The season ended today, 2001 March 18

© 2000, 2001, Joe Schlobotnik (archives)

URL for this frameset: http://slack.net/~whelan/tbrw/tbrw.cgi?2001/pairwise.010318.shtml

Game results taken from US College Hockey Online's Division I composite schedule

With the conclusion of all the conference tournaments, the NCAA Men's Division I Ice Hockey regular season has come to an end, and it's time for the committee to seed the NCAA tournament. Five teams earned automatic berths today by winning their conference tournaments: St. Cloud in the WCHA, Michigan State in the CCHA, St. Lawrence in the ECAC, Boston College in Hockey East, and Mercyhurst in the MAAC. The seven at-large bids will be assigned on the basis of pairwise comparisons between teams using the NCAA's selection criteria. Here are the final pairwise comparisons among the 30 teams with Division 1 records of .500 or better:

Pairwise Comparisons
Rk Team PWR RPI Comparisons Won
1 Mich State (C) 29 .6334 BC SC ND Mi CC Mn Me Wi Pv NH Mh Ck SL DU Qn NO Mm Ca WM ML NM Cr Mk Ha AH Da Io RP SH
2 Boston Coll (H) 28 .6162 SC ND Mi CC Mn Me Wi Pv NH Mh Ck SL DU Qn NO Mm Ca WM ML NM Cr Mk Ha AH Da Io RP SH
3 SCloud (W) 27 .5952   ND Mi CC Mn Me Wi Pv NH Mh Ck SL DU Qn NO Mm Ca WM ML NM Cr Mk Ha AH Da Io RP SH
4 North Dakota (W) 26 .5843     Mi CC Mn Me Wi Pv NH Mh Ck SL DU Qn NO Mm Ca WM ML NM Cr Mk Ha AH Da Io RP SH
5 Michigan (C) 25 .5752       CC Mn Me Wi Pv NH Mh Ck SL DU Qn NO Mm Ca WM ML NM Cr Mk Ha AH Da Io RP SH
6 CCollege (W) 24 .5866         Mn Me Wi Pv NH Mh Ck SL DU Qn NO Mm Ca WM ML NM Cr Mk Ha AH Da Io RP SH
7 Minnesota (W) 23 .5713           Me Wi Pv NH Mh Ck SL DU Qn NO Mm Ca WM ML NM Cr Mk Ha AH Da Io RP SH
8 Maine (H) 22 .5578             Wi Pv NH Mh Ck SL DU Qn NO Mm Ca WM ML NM Cr Mk Ha AH Da Io RP SH
9 Wisconsin (W) 20 .5560               Pv NH   Ck SL DU Qn NO Mm Ca WM ML NM Cr Mk Ha AH Da Io RP SH
10 Providence (H) 20 .5532                 NH Mh Ck SL DU Qn NO Mm Ca WM ML NM Cr Mk Ha AH Da Io RP SH
11 New Hampshire (H) 19 .5469                   Mh Ck SL DU Qn NO Mm Ca WM ML NM Cr Mk Ha AH Da Io RP SH
12 Mercyhurst (M) 19 .5461               Wi     Ck SL DU Qn NO Mm Ca WM ML NM Cr Mk Ha AH Da Io RP SH
13 Clarkson (E) 17 .5433                       SL DU Qn NO Mm Ca WM ML NM Cr Mk Ha AH Da Io RP SH
14 SLawrence (E) 15 .5371                           Qn NO Mm Ca WM ML NM Cr Mk Ha AH Da Io RP SH
15 Denver U (W) 14 .5425                         SL Qn   Mm   WM ML NM Cr Mk Ha AH Da Io RP SH
16 Quinnipiac (M) 14 .5356                             NO Mm Ca WM ML NM Cr Mk Ha AH Da Io RP SH
17 NE-Omaha (C) 14 .5290                           DU   Mm Ca WM ML NM Cr Mk Ha AH Da Io RP SH
18 Miami (C) 11 .5194                                 Ca WM   NM Cr Mk Ha AH Da Io RP SH
19 Canisius (M) 11 .5089                           DU       WM   NM Cr Mk Ha AH Da Io RP SH
20 Western Mich (C) 10 .5321                                     ML NM Cr Mk Ha AH Da Io RP SH
21 Mass-Lowell (H) 10 .5217                                 Mm Ca     Cr Mk Ha AH Da Io RP SH
22 Northern Mich (C) 9 .5252                                       ML Cr Mk Ha AH Da Io RP SH
23 Cornell (E) 6 .5167                                           Mk Ha AH   Io RP SH
24 MSU-Mankato (W) 5 .5187                                             Ha AH   Io RP SH
25 Harvard (E) 5 .5102                                               AH Da Io RP SH
26 AL-Huntsville (A) 4 .5056                                                 Da Io RP SH
27 Dartmouth (E) 4 .5047                                           Cr Mk       RP SH
28 Iona (M) 3 .5050                                                   Da RP SH
29 RPI (E) 1 .4932                                                       SH
30 Sacred Heart (M) 0 .4751                                                        

