Last Modified: 2012 March 25
Joe Schlobotnik / joe@amurgsval.org
URL for this frameset: http://slack.net/~whelan/tbrw/tbrw.cgi?2000/pairwise.000301.shtml
Game results taken from US College Hockey Online's Division I composite schedule
This analysis is based on the pairwise comparisons at the time it was written. You can also go through this process interactively with the up-to-date results using the "You Are The Committee" script.
Only one weekend remains in the regular seasons of the six Division I conferences, and so the NCAA tournament picture is beginning to come into focus. We know for certain that Hockey East's Boston University and Wisconsin of the WCHA will receive berths in the tournament for winning their respective conference regular season titles. The automatic berths for the ECAC and CCHA regular season tournaments will be determined this weekend, with the bids for the tournament champions in the four established conferences to follow. To see who's currently in position for the at-large bids used to fill out of the field of 12, let's run through the tournament selection procedure using the results to date. Here are the pairwise comparisons among the 25 teams with records of .500 or better in Division I play:
Before applying these comparisons, we need to have a look at the relative strength of the six conferences, to decide whether the selection committee might exercise their prerogative to overrrule the pairwise comparisons as they did with last year's MAAC regular season champion Quinnipiac. Here is a look at the six Division I conferences' performances against one another:
| Conference | Avg RPI | vs HE | vs WCHA | vs CCHA | vs ECAC | vs CHA | vs MAAC | Leader | Opp RPI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hockey East (H) | .5356 | 13-6 | 10-7 | 26-15-3 | 3-2-1 | 5-0 | NH | .5275 | |
| WCHA (W) | .5144 | 6-13 | 13-12-1 | 10-2-1 | 3-1 | 0-0 | Wi | .5023 | |
| CCHA (C) | .4915 | 7-10 | 12-13-1 | 11-10-2 | 1-1 | 0-0 | Mi | .4834 | |
| ECAC (E) | .4904 | 15-26-3 | 2-10-1 | 10-11-2 | 8-5-1 | 4-0 | SL | .4821 | |
| CHA (A) | .4867 | 2-3-1 | 1-3 | 1-1 | 5-8-1 | 15-5-2 | Ni | .4479 | |
| MAAC (M) | .4498 | 0-5 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-4 | 5-15-2 | Qn | .4324 |
We see that the level of play in the MAAC is far below that of the other conferences, while College Hockey America is somewhat weaker than the other three. Since CHA frontrunners Niagara have performed poorly in the two weeks since our last analysis, they are now ranked 10th, just below Quinnipiac, according to the "raw" pairwise comparisons. It seems reasonable to conjecture that they would just miss the tournament after a slight discounting of their pairwise comparisons, while Quinnipiac would of course be an easy call to leave out. (This conclusion is also supported by looking at ranking systems which use the same input as the Ratings Percentage Index, but analyze it in a way which is not rendered inaccurate by weak schedules. For instance, Niagara is, as of March 1, 21st in the nation according to the KRACH rating system, while Quinnipiac is #42.)
If Quinnipiac and Niagara are excluded, the remaining 12 members of the top 14 above (including the two conference regular season winners) win all their comparisons with the rest of the Teams Under Consideration, so the choice of the tournament field is obvious:
| West | East | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wisconsin (W) | 5 | .623 | ND | Mi | MS | SC | Mn | 1 | Boston Univ (H) | 5 | .595 | NH | Me | SL | Cg | BC |
| North Dakota (W) | 4 | .594 | Mi | MS | SC | Mn | 2 | New Hampshire (H) | 3 | .600 | Me | SL | BC | |||
| Michigan (C) | 3 | .580 | MS | SC | Mn | 3 | Maine (H) | 3 | .593 | SL | Cg | BC | ||||
| Mich State (C) | 2 | .554 | SC | Mn | 4 | St Lawrence (E) | 2 | .582 | Cg | BC | ||||||
| St Cloud (W) | 1 | .538 | Mn | 5 | Colgate (E) | 2 | .572 | NH | BC | |||||||
| Minnesota (W) | 0 | .548 | 6 | Boston Coll (H) | 0 | .574 | ||||||||||
First-round byes in the NCAA regionals are assigned to the top two teams in each region; in the West this is Wisconsin and North Dakota, while in the East Boston University gets the #1 seed, and while New Hampshire and Maine both win pairwise comparisons with three of the other five Eastern teams, UNH wins the head-to-head comparison, so they're the choice for the final bye. (Note that any team winning the regular season and playoff title in an established conference gets an automatic first-round bye; as the comparisons stand now, that would be a major incentive for whoever wins the ECAC and CCHA regular season to win their conference tournament as well.)
The next step is to send two Eastern teams to the West Regional in Minneapolis and two Western teams to the East Regional in Albany. Based on pairwise comparisons, the two lowest-ranked teams in the West are St. Cloud and Minnesota, while in the East they are Colgate and Boston College. However, Minnesota is the host of the West regional, as so must stay there; the next lowest-ranked team is Michigan State, so SCSU and MSU would almost certainly be sent to Albany. In the East, things are somewhat more complicated. With two Hockey East teams receiving the byes, a possible second-round intraconference matchup can only be avoided by sending the other two HE entrants to the other regional. This would, however, mean keeping Colgate East at Maine's expense, going against the pairwise comparisons. Another consideration in these cases is often attendance; Colgate is much closer to the regional site of Albany, but Maine has a large fan base. Another consideration would be whether Maine and New Hampshire had met in the Hockey East playoffs; in past years the committee has been more willing to set up intraconference games if they did not occur in the relevant conference tournament. For the sake of argument, let's say the committee decides to ship Maine and keep both ECAC teams in the East. That makes the "natural" seedings for the two regionals
| West | East | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wisconsin (W) | 1 | .623 | ND | 1 | Boston Univ (H) | 1 | .595 | NH | ||||
| North Dakota (W) | 0 | .594 | 2 | New Hampshire (H) | 0 | .600 | ||||||
| Maine (H) | 3 | .593 | Mi | BC | Mn | 3 | St Lawrence (E) | 3 | .582 | Cg | MS | SC |
| Michigan (C) | 2 | .580 | BC | Mn | 4 | Colgate (E) | 2 | .572 | MS | SC | ||
| Boston Coll (H) | 1 | .574 | Mn | 5 | Mich State (C) | 1 | .554 | SC | ||||
| Minnesota (W) | 0 | .548 | 6 | St Cloud (W) | 0 | .538 | ||||||
With these seedings, there are no intraconference games in the first round, and one (Minnesota vs North Dakota) in the second round. That matchup is unavoidable, however, since two WCHA teams qualify for first-round byes and a third is hosting the regional. So that makes the projected seedings
5W Boston Coll (H) 6E St Cloud (W)
4W Michigan (C) 3E St Lawrence (E)
1W Wisconsin (W) --+--2E New Hampshire (H)
|
2W North Dakota (W) --+--1E Boston Univ (H)
3W Maine (H) 4E Colgate (E)
6W Minnesota (W) 5E Mich State (C)
If you want to have a look at why each pairwise comparison turned out the way it did, you can click on the individual comparisons in the table at the top of this article for a breakdown of criteria.