If the season ended today, 1998 March 16

© 1998, Joe Schlobotnik (archives)

URL for this frameset: http://slack.net/~whelan/tbrw/tbrw.cgi?1998/pairwise.980316.shtml

To see how the final pairwise numbers might look, try the text-based or conference tournament bracket "what if" interface to the interactive "You Are The Committee" script.

In less than a week, the NCAA Selection committee will name the field of twelve for the national tournament. In the meantime, with only 16 Division I games remaining in the four conference tournaments, let's look at how the NCAA Tournament selection procedure would be applied to the present results, which are taken from the Division I Composite Schedule on US College Hockey Online. First, we perform pairwise comparisons among the 20 teams with non-losing records, obtaining the following results (note that you can get the current pairwise rankings and Ratings Percentage Index from USCHO at any time):

    Team         PWR  RPI                  Comparisons Won
 1 North Dakota   19 .620   MSBUMiCkBCOSNHYaCCWiSCMDNMMeNEMmRPMLPn
 2 Mich State     18 .616 __  BUMiCkBCOSNHYaCCWiSCMDNMMeNEMmRPMLPn
 3 Boston Univ    17 .595 ____  MiCkBCOSNHYaCCWiSCMDNMMeNEMmRPMLPn
 4 Michigan       16 .587 ______  CkBCOSNHYaCCWiSCMDNMMeNEMmRPMLPn
 5 Clarkson       14 .573 ________  BCOSNHYaCCWiSC__NMMeNEMmRPMLPn
 6 Boston Coll    14 .578 __________  OSNHYaCCWiSCMDNMMeNEMmRPMLPn
 7 Ohio State     13 .562 ____________  NHYaCCWiSCMDNMMeNEMmRPMLPn
 8 New Hampshire  11 .560 ______________  YaCC__SCMDNMMeNEMmRPMLPn
 9 Yale           11 .557 ________________  CCWiSCMDNMMeNEMmRPMLPn
10 CO College     10 .549 __________________  WiSCMDNMMeNEMmRPMLPn
11 Wisconsin      10 .547 ______________NH____  SCMDNMMeNEMmRPMLPn
12 St Cloud        8 .538 ______________________  MDNMMeNEMmRPMLPn
13 Minn-Duluth     7 .520 ________Ck______________  NM__NEMmRPMLPn
14 Northern Mich   6 .529 __________________________  MeNEMmRPMLPn
15 Maine           6 .524 ________________________MD__  NEMmRPMLPn
16 Northeastern    3 .520 ______________________________  MmRP__Pn
17 Miami           3 .517 ________________________________  RPMLPn
18 RPI             2 .501 __________________________________  MLPn
19 Mass-Lowell     2 .508 ______________________________NE____  Pn
20 Princeton       0 .496 ______________________________________  
    

The four regular season champions North Dakota, Michigan State, Yale and Boston University will receive automatic bids to the NCAAs. There are also automatic bids for the winners of next weekend's conference tournaments, but we won't know who gets those until Saturday. Working only from the pairwise comparisons, the other eight bids would go to Michigan, Ohio State, Colorado College, Wisconsin and St. Cloud in the West and Clarkson, BC and New Hampshire in the East. (With the exception of Clarkson/UMD, each of those teams wins comparisons with the bottom eight teams under consideration, so that's an easy call.) Other teams that could still grab automatic bids by winning their conference championships are Harvard, Princeton and Cornell in the ECAC; Mass-Lowell, Maine and Merrimack in Hockey East; Minnesota-Duluth in the WCHA; and Northern Michigan in the CCHA. Harvard and Merrimack in particular could throw a wrench into things, since they will have losing records even if they win their tournaments, and will only be considered "Teams Under Consideration" if they are tournament champions.

