Re: The polls - scratching KRACH, PWC, CoP and robbery! ...---...
I have said it before and I will say it again - go ahead and complain about the at-large teams selected and how that happens, but that usually means you are forgetting the underlying premise of the NCAA post season: The NCAA operates NATIONAL championship tournaments, not championship tournaments of the best teams in that sport.
I will expound.
As the schools & NCAA have chosen to structure the tournament (D3 hockey and everything else except for Football Bowl Subdivision) as tournaments with the conference champions to represent the breadth of the membership, with at-large teams tossed into "round out" out the field.
Let's use D1 basketball as the example. As noted, the 12th B1G team is likely better on almost any given night than the MEAC or Atlantic Sun champion. But that's not important. The NCAA operates a national tournament, offering automatic bids to the conferences. And (except for the Ivy League, IIRC), that goes to the conference tournament champion. At the start of the conference tournaments, every conference-affiliated team in the country (non-Independents) can make the NCAA tourney. And, sometimes, as with Cal Poly last year, a team with a losing record makes it to the dance. Cinderella. Given her & the tournament's popularity, it would seem most people are accepting of this format.
What the tournament is NOT is a someone's definition of the 68 best teams in the country. Doing so would mean Cal Poly and the MAAC or some other conference you've never heard of would never make the tournament. And all of those moments of Florida Gulf Coast or George Mason making memorable runs would be gone.
Now, if you accept that entire premise, let's talk D3 hockey. The margin for error is much smaller for the regular season champions. If this year's Wisconsin Badgers men's hoops team doesn't win the B1G tourney, we all know they still get in the dance. Same for Big 12, ACC, Big East, Pac 10, and so on for multiple conferences. But for us, with just the three at large bids, that cushion is much thinner - and perhaps non existent for several teams.
So, you can complain about how those three at large teams are chosen - and with the lack of cross-region play (especially as compared to bouncyball), there will always be complaints. (Especially from us westerners, who conveniently like to forget there are twice as many teams playing out east...) But the fact of the matter of that this is NOT designed to be the best 11 teams in the country. And, every single one of us knows long before now that you have one thing in your control: win your conference tournament. Or start praying.
You may not like it. You may want to have the regular season champion get the bid. You may not like the criteria. That's all fine. But I really don't envy the people who have to make the decision on teams 8-9-10-11. They offer criteria to guide the process. That helps, but we all know (or should know, IMHO) that it CAN'T be perfect - and that two different groups of people can look at the same information and make different decisions.
And if you want a tournament of the best 11 teams, go convince the NCAA to get rid of ALL automatic bids. And let's see the complaining when the split becomes 10-1 east one year, or 8-3 west another year! Given the choice, I accept the current format because every team has a legitimate chance (however slim) of winning their conference tournament. (And I admit that some of this viewpoint comes from the non-hockey conference for SNC: The Midwest Conference is not as strong as our neighbors the WIAC, MIAC and CCIW, but we know that we will get a shot at them come tournament time). There is always hope come February, regardless of how poorly you played until then. Cinderella doesn't exist quite the same way for D3 hockey, I guess, but the concept is the same: this is a national tournament.
