If the season ended today, 1999 February 21

© 1999, Joe Schlobotnik (archives)

URL for this frameset: http://slack.net/~whelan/tbrw/tbrw.cgi?1999/pairwise.990221.shtml

Remember, you can go through this process interactively using the "You Are The Committee" script.

With two weeks left in the regular seasons of the four major conferences and four weeks until the NCAA Tournament is seeded, here's another dry run through the NCAA Tournament selection procedure using the results to date from US College Hockey Online's Division I Composite Schedule. This week there 25 teams under consideration (i.e., with .500 or better records against tournament-eligible competition), which have the following pairwise comparisons with one another:

    Team         PWR  RPI                  Comparisons Won
 1 North Dakota   24 .656   MeMSNHCkBCCCQnSLDUOSNMMiRPCtNtPnPvNiCgMLFSCrHCIo
 2 Maine          23 .623 __  MSNHCkBCCCQnSLDUOSNMMiRPCtNtPnPvNiCgMLFSCrHCIo
 3 Mich State     22 .613 ____  NHCkBCCCQnSLDUOSNMMiRPCtNtPnPvNiCgMLFSCrHCIo
 4 New Hampshire  21 .621 ______  CkBCCCQnSLDUOSNMMiRPCtNtPnPvNiCgMLFSCrHCIo
 5 Clarkson       20 .585 ________  BCCCQnSLDUOSNMMiRPCtNtPnPvNiCgMLFSCrHCIo
 6 Boston Coll    18 .582 __________  CC__SLDUOSNMMiRPCtNtPnPvNiCgMLFSCrHCIo
 7 CO College     18 .584 ____________  QnSLDUOSNMMiRPCtNtPnPvNiCgMLFSCrHCIo
 8 Quinnipiac     17 .540 __________BC__  SL__OSNMMiRPCtNtPnPvNiCgMLFSCrHCIo
 9 St Lawrence    16 .558 ________________  DUOSNMMiRPCtNtPnPvNiCgMLFSCrHCIo
10 Denver U       15 .549 ______________Qn__  OSNM__RPCtNtPnPvNiCgMLFSCrHCIo
11 Ohio State     14 .539 ____________________  NMMiRPCtNtPnPvNiCgMLFSCrHCIo
12 Northern Mich  12 .544 ______________________  __RPCtNtPnPvNiCgMLFSCrHCIo
13 Michigan       11 .549 __________________DU__NM  RP__Nt__Pv__CgMLFSCrHCIo
14 RPI            10 .529 __________________________  Ct__PnPvNiCgMLFSCrHCIo
15 Connecticut    10 .509 ________________________Mi__  NtPn__NiCgMLFSCrHCIo
16 Notre Dame      9 .541 __________________________RP__  PnPv__CgMLFSCrHCIo
17 Princeton       8 .531 ________________________Mi______  Pv__CgMLFSCrHCIo
18 Providence      8 .526 ____________________________Ct____  NiCgMLFSCrHCIo
19 Niagara         8 .477 ________________________Mi____NtPn__  Cg__FSCrHCIo
20 Colgate         5 .512 ______________________________________  MLFSCrHCIo
21 Mass-Lowell     5 .505 ____________________________________Ni__  FSCrHCIo
22 Ferris State    2 .498 __________________________________________  Cr__Io
23 Cornell         2 .496 ____________________________________________  HCIo
24 Holy Cross      2 .476 __________________________________________FS__  Io
25 Iona            0 .421 ________________________________________________  
    

For the first time this season, we know two of the tournament participants without a doubt: Michigan State in the CCHA and North Dakota in the WCHA have wrapped up their conference regular season titles and the associated automatic bids. The two Eastern conferences are up for grabs, but for this excercise we assign those bids to the current leaders: Clarkson (one point ahead of St. Lawrence) in the ECAC and Maine (whose game in hand gives them a better winning percentage than New Hampshire, despite having one point less) in Hockey East. We gained a little more information on the relative strength of the MAAC to the other conferences this week when Division I independent Army tied Iona while losing to Hockey East's Mass-Amherst. That did little to change the picture:

                vs Indies    vs Army    vs Niagara   vs AFA      vs Mankato
      Avg RPI   PF-PA  Pct  PF-PA  Pct  PF-PA  Pct  PF-PA Pct    PF-PA Pct
 HE    .527     14- 2 .875  12-0 1.000   0- 2 .000   2-0  1.000   0-0  .---
 WCHA  .506     28- 8 .778   0-0  .---   0- 0 .---  10-0  1.000  18-8  .692
 CCHA  .505      5- 5 .500   0-0  .---   2- 4 .333   0-0   .---   3-1  .750
 ECAC  .497     28-10 .737  10-0 1.000  10-10 .500   2-0  1.000   6-0 1.000
 MAAC  .448      8-20 .286   5-5  .500   0- 2 .000   3-5   .350   0-8  .000

which seems to indicate that MAAC teams will be excluded on the basis of their weak conference and limited non-conference schedule. This means denying a bid to Quinnipiac, who are 14-2-2 against the Division I teams in their conference, but have otherwise only beaten Army and split a pair with Air Force. Neither of these teams has won a single game against a member of one of the four established conferences.

