than conference results. At least at the present, the costs of this policy are exceeding the benefits.
 
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Re: Selection Show

Given the last couple of posts, I hope that many Mid Westerners will be coming to Durham....as I've mentioned previously, very little media exposure for the FF 10 miles down the road, in the largest nearby city (21,000 in 2010).....hopefully many of the men's fans will come and enjoy the quality product to be had! No idea if school is on break or not....
 
Re: Selection Show

The Minnesota high school tournaments, all four of them (two classes, two genders) seed the top 5 teams by a vote of the participating coaches. The rationale seems to be that if you are not one of the top 5 you are not considered to be any more of a threat to the top 3 than any of the other "at large" teams. In practice you get to be one of the top 5 based on vote of participating coaches (no outside "committee") and that seems to work out in the actual tournament games. Any upset of any of the top 3 seeds has been rare to non-existent.

Perhaps that is the reasoning of the NCAA selection committee behind the most recent selections of the NCAA tournament fields.

The thinking clearly is that if you aren't one of the top 5 you aren't going to make the semi-finals anyway. In Minnesota high school that means random draw for the teams facing the top 5. In NCAA women's hockey the same line of thinking leads to sending those bottom 3 teams where it is least expensive to send them. Even if that means saving money by an intercity bus over a 300 mile bus ride. It doesn't matter, they aren't going to win anyway, let's save the money.

It works in Minnesota high school tournaments, just sayin'.

I suspect that come Sunday morning the NCAA tournament will be down to the top four seeds or at worst four of the top five.

But that's why they play the games.

Good luck to all, in every game may the better team win. Even if that means a Princeton v. Mercyhurst final.
 
Re: Selection Show

An ad hoc committee of reps from the four last-place finishers in the leagues should be joined by an outside professor of logic, thereby eliminating self-dealing as well as the coercive pull toward unanimity that a small, even-numbered committee produces. (Is logic the same as common sense? No, but it would be a start.)

Meanwhile, women's hockey continues to get some attention from the NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/11/s...both-of-its-hockey-teams.html?ref=sports&_r=0
 
Re: Selection Show

Don't understand all the consternation about match ups ....committee got the top 4 seeds right and they got the field of 8 right. Three games left to win...if your team can't win three in a row, they don't deserve to be champions.
 
Re: Selection Show

mnpokecheck said:
Don't understand all the consternation about match ups ....committee got the top 4 seeds right and they got the field of 8 right. Three games left to win...if your team can't win three in a row, they don't deserve to be champions.
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You didn't address your own point. There is consternation about match-ups, not if the tournament will produce a deserving champion.
 
Re: Selection Show

While it would have been fun to see Coyne play tomorrow, the Tigers have an interesting team: a great goal tender, a high scoring D/Patty K nominee, and one of the best young players in the game.

I hope all you BC/NE fans enjoy watching your teams play
and all the Clarkson/Quinnie fans too :D
 
Re: Selection Show

pokechecker said:
While it would have been fun to see Coyne play tomorrow, the Tigers have an interesting team: a great goal tender, a high scoring D/Patty K nominee, and one of the best young players in the game.
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Speaking of whom, does anyone know whether or not Kelsey Koelzer is able to play tomorrow or if she is still injured? Hopefully, the former.
 
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