If the season ended today, 1998 February 23

© 1998, Joe Schlobotnik (archives)

URL for this frameset: http://slack.net/~whelan/tbrw/tbrw.cgi?1998/pairwise.980223.shtml

Let's take yet another dry run through the NCAA Tournament selection procedure. This week we welcome Mankato State back to the ranks of the Teams Under Consideration. Using the game results from US College Hockey Online's Division I Composite Schedule, we've performed pairwise comparisons among those 24 teams, and come up with the following results (the current pairwise rankings and Ratings Percentage Index, independently calculated, can be found on USCHO)

    Team         PWR  RPI                  Comparisons Won
 1 North Dakota   23 .627 MSBUNHYaMiCkBCSCOSMmWiCCCgMDNMNELSCrRPPnMLDaMk
 2 Mich State     22 .617   BUNHYaMiCkBCSCOSMmWiCCCgMDNMNELSCrRPPnMLDaMk
 3 Boston Univ    21 .622 __  NHYaMiCkBCSCOSMmWiCCCgMDNMNELSCrRPPnMLDaMk
 4 New Hampshire  20 .596 ____  YaMiCkBCSCOSMmWiCCCgMDNMNELSCrRPPnMLDaMk
 5 Yale           19 .575 ______  MiCkBCSCOSMmWiCCCgMDNMNELSCrRPPnMLDaMk
 6 Michigan       18 .595 ________  CkBCSCOSMmWiCCCgMDNMNELSCrRPPnMLDaMk
 7 Clarkson       16 .549 __________  BC__OSMmWiCCCgMDNMNELSCrRPPnMLDaMk
 8 Boston Coll    16 .564 ____________  SCOSMmWiCCCgMDNMNELSCrRPPnMLDaMk
 9 St Cloud       15 .552 __________Ck__  __MmWiCCCgMDNMNELSCrRPPnMLDaMk
10 Ohio State     14 .543 ______________SC  __WiCCCgMDNMNELSCrRPPnMLDaMk
11 Miami          13 .548 ________________OS  WiCCCg__NMNELSCrRPPnMLDaMk
12 Wisconsin      12 .536 ____________________  CCCgMDNMNELSCrRPPnMLDaMk
13 CO College     10 .533 ______________________  CgMDNMNE__CrRPPnMLDaMk
14 Colgate        10 .522 ________________________  MDNMNELSCrRPPnMLDaMk
15 Minn-Duluth     8 .508 __________________Mm______  NM____CrRPPnMLDaMk
16 Northern Mich   7 .523 ____________________________  NELSCrRP__MLDaMk
17 Northeastern    7 .514 __________________________MD__  LS__RPPnMLDaMk
18 Lake Superior   7 .510 ______________________CC__MD____  __RPPnMLDaMk
19 Cornell         6 .515 ______________________________NELS  __PnMLDaMk
20 RPI             5 .495 __________________________________Cr  PnMLDaMk
21 Princeton       4 .499 ____________________________NM________  MLDaMk
22 Mass-Lowell     2 .501 ________________________________________  DaMk
23 Dartmouth       1 .466 __________________________________________  Mk
24 Mankato State   0 .461 ____________________________________________  

The selection procedure starts off by awarding automatic bids to the conference champions. For these purposes, we'll assign those to the current leaders: North Dakota, Michigan State, Yale and BU. Miami's pairwise loss to UMD notwithstanding, the pairwise comparisons tell us to assign the at large bids to UNH, Clarkson and BC in the East and Michigan, SCSU, OSU, Miami and Wisconsin in the West. Once again, we have more Western than Eastern teams (Clarkson displacing Colgate in the field of twelve), and so we name Wisconsin an honorary Eastern team:

      West                                  East
1 North Dakota   5 .627 MSMiSCMmOS | 1 Boston Univ    5 .622 NHYaCkBCWi
2 Mich State     4 .617   MiSCMmOS | 2 New Hampshire  4 .596   YaCkBCWi
3 Michigan       3 .595 __  SCMmOS | 3 Yale           3 .575 __  CkBCWi
4 St Cloud       1 .552 ____  Mm__ | 4 Clarkson       2 .549 ____  BCWi
5 Miami          1 .548 ______  OS | 5 Boston Coll    1 .564 ______  Wi
6 Ohio State     1 .543 ____SC__   | 6 Wisconsin      0 .536 ________  
    

