The season ended today, 2002 March 17

© 2000-2002, Joe Schlobotnik (archives)

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

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

Now that the CCHA title game has been played, all the results are in for selecting and seeding the NCAA tournament field. Central to this process are the pairwise comparisons among the 27 teams who finished the season at or above .500 (in games against tournament-eligible teams, which doesn't include Findlay). Those are as follows:

Current Pairwise Comparisons (including games of 2002 March 17)

Pairwise Comparisons
Rk Team PWR RPI Comparisons Won
1 New Hampshire (H) 26 .6239 DU Mn BU MS Mi Me SC CC Cr Ak NM WM ML Mh OS NO RP NE BC WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
2 Denver U  (W) 25 .6259 Mn BU MS Mi Me SC CC Cr Ak NM WM ML Mh OS NO RP NE BC WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
3 Minnesota  (W) 24 .6241   BU MS Mi Me SC CC Cr Ak NM WM ML Mh OS NO RP NE BC WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
4 Boston Univ  (H) 22 .5991     MS   Me SC CC Cr Ak NM WM ML Mh OS NO RP NE BC WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
5 Mich State  (C) 22 .5940       Mi Me SC CC Cr Ak NM WM ML Mh OS NO RP NE BC WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
6 Michigan  (C) 21 .5826     BU   Me   CC Cr Ak NM WM ML Mh OS NO RP NE BC WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
7 Maine  (H) 20 .5882           SC CC Cr Ak NM WM ML Mh OS NO RP NE BC WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
8 SCloud  (W) 19 .5947         Mi   CC   Ak NM WM ML Mh OS NO RP NE BC WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
9 CCollege  (W) 18 .5824               Cr Ak NM WM ML Mh OS NO RP NE BC WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
10 Cornell  (E) 18 .5793             SC   Ak NM WM ML Mh OS NO RP NE BC WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
11 AK-Fairbanks  (C) 16 .5607                   NM WM ML Mh OS NO RP NE BC WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
12 Northern Mich (C) 15 .5568                     WM ML Mh OS NO RP NE BC WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
13 Western Mich  (C) 13 .5415                       ML   OS NO RP NE BC WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
14 Mass-Lowell  (H) 13 .5611                         Mh OS NO RP NE BC WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
15 Mercyhurst  (M) 11 .5426                       WM   OS NO     BC WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
16 Ohio State  (C) 11 .5364                             NO RP NE BC WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
17 NE-Omaha  (C) 10 .5361                               RP NE BC WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
18 RPI  (E) 10 .5157                           Mh     NE BC WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
19 NorthEastern  (H) 9 .5352                           Mh       BC WS Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
20 Boston Coll  (H) 6 .5168                                     WS   Qn Ha Da SH HC
21 Wayne State  (A) 6 .5088                                       Ck Qn Ha Da SH HC
22 Clarkson  (E) 6 .5048                                     BC   Qn Ha Da SH HC
23 Quinnipiac  (M) 4 .5032                                           Ha Da SH HC
24 Harvard  (E) 3 .4999                                             Da SH HC
25 Dartmouth  (E) 2 .4823                                               SH HC
26 Sacred Heart  (M) 1 .4806                                                 HC
27 Holy Cross  (M) 0 .4753                                                  

Five teams received automatic berths for winning their conference tournaments: Denver in the WCHA, Michigan in the CCHA, Harvard in the ECAC, Quinnipiac in the MAAC, and New Hampshire in Hockey East. This leaves seven at-large bids, which will go to Minnesota, Boston University, Michigan State, Maine, St. Cloud, Colorado College, and Cornell, since these seven win all their pairwise comparisons with all other teams in contention for at-large bids. This gives a tournament field of:

