Last Modified: 2019 July 24
Joe Schlobotnik / joe@amurgsval.org
URL for this frameset: http://elynah.com/tbrw/tbrw.cgi?1998/pairwise.980112.shtml
It's time for this week's look at how the NCAA Tournament selection procedure might go if the seeding were done at this moment. Once again, this is based on my calculation of the selection criteria starting with results from US College Hockey Online's Division I Composite Schedule. It's come to my attention that Nebraska-Omaha, in its first NCAA season, is not eligible for the national tournament, so I'm not counting games against UNO in any of my calculations, which means that my Ratings Percentage Index numbers will differ slightly from the current RPI calculated by USCHO, even before any more games are played. Here are the results of the pairwise comparisons among the 24 Teams Under Consideration:
Team PWR RPI Comparisons Won 1 Mich State 23 .592 NDBUMiNHSCWiCgMmYaBCPvCCMeNMLSCrNEPnNtOSCkRPML 2 North Dakota 22 .627 BUMiNHSCWiCgMmYaBCPvCCMeNMLSCrNEPnNtOSCkRPML 3 Boston Univ 21 .617 __ MiNHSCWiCgMmYaBCPvCCMeNMLSCrNEPnNtOSCkRPML 4 Michigan 20 .599 ____ NHSCWiCgMmYaBCPvCCMeNMLSCrNEPnNtOSCkRPML 5 New Hampshire 19 .624 ______ SCWiCgMmYaBCPvCCMeNMLSCrNEPnNtOSCkRPML 6 St Cloud 16 .572 ________ WiCg____BCPvCCMeNMLSCrNEPnNtOSCkRPML 7 Wisconsin 16 .567 __________ CgMm__BCPvCCMeNMLSCrNEPnNtOSCkRPML 8 Colgate 16 .564 ____________ MmYaBCPvCCMeNMLSCrNEPnNtOSCkRPML 9 Miami 16 .563 ________SC____ YaBCPvCCMeNMLSCrNEPnNtOSCkRPML 10 Yale 16 .551 ________SCWi____ BCPvCCMeNMLSCrNEPnNtOSCkRPML 11 Boston Coll 13 .563 __________________ PvCCMeNMLSCrNEPnNtOSCkRPML 12 Providence 12 .550 ____________________ CCMeNMLSCrNEPnNtOSCkRPML 13 CO College 10 .536 ______________________ MeNMLSCr__PnNtOSCkRPML 14 Maine 10 .536 ________________________ NMLSCrNEPnNtOSCkRPML 15 Northern Mich 8 .534 __________________________ LSCrNE__NtOSCkRPML 16 Lake Superior 8 .525 ____________________________ CrNEPnNtOSCkRPML 17 Cornell 7 .528 ______________________________ NEPnNtOSCkRPML 18 Northeastern 7 .523 ______________________CC________ PnNtOSCkRPML 19 Princeton 6 .514 __________________________NM______ NtOSCkRPML 20 Notre Dame 4 .536 ____________________________________ OSCkRPML 21 Ohio State 3 .523 ______________________________________ CkRPML 22 Clarkson 2 .495 ________________________________________ RPML 23 RPI 1 .492 __________________________________________ ML 24 Mass-Lowell 0 .498 ____________________________________________
Note the five-way tie among St. Cloud, Wisconsin, Colgate, Miami, and Yale, with each team winning comparisons with two of the others and losing to the remaining two. The appropriate way to resolve such a tie is with the RPI, although those five teams will not be all competing for anything at the same time. By the way, if games against UNO are included in the mix, Michigan Tech becomes the 25th TUC, and there are a few comparisons that go the other way, although the only ones of possible relevance are that St. Cloud would beat Miami and Yale in that case.