The comparisons tell us to give byes to NoDak, Michigan State, BU and UNH. This doesn't take into consideration possible automatic byes for any teams that win both a regular season title and a conference tournament. This lends extra significance to the CCHA and Hockey East races, the former because either Michigan State or Michigan could steal the bye from the other, and the latter in case Yale wins the ECAC tourney. As for which teams to ship out, BC and Wisconsin lose pairwise comparisons to everyone else in the East, while the bottom three teams in the West are dead even on comparisons. Statistically, St. Cloud should be the one to stay in their own region, since they own the best RPI. However, if the West Regional in Ann Arbor is not already going to sell out, the committee might keep Ohio State there for attendence purposes. Let's look first at the scenario where SCSU is in the West Regional:

      West                                  East
1 North Dakota (W)   1 .627 MS     | 1 Boston Univ (H)    1 .622 NH
2 Mich State (C)     0 .617        | 2 New Hampshire (H)  0 .596

3 Michigan (C)       3 .595 BCSCWi | 3 Yale (E)           3 .575 CkMmOS
4 Boston Coll (H)    2 .564   SCWi | 4 Clarkson (E)       2 .549   MmOS
5 St Cloud (W)       1 .552 __  Wi | 5 Miami (C)          1 .548 __  OS
6 Wisconsin (W)      0 .536 ____   | 6 Ohio State (C)     0 .543 ____
    

The Western regional has two possible second-round intraconference matchups, Michigan-Michigan State and St. Cloud-North Dakota. One of those is inevitable, given seven Western teams in the tourney, but we can avoid the other by switching Michigan and BC. In order to preserve the first-round pairings, we should also switch SCSU and Wisconsin, giving brackets of:

5W Wisconsin (W)                   6E Ohio State (C)
4W Michigan (C)                    3E Yale (E)
     1W North Dakota (W)      2E New Hampshire (H)
          
     2W Mich State (C)        1E Boston Univ (H)
3W Boston Coll (H)                 4E Clarkson (E)
6W St Cloud (W)                    5E Miami (C)
    

If, on the other hand, Ohio State is kept in the West, the regions look like

      West                                  East
1 North Dakota (W)   1 .627 MS     | 1 Boston Univ (H)    1 .622 NH
2 Mich State (C)     0 .617        | 2 New Hampshire (H)  0 .596

3 Michigan (C)       3 .595 BCOSWi | 3 Yale (E)           3 .575 SCCkMm
4 Boston Coll (H)    2 .564   OSWi | 4 St Cloud (W)       2 .552   CkMm
5 Ohio State (C)     1 .543 __  Wi | 5 Clarkson (E)       1 .549 __  Mm
6 Wisconsin (W)      0 .536 ____   | 6 Miami (C)          0 .548 ____

There are two options here, neither of them as good, from the standpoint of avoiding intraconference games. We can leave the teams where they are and have one possible second-round matchup, but that matchup would be fairly likely to occur, since it involves a three-seed beating a six-seed. If we switch Michigan and BC to avoid this, we'd have to switch the two bottom seeds as well to avoid a Michigan-Ohio State first-round matchup, giving the following brackets:

5W Wisconsin (W)                   6E Miami (C)
4W Michigan (C)                    3E Yale (E)
     1W North Dakota (W)      2E New Hampshire (H)
          
     2W Mich State (C)        1E Boston Univ (H)
3W Boston Coll (H)                 4E St Cloud (W)
6W Ohio State (C)                  5E Clarkson (E)
    

This has two potential second-round intraconference matchups, although either of them would require an upset. Deciding whether to keep St. Cloud and Ohio State in the Western regional would mean deciding whether conference or attendance considerations are more important in this instance.

The Gory Details

If you want to see the reasons why each of the pairwise comparisons turned out the way it did, here they are.


Last Modified: 2011 October 9

Joe Schlobotnik / joe@amurgsval.org

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