For once the assignment of the eight at-large bids is relatively painless: UNH, BC, CC and SLU win comparisons with everyone else, and DU and OSU are also easy choices. The comparisons among bubble teams stack up like so:

   Team          lPWR RPI    Comps Won
 1 Denver U        6 .549   OS__NMNiNtRPPn
 2 Ohio State      6 .539 __  MiNMNiNtRPPn
 3 Michigan        4 .549 DU__  NM__NtRP__
 4 Northern Mich   4 .544 ______  NiNtRPPn
    
 5 Niagara         3 .477 ____Mi__  Nt__Pn
 6 Notre Dame      2 .541 __________  RPPn
 7 RPI             2 .529 ________Ni__  Pn
 8 Princeton       1 .531 ____Mi________
    

DU and OSU are at the top of this crop, and even if we toss out the bottom three and constrain the final choice to Michigan, NMU and Niagara, each of whom wins one comparison and loses one against the others, this rock-scissors-papers (RSP) standoff is resolved by going to the Ratings Percentage Index, which leaves the Purple Eagles out of the tournament field. That field has seven Western and only five Eastern teams, so according to the committee's guidelines, we take the bottom team from the West (Northern Michigan, who win no comparisons with any other Western team) and declare them honorary Easterners:

      West                                  East
1 North Dakota    5 .656 MSCCMiDUOS | 1 Maine           5 .623 NHCkBCSLNM
2 Mich State      4 .613   CCMiDUOS | 2 New Hampshire   4 .621   CkBCSLNM
3 CO College      3 .584 __  MiDUOS | 3 Clarkson        3 .585 __  BCSLNM
4 Michigan        1 .549 ____  DU__ | 4 Boston Coll     2 .582 ____  SLNM
5 Denver U        1 .549 ______  OS | 5 St Lawrence     1 .558 ______  NM
6 Ohio State      1 .539 ____Mi__   | 6 Northern Mich   0 .544 ________

North Dakota and Michigan State get the two Western byes on the basis of their pairwise comparisons even if neither of them wins their league tournament. Maine and UNH get the byes in the East, unless Clarkson happens to be the tournament as well as regular season champion of the ECAC, which would entitle them to an automatic bye. Assuming this is not the case (which means that St. Lawrence must have been the ECAC tournament winner for the purposes of this exercise), we move on to the question of which two teams to swap between the Eastern and Western regions. The bottom two teams in the East are St. Lawrence and Northern Michigan, and while keeping Boston College in the East ensures that their potential second-round opponent will be a fellow Hockey East team, it's pretty certain that the committee would place them there anyway for attendance reasons, with the East Regional being held in nearby Worcester, Mass. In the West, the bottom three teams are in a RSP tie, but Michigan has the highest RPI of the three (.5493 vs .5486 for Denver) so they would get the nod to stay in Madison, a decision which seems to be consistent with considerations of both attendance and conference balance. The resulting regions:

      West                                  East
 1 North Dakota (W)   1 .656 MS     | 1 Maine (H)          1 .623 NH
 2 Mich State (C)     0 .613        | 2 New Hampshire (H)  0 .621
 
 3 CO College (W)     3 .584 SLMiNM | 3 Clarkson (E)       3 .585 BCDUOS
 4 St Lawrence (E)    2 .558   MiNM | 4 Boston Coll (H)    2 .582   DUOS
 5 Michigan (C)       1 .549 __  NM | 5 Denver U (W)       1 .549 __  OS
 6 Northern Mich (C)  0 .544 ____   | 6 Ohio State (C)     0 .539 ____
    

have no first-round matchups between conference foes if the regionals are seeded naturally, and the two second-round matchups are unavoidable given seven Western teams and a desire to keep Noston College in the East. The most probably tinkering might be to put NMU in the East in place of DU or OSU, but the Wildcats look like a reasonable Western draw as Marquette is closer to Madison than either Denver or Columbus. This makes the predicted brackets:

5W Michigan (C)                    6E Ohio State (C)
4W St Lawrence (E)                 3E Clarkson (E)
     1W North Dakota (W) --+--2E New Hampshire (H)
                           |
     2W Mich State (C)   --+--1E Maine (H)
3W CO College (W)                  4E Boston Coll (H)
6W Northern Mich (C)               5E Denver U (W)

The Gory Details

You also can look at the detailed description of each of the pairwise comparisons, if you're so inclined.


Last Modified: 2011 October 9

Joe Schlobotnik / joe@amurgsval.org

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