But working with the field of twelve we have right now, we notice that it contains seven Western and five Eastern teams, so we lump St. Cloud with the Eastern teams to even things out:

      West                                  East
1 North Dakota   5 .620 MSMiOSCCWi | 1 Boston Univ    5 .595 CkBCNHYaSC
2 Mich State     4 .616   MiOSCCWi | 2 Clarkson       4 .573   BCNHYaSC
3 Michigan       3 .587 __  OSCCWi | 3 Boston Coll    3 .578 __  NHYaSC
4 Ohio State     2 .562 ____  CCWi | 4 New Hampshire  2 .560 ____  YaSC
5 CO College     1 .549 ______  Wi | 5 Yale           1 .557 ______  SC
6 Wisconsin      0 .547 ________   | 6 St Cloud       0 .538 ________
    

The Western byes go to North Dakota and Michigan State, while in the East it's BU and Clarkson, although Yale could snatch one of those away if they win the ECAC championship. Going strictly by the numbers, we'd send CC and Wisconsin East and Yale and St. Cloud West:

      West                                  East
1 North Dakota (W)   1 .620 MS     | 1 Boston Univ (H)    1 .595 Ck
2 Mich State (C)     0 .616        | 2 Clarkson (E)       0 .573

3 Michigan (C)       3 .587 OSYaSC | 3 Boston Coll (H)    3 .578 NHCCWi
4 Ohio State (C)     2 .562   YaSC | 4 New Hampshire (H)  1 .560   CC__
5 Yale (E)           1 .557 __  SC | 5 CO College (W)     1 .549 __  Wi
6 St Cloud (W)       0 .538 ____   | 6 Wisconsin (W)      1 .547 NH__
    

However, the NCAA wants to avoid potential regionals games between teams in the same conference, and that's impossible with three teams from the same conference in a given region. So they'd probably send New Hampshire West in lieu of Yale. With seven Western teams in the tournament, if only two of them are to play in the East, we can't help but have one potential intraconference matchup. However, if the top two non-bye seeds in the West regional are from the CCHA, that second-round matchup will be fairly likely. So we need to send one of the two East to ensure that the second-round matchup will require an upset. Since Michigan is the host team, they can't be shipped out, leaving Ohio State. Sending them and keeping Colorado College behind leads to regionals of:

      West                                  East
1 North Dakota (W)   1 .620 MS     | 1 Boston Univ (H)    1 .595 Ck
2 Mich State (C)     0 .616        | 2 Clarkson (E)       0 .573

3 Michigan (C)       3 .587 NHCCSC | 3 Boston Coll (H)    3 .578 OSYaWi
4 New Hampshire (H)  2 .560   CCSC | 4 Ohio State (C)     2 .562   YaWi
5 CO College (W)     1 .549 __  SC | 5 Yale (E)           1 .557 __  Wi
6 St Cloud (W)       0 .538 ____   | 6 Wisconsin (W)      0 .547 ____
    

The only thing to do now is swap Michigan and UNH to avoid the Michigan-Michigan State matchup in the second round. We should also switch CC and SCSU to preserve the first-round pairings, giving the following tournament brackets:

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

That was all pretty straightforward. One other wrinkle is that the committee might opt to keep Wisconsin in the West regional in Ann Arbor for attendance purposes. Suppose they send Colorado College East instead (they could choose instead to place St. Cloud in the East, but CC and SCSU are interchangeable in the resulting brackets):

      West                                  East
1 North Dakota (W)   1 .620 MS     | 1 Boston Univ (H)    1 .595 Ck
2 Mich State (C)     0 .616        | 2 Clarkson (E)       0 .573

3 Michigan (C)       3 .587 WiNHSC | 3 Boston Coll (H)    3 .578 OSYaCC
4 Wisconsin (W)      2 .547   NHSC | 4 Ohio State (C)     2 .562   YaCC
5 New Hampshire (H)  1 .560 __  SC | 5 Yale (E)           1 .557 __  CC
6 St Cloud (W)       0 .538 ____   | 6 CO College (W)     0 .549 ____
    

Again, we swap the 3/4 and 5/6 seeds in the West to give the alternate brackets:

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

The Gory Details

The reasons for the outcome of each pairwise comparison are contained in this file.


Last Modified: 2011 October 9

Joe Schlobotnik / joe@amurgsval.org

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