If the season ended today, 2002 January 15

© 2000-2002, Joe Schlobotnik (archives)

URL for this frameset: http://slack.net/~whelan/tbrw/tbrw.cgi?2002/pairwise.020115.shtml

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

Since today is one of the dates when, according to the NCAA's Men's Division I Championship Handbook, the Division I advisory committees hold telecons, let's take our first look at how the NCAA selection procedure might play out if the season ended today.

Much of the seeding is based on pairwise comparisons carried out according to the selection criteria. Here are how those comparisons look for the 29 tournament-eligible teams with records at or above .500:

Pairwise Comparisons (including games of 2002 January 13)

Pairwise Comparisons
Rk Team PWR RPI Comparisons Won
1 Denver U  (W) 28 .6565 ML SC NH Mn MS Mi BU CC Me BC OS NM Ak Cr WM NO Ck NE FS Ni Ha Mh WS Da AF Un Ca HC
2 Mass-Lowell  (H) 27 .6431 SC NH Mn MS Mi BU CC Me BC OS NM Ak Cr WM NO Ck NE FS Ni Ha Mh WS Da AF Un Ca HC
3 SCloud  (W) 26 .6357   NH Mn MS Mi BU CC Me BC OS NM Ak Cr WM NO Ck NE FS Ni Ha Mh WS Da AF Un Ca HC
4 New Hampshire (H) 25 .6180     Mn MS Mi BU CC Me BC OS NM Ak Cr WM NO Ck NE FS Ni Ha Mh WS Da AF Un Ca HC
5 Minnesota  (W) 24 .6142       MS Mi BU CC Me BC OS NM Ak Cr WM NO Ck NE FS Ni Ha Mh WS Da AF Un Ca HC
6 Mich State  (C) 23 .5941         Mi BU CC Me BC OS NM Ak Cr WM NO Ck NE FS Ni Ha Mh WS Da AF Un Ca HC
7 Michigan  (C) 22 .5805           BU CC Me BC OS NM Ak Cr WM NO Ck NE FS Ni Ha Mh WS Da AF Un Ca HC
8 Boston Univ  (H) 21 .5874             CC Me BC OS NM Ak Cr WM NO Ck NE FS Ni Ha Mh WS Da AF Un Ca HC
9 CCollege  (W) 20 .5756               Me BC OS NM Ak Cr WM NO Ck NE FS Ni Ha Mh WS Da AF Un Ca HC
10 Maine  (H) 19 .5666                 BC OS NM Ak Cr WM NO Ck NE FS Ni Ha Mh WS Da AF Un Ca HC
11 Boston Coll  (H) 18 .5588                   OS NM Ak Cr WM NO Ck NE FS Ni Ha Mh WS Da AF Un Ca HC
12 Ohio State  (C) 16 .5540                     NM   Cr WM NO Ck NE FS Ni Ha Mh WS Da AF Un Ca HC
13 Northern Mich (C) 16 .5527                       Ak Cr WM NO Ck NE FS Ni Ha Mh WS Da AF Un Ca HC
14 AK-Fairbanks  (C) 14 .5569                     OS   Cr   NO Ck NE FS Ni   Mh WS Da AF Un Ca HC
15 Cornell  (E) 13 .5508                           WM   Ck NE FS Ni Ha Mh WS Da AF Un Ca HC
16 Western Mich  (C) 13 .5465                         Ak     Ck NE FS Ni Ha Mh WS Da AF Un Ca HC
17 NE-Omaha  (C) 12 .5554                           Cr WM Ck NE   Ni   Mh WS Da AF Un Ca HC
18 Clarkson  (E) 10 .5351                                 NE FS   Ha Mh WS Da AF Un Ca HC
19 NorthEastern  (H) 10 .5324                                   FS Ni Ha Mh WS Da AF Un Ca HC
20 Ferris State  (C) 10 .5236                               NO     Ni Ha Mh WS Da AF Un Ca HC
21 Niagara  (A) 9 .5107                                 Ck     Ha Mh WS Da AF Un Ca HC
22 Harvard  (E) 9 .5169                         Ak     NO         Mh WS Da AF Un Ca HC
23 Mercyhurst  (M) 6 .4889                                           WS Da AF Un Ca HC
24 Wayne State  (A) 5 .4845                                             Da AF Un Ca HC
25 Dartmouth  (E) 4 .4754                                               AF Un Ca HC
26 Air Force  (A) 3 .4576                                                 Un Ca HC
27 Union  (E) 2 .4804                                                   Ca HC
28 Canisius  (M) 1 .4389                                                     HC
29 Holy Cross  (M) 0 .4382                                                      

The tournament champions from five conferences receive automatic bids. Of the current league leaders (according to winning percentage), Denver (WCHA), Michigan State (CCHA) and UMass-Lowell (Hockey East) are all currently in the top six according to the pairwise, while Clarkson (ECAC) and Mercyhurst (MAAC) are not. If we pretend that these five teams win the five auto-bids, the remaining seven at-large bids go to the other seven members of the top ten in the table above; the tournament field would thus be:

TeamlPWRRPI Comparisons Won
Denver U (W) 11 .6566 ML SC NH MS Mn BU Mi CC Me Ck Mh
Mass-Lowell (H) 10 .6431 SC NH MS Mn BU Mi CC Me Ck Mh
SCloud (W) 9 .6357   NH MS Mn BU Mi CC Me Ck Mh
New Hampshire (H) 8 .6180     MS Mn BU Mi CC Me Ck Mh
Mich State (C) 7 .5983       Mn BU Mi CC Me Ck Mh
Minnesota (W) 6 .6140         BU Mi CC Me Ck Mh
Boston Univ (H) 5 .5874           Mi CC Me Ck Mh
Michigan (C) 4 .5795             CC Me Ck Mh
CCollege (W) 3 .5756               Me Ck Mh
Maine (H) 2 .5666                 Ck Mh
Clarkson (E) 1 .5360                   Mh
Mercyhurst (M) 0 .4995                    

Note that each team wins all the comparisons with the teams below them, so there is a well defined ranking, 1-12, of the teams.

The top four teams get byes. #1 Denver and #4 UNH need to be seeded so that they would meet in the national semifinal, which is easily accomplished by giving #1 Denver and #3 SCSU the two top seeds in the Western regional and #2 UML and #4 New Hampshire the 1 and 2 seeds in the East.

The remaining eight teams are four from the East and four from the West, so we should swap two Eastern for two Western teams to mix up the regionals. Regional hosts BU and Michigan have to stay in their regions. Of the remaining three Eastern teams, Maine has the advantage in the selection criteria, but with three Hockey East teams already in the Eastern regional, one would have to guess they'd go West. In the West, Michigan State beats the two WCHA teams on the criteria, plus they'd be the biggest draw in Michigan, and produce a regional with two teams from each Western conference. So the likely swaps seem to be Maine and Mercyhurst for Minnesota and Colorado College.

Western Regional
(Grand Rapids, MI)

Eastern Regional
(Worcester, MA)

TeamlPWRRPI Comps Won
Mich State (C) 3 .5983 Mi Me Mh
Michigan (C) 2 .5795 Me Mh
Maine (H) 1 .5666   Mh
Mercyhurst (M) 0 .4995    
TeamlPWRRPI Comps Won
Minnesota (W) 3 .6140 BU CC Ck
Boston Univ (H) 2 .5874 CC Ck
CCollege (W) 1 .5756   Ck
Clarkson (E) 0 .5360    

Finally, we need to seed each regional. Going by the pairwise comparisons give tournament brackets of

5W Maine (H)                       6E Clarkson (E)      
4W Michigan (C)                    3E Minnesota (W)     
     1W Denver U (W)     --+--2E New Hampshire (H)      
                           |                             
     2W St Cloud (W)     --+--1E Mass-Lowell (H)        
3W Mich State (C)                  4E Boston Univ (H)   
6W Mercyhurst (M)                  5E CO College (W)   

There's not really any more fine-tuning to be done, since the first- and second-round games are contain only one possible intraconference matchup (BU-Lowell), which is inevitable given that the two bye teams plus the host team are all from Hockey East. The one question with the current numbers would seem to be whether to send #11 Clarkson (overall #18) West in place of #10 Maine; the rest of the seeds would remain the same in this case.

The Gory Details

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.


Last Modified: 2012 March 25

Joe Schlobotnik / joe@amurgsval.org

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