To start the dry run, we hand out automatic bids to the regular season "champions", in this case the leaders St. Cloud, Michigan, Yale and BU. The at-large bids clearly go to Michigan State, North Dakota, Wisconsin and Miami from the West and UNH, Colgate, BC and Providence from the East; those teams win pairwise comparisons with every other team under consideration. To determine the byes and the placement of teams within regions, let's look at the comparisons among the eastern and western teams:
West East
1 Mich State 5 .592 NDMiSCWiMm | 1 Boston Univ 5 .617 NHCgYaBCPv
2 North Dakota 4 .627 MiSCWiMm | 2 New Hampshire 4 .624 CgYaBCPv
3 Michigan 3 .599 __ SCWiMm | 3 Colgate 3 .564 __ YaBCPv
4 St Cloud 1 .572 ____ Wi__ | 4 Yale 2 .551 ____ BCPv
5 Wisconsin 1 .567 ______ Mm | 5 Boston Coll 1 .563 ______ Pv
6 Miami 1 .563 ____SC__ | 6 Providence 0 .550 ________
The byes would go to Michigan State, North Dakota, BU and New Hampshire. Note that of these four, only BU is a regular season champion in our game of make-believe, so Michigan, SCSU, or Yale could "steal" a bye with a win in the conference tournament. Now to place teams in regions. Rensselaer, the Eastern host, is not in the tournament, Michigan, the host of the West Regional, has to stay in the West, but the numbers point in that direction anyway. BC and Providence, as the two lowest Eastern Seeds, are to be shipped out West. The bottom three teams in the West are all even in the pairwise comparisons, so going by the numbers, St. Cloud should stay West because they have the highest RPI of the three. (Although I suspect that the committee would opt to keep Wisconsin instead for attendance reasons; see below.) Note that if the games with UNO were included, St. Cloud would beat Miami in the pairwise, and their claim to stay West would just be more clear-cut. Now to seed the two regionals:
West East
1 Mich State (C) 1 .592 ND | 1 Boston Univ (H) 1 .617 NH
2 North Dakota (W) 0 .627 | 2 New Hampshire (H) 0 .624
3 Michigan (C) 3 .599 SCBCPv | 3 Wisconsin (W) 2 .567 CgMm__
4 St Cloud (W) 2 .572 BCPv | 4 Colgate (E) 2 .564 __ MmYa
5 Boston Coll (H) 1 .563 __ Pv | 5 Miami (C) 1 .563 ____ Ya
6 Providence (H) 0 .550 ____ | 6 Yale (E) 1 .551 Wi____
In the West, everything is straightforward; in the East, Wisconsin and Colgate each win two comparisons, with the Badgers earning the 3 seed by virtue of their pairwise comparison with the Red Raiders. Likewise, Miami claims the 5-seed from Yale on similar grounds. These seedings turn out to give tournament brackets with no first- or second-round matchups between teams in the same conference. Here they are:
5W Boston Coll (H) 6E Yale (E)
4W St Cloud (W) 3E Wisconsin (W)
1W Mich State (C) 2E New Hampshire (H)
2W North Dakota (W) 1E Boston Univ (H)
3W Michigan (C) 4E Colgate (E)
6W Providence(H) 5E Miami (C)
The one problem with these brackets, from the NCAA standpoint, is that Wisconsin would bring more fans to the Western regional in Michigan than would SCSU, so the committee would probably swap the two teams, giving us:
West East
1 Mich State (C) 1 .592 ND | 1 Boston Univ (H) 1 .617 NH
2 North Dakota (W) 0 .627 | 2 New Hampshire (H) 0 .624
3 Michigan (C) 3 .599 WiBCPv | 3 Colgate (E) 2 .564 MmYa__
4 Wisconsin (W) 2 .567 BCPv | 4 Miami (C) 2 .563 __ YaSC
5 Boston Coll (H) 1 .563 __ Pv | 5 Yale (E) 1 .551 ____ SC
6 Providence (H) 0 .550 ____ | 6 St Cloud (W) 1 .572 Cg____
Again, there is no problem seeding the West, and in the East, the two two-team ties can be broken using the individual comparisons. (Note in particular that although SCSU has a higher PWR than Yale, the Bulldogs are seeded higher because they win the comparison with the Huskies. Again, we have a bracket with no potential intraconference matchups in the regionals, and the potential Big Ten battle between Wisconsin and Michigan State should bring the fans to Ann Arbor:
5W Boston Coll (H) 6E St Cloud (W)
4W Wisconsin (W) 3E Colgate (E)
1W Mich State (C) 2E New Hampshire (H)
2W North Dakota (W) 1E Boston Univ (H)
3W Michigan (C) 4E Miami (C)
6W Providence(H) 5E Yale (E)
Finally, let's just note that if we throw the UNO games back in, St. Cloud wins the comparisons with Miami and Yale, and thus jumps to the head of the class:
5W Boston Coll (H) 6E Yale (E)
4W Wisconsin (W) 3E St Cloud (W)
1W Mich State (C) 2E New Hampshire (H)
2W North Dakota (W) 1E Boston Univ (H)