One more in-the-weeds issue: RPI this year is affected by so-called Quality Win Bonus Points. Yale has done really badly in this category, since our only wins against top 20 RPI teams are the two wins against Colgate. (We also get points from the ties with QPac and Vermont.) Beating Cornell will get us precious few more, because 2 losses will almost drop them from the top 20 and the points are graduated. But unless we play them, we really want Colgate to do as well as possible -- they're already giving us about 6 extra RPI points, and that will grow if their ranking grows (6 points is pitiful, but every point helps.) A good run by Vermont in the hockey East tournament might give us another couple of points as well.[/QUOTE
And this is where the horrible quality of the out of conference opponents kills us this year, whereas the UD-CC road trip allowed us to squeak in last year. With the Harvard at MSG game seeming to take on a life of it's own, it will be critical for Yale to drop the games against SHU, (CJ notwithstanding), and Holy Cross and replace them with contests against a couple of quality Western teams. Of course, there is a bit of a crap-shoot nature to the games against HE teams but I don't recall Yale venturing into the deep end of the HE pool except for home and home against BC the past two years.. Nate Leaman is a former ECAC coach. Maybe a two year home and home with PC would be a good way to beef up the OOC schedule.
