The season ended today, 1998 March 22

© 1998, Joe Schlobotnik (archives)

URL for this frameset: http://slack.net/~whelan/tbrw/tbrw.cgi?1998/pairwise.980322.shtml

This is what I predicted the night before the selection; follow this link to see what was actually done.

We've come to the end, folks. After 758 games between eligible Division I teams, the NCAA regular season has come to an end, and it's time for the NCAA selection committee to apply the selection procedure and seed the national tournament field of twelve. Using the final results from the Division I Composite Schedule on US College Hockey Online, we can calculate the pairwise comparisons among the various teams under consideration and predict how they might carry out this process. (For reference, compare the pairwise rankings and Ratings Percentage Index pages on USCHO) Here are the results of the pairwise comparisons:

    Team         PWR  RPI                  Comparisons Won
 1 Mich State     18 .621   NDBUMiBCOSCkWiNHCCYaPnNESCMDNMMeMmRP
 2 North Dakota   17 .616 __  BUMiBCOSCkWiNHCCYaPnNESCMDNMMeMmRP
 3 Boston Univ    16 .595 ____  MiBCOSCkWiNHCCYaPnNESCMDNMMeMmRP
 4 Michigan       15 .583 ______  BCOSCkWiNHCCYaPnNESCMDNMMeMmRP
 5 Boston Coll    14 .581 ________  OSCkWiNHCCYaPnNESCMDNMMeMmRP
 6 Ohio State     13 .565 __________  CkWiNHCCYaPnNESCMDNMMeMmRP
 7 Clarkson       11 .570 ____________  WiNHCCYaPnNESC__NMMeMmRP
 8 Wisconsin      11 .560 ______________  NHCCYaPnNESCMDNMMeMmRP
 9 New Hampshire  10 .559 ________________  CCYaPnNESCMDNMMeMmRP
10 CO College      9 .548 __________________  YaPnNESCMDNMMeMmRP
11 Yale            8 .543 ____________________  PnNESCMDNMMeMmRP
12 Princeton       7 .518 ______________________  NESCMDNMMeMmRP
13 Northeastern    5 .519 ________________________  SCMD__MeMmRP
14 St Cloud        5 .535 __________________________  MDNMMeMmRP
15 Minn-Duluth     4 .514 ____________Ck______________  NM__MmRP
16 Northern Mich   4 .528 ________________________NE____  MeMmRP
17 Maine           3 .527 ____________________________MD__  MmRP
18 Miami           1 .515 __________________________________  RP
19 RPI             0 .498 ____________________________________  
    

First of all, there are 7 automatic bids to the tournament: Boston University, Yale, Michigan State and North Dakota are in for winning the regular season tournaments in their conferences. In addition, Wisconsin, Princeton and Boston College are in for winning their conference tournaments. (Michigan State won both the tournament and regular season championships in the CCHA.) The remaining five automatic bids are given out on the basis of the pairwise comparisons among teams. Here are the teams in the running for the five at-large bids:

   Team         lPWR RPI Comparisons Won
 1 Michigan      11 .583 OSCkNHCCNESCMDNMMeMmRP
 2 Ohio State    10 .565   CkNHCCNESCMDNMMeMmRP
 3 Clarkson       8 .570 __  NHCCNESC__NMMeMmRP
 4 New Hampshire  8 .559 ____  CCNESCMDNMMeMmRP
 5 CO College     7 .548 ______  NESCMDNMMeMmRP
    
 6 NorthEastern   5 .519 ________  SCMD__MeMmRP
 7 St Cloud       5 .535 __________  MDNMMeMmRP
 8 Minn-Duluth    4 .514 __Ck________  NM__MmRP
 9 Northern Mich  4 .528 ________NE____  MeMmRP
10 Maine          3 .527 ____________MD__  MmRP
11 Miami          1 .515 __________________  RP
12 RPI            0 .498 ____________________

With the exception of the Clarkson/UMD comparison, the top five teams beat all the others, so it's easy to see they make the tourney. Here, then, are the qualifying teams (which happen to be the top twelve in the PWR):

      West                                  East
1 Mich State     5 .621 NDMiOSWiCC | 1 Boston Univ    5 .595 BCCkNHYaPn
2 North Dakota   4 .616   MiOSWiCC | 2 Boston Coll    4 .581   CkNHYaPn
3 Michigan       3 .583 __  OSWiCC | 3 Clarkson       3 .570 __  NHYaPn
4 Ohio State     2 .565 ____  WiCC | 4 New Hampshire  2 .559 ____  YaPn
5 Wisconsin      1 .560 ______  CC | 5 Yale           1 .543 ______  Pn
6 CO College     0 .548 ________   | 6 Princeton      0 .518 ________
    

Michigan State automatically receives a first-round bye in the regionals for winning both the CCHA regular season title and the CCHA tournament. The pairwise comparisons also tell us to give BU, BC and North Dakota byes. Going by the numbers, we should swap Yale and Princeton with Wisconsin and Colorado College. However, the NCAA wants to avoid regionals games between teams in the same conference. With three teams from each conference in the tournament, the way to prevent early intraconference games is to ship one team from each conference to the other region. Thus we need to ship out one CCHA team instead of a WCHA team; since Michigan is the host school and MSU guaranteed a bye, it must be Ohio State. Wisconsin wins the pairwise comparison with CC, and would be a bigger draw in the regionals in Ann Arbor, so they're the obvious choice to stay West. In the East, UNH is the lowest-ranked Hockey East team (the other two earned byes) so they should go West, presumably along with Princeton. This leaves a population in the regionals of:

      West                                  East
1 Mich State (C)     1 .621 ND     | 1 Boston Univ (H)    1 .595 BC
2 North Dakota (W)   0 .616        | 2 Boston Coll (H)    0 .581
  
3 Michigan (C)       3 .583 WiNHPn | 3 Ohio State (C)     3 .565 CkCCYa
4 Wisconsin (W)      2 .560   NHPn | 4 Clarkson (E)       2 .570   CCYa
5 New Hampshire (H)  1 .559 __  Pn | 5 CO College (W)     1 .548 __  Ya
6 Princeton (E)      0 .518 ____   | 6 Yale (E)           0 .543 ____
    

The natural seedings in both regionals give no intraconference games in the first two rounds, so we are led painlessly to the following brackets:

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

I think we can expect those to be the brackets with a fair degree of confidence, assuming the NCAA places as much emphasis on avoiding intraconference matchups as we think they do. We'll know in a few hours, at any rate.

Want to see a rundown of the reasons for these comparisons? Here it is, in all its 94k glory


Last Modified: 2011 October 9

Joe Schlobotnik / joe@amurgsval.org

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