Seven teams--North Dakota, Michigan, Colorado College, Minnesota, Maine, Wisconsin, and Providence--win their pairwise comparisons with all the rest of the teams in the running for an at-large berth, so they will clearly receive the seven at-large berths. The field of twelve is thus:

TeamlPWRRPI Comparisons Won
Mich State (C) 11 .6334 BC SC ND Mi CC Mn Me Wi Pv Mh SL
Boston Coll (H) 10 .6162 SC ND Mi CC Mn Me Wi Pv Mh SL
SCloud (W) 9 .5952   ND Mi CC Mn Me Wi Pv Mh SL
North Dakota (W) 8 .5843     Mi CC Mn Me Wi Pv Mh SL
Michigan (C) 7 .5752       CC Mn Me Wi Pv Mh SL
CCollege (W) 6 .5866         Mn Me Wi Pv Mh SL
Minnesota (W) 5 .5713           Me Wi Pv Mh SL
Maine (H) 4 .5578             Wi Pv Mh SL
Wisconsin (W) 2 .5560               Pv   SL
Providence (H) 2 .5532                 Mh SL
Mercyhurst (M) 2 .5461               Wi   SL
SLawrence (E) 0 .5371                    

With the exception of Mercyhurst's win over Wisconsin, the PWCs can be used to define a strict ordering of the teams, where a "higher" team always wins the comparison with a "lower" one. But given the poor overall performance of the MAAC (average RPI of .457, compared to a range of .485 to .529 for the other four converences with auto-bids, and a non-conference record of 2-12-3 vs te ECAC and 0-12-1 vs the other three major conferences), and the well-known weaknesses of the NCAA selection criteria in the presence of weak conferences, it seems reasonable to expect that the NCAA will discount their comparisons as they did with Quinnipiac and Niagara in past years, and rank them #12 of the 12 tournament teams.

So, the four byes are given to the top four teams: MSU, BC, SCSU, and NoDak. To bracket the teams so that #1 MSU would meet #4 North Dakota in the finals, we give the seeds as follows:

1W
Mich State (C)
2W
SCloud (W)
1E
Boston Coll (H)
2E
North Dakota (W)

Now we need to put some Eastern teams in the West Regional and some Western ones in the East. Given a 6/6 split, the committee always swaps two Eastern for two Western teams. In this case, we've got a 7/5 split, but an extra Western team has already been put in a bye slot in the East. I presume the committee will opt to swap two more pairs of teams anyway. All else being equal, it will be the bottom teams from each region, which would be Minnesota and Wisconsin for SLU and Mercyherst. But since the commitee likes to avoid second-round matchups of teams from the same conference, they might not want to keep all three Hockey East teams in the East regional, thus sending Providence West in place of SLU. The regional fields would then look like this:

Western Regional
(Grand Rapids, MI)

Eastern Regional
(Worcester, MA)

TeamlPWRRPI Comps Won
Mich State (C)
SCloud (W)
Michigan (C) 3 .5752 CC Pv Mh
CCollege (W) 2 .5866 Pv Mh
Providence (H) 1 .5532   Mh
Mercyhurst (M) 0 .5461    
TeamlPWRRPI Comps Won
Boston Coll (H)
North Dakota (W)
Minnesota (W) 3 .5713 Me Wi SL
Maine (H) 2 .5578 Wi SL
Wisconsin (W) 1 .5560   SL
SLawrence (E) 0 .5371    

The natural seedings in the West lead to no first or second-round intraconference matchups. In the East, the fact that natural 4-seed Maine comes from the same conference as 1-seed BC, and likewise with 2-seed NoDak and natural 3-seed Minnesota, the committee would trade the seeds of Maine and Minnesota. In order to avoid a first-round Wisconsin-Minnesota game (and incidentally preserve the natural pairings among the 3-6 teams), they would also drop Wisconsin to a 6 seed in place of SLU. So our best guess at the brackets is:

5W Providence (H)                  6E Wisconsin (W)     
4W CO College (W)                  3E Maine (H)         
     1W Mich State (C)   --+--2E North Dakota (W)       
                           |                            
     2W St Cloud (W)     --+--1E Boston Coll (H)        
3W Michigan (C)                    4E Minnesota (W)     
6W Mercyhurst (M)                  5E St Lawrence (E)   

In a little over twelve hours, we'll know what the committee actually did.


Last Modified: 2011 October 9

Joe Schlobotnik / joe@amurgsval.org

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