TeamlPWRRPI Comparisons Won
New Hampshire (H) 11 .6239 DU Mn BU MS Mi Me SC CC Cr Qn Ha
Denver U (W) 10 .6259 Mn BU MS Mi Me SC CC Cr Qn Ha
Minnesota (W) 9 .6241   BU MS Mi Me SC CC Cr Qn Ha
Boston Univ (H) 7 .5991     MS   Me SC CC Cr Qn Ha
Mich State (C) 7 .5940       Mi Me SC CC Cr Qn Ha
Michigan (C) 6 .5826     BU   Me   CC Cr Qn Ha
Maine (H) 5 .5882           SC CC Cr Qn Ha
SCloud (W) 4 .5947         Mi   CC   Qn Ha
CCollege (W) 3 .5824               Cr Qn Ha
Cornell (E) 3 .5793             SC   Qn Ha
Quinnipiac (M) 1 .5032                   Ha
Harvard (E) 0 .4999                    

The top four teams in the nation receive first-round byes. UNH, DU, and Minnesota all win all comparisons against the rest of the field, so they get three of them. The final bye comes down to a choice among Boston University, Michigan State, and Michigan, with each team winning one comparison and losing one with the other two. In this case the ratings percentage index should be applied as a tie-breaker, giving the last bye to BU.

The assignment of bye seeds is actually a tricky thing. Boston University, as host of the East Regional, must play there. But according to the NCAA's Championship Handbook for Division I Men's Ice Hockey, #4 BU must be placed in the bracket so as to play #1 UNH in the national semifinal if they both advance. With Boston University as the second seed in the East, that means New Hampshire must be the first seed in the West, and either Denver or Minnesota must be sent East as a number one seed. (The documents we've seen (see a recent hockey-l post for an explanation) describing a policy change to reduce travel seem to imply that the preceding reasoning is unaffected, as they say that the "seeded" teams (the top four in the hockey tournament) should be placed into the bracket first, and travel-reducing considerations then applied to the remaining teams.) This would likely make New Hampshire fans unhappy, and the "reward" of being bracketed to play BU is likely offset in the Wildcats' minds by the penalty of flying out to the West Regional. Nonetheless, it appears to be the only course of action consistent with the NCAA's published guidelines.

Given that both Minnesota and Denver are more than 400 miles from both regionals, either team would be flying to either regional site, so there's not much to favor sending one or the other East in UNH's place, except that Minnesota might bring more fans to the West Regional in Ann Arbor Michigan. Denver, as the national #2, should get the more "favorable" seed, although it's not clear whether this would be the second seed in their own regional or the top seed in the other. So as a pure guess, let's suppose Denver goes East.

There are four teams from each region without byes, and since the NCAA is trying to minimize travel in accordance with the aforementioned policy, it seems safe to assume that the eight teams will all stay in their own regions, which gives us regionals of:

Western Regional
(Ann Arbor, MI)

Eastern Regional
(Worcester, MA)

TeamlPWRRPI Comps Won
New Hampshire (H) 1 .6239 Mn
Minnesota (W) 0 .6241
Mich State (C) 3 .5940 SC Mi CC
SCloud (W) 2 .5947 Mi CC
Michigan (C) 1 .5826   CC
CCollege (W) 0 .5824    
TeamlPWRRPI Comps Won
Denver U (W) 1 .6259 BU
Boston Univ (H) 0 .5991
Maine (H) 3 .5882 Cr Qn Ha
Cornell (E) 2 .5793 Qn Ha
Quinnipiac (M) 1 .5032   Ha
Harvard (E) 0 .4999    

Both regionals can be seeded directly according to the pairwise comparisons without any first-round intraconference matchups. In principle, the committee might overrule the Quinnipiac-Harvard comparison because the MAAC is a substantially weaker conference than the ECAC and thus the selection criteria are unreliable in making the comparison. However, moving Harvard up to the fifth seed would set up a rematch of the ECAC championship game with Cornell, so the ordering is best left alone. That makes the expected brackets

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

The selection committee's actual choices will be known in the next hour or two, but with the reduced travel, the unpredictable decisions about regional placement are avoided. The only question is the identity of the #1 seed in the East, with the bracket above being about as likely as one in which Minnesota and Denver are reversed. One other possiblity might be to interchange Denver and New Hampshire, and keep all twelve teams in their own regions. However, as noted above, this would seem to require that the committee disregard the details of the process described in the championships manual.


Last Modified: 2011 October 9

Joe Schlobotnik / joe@amurgsval.org

HTML 4.0 compliant CSS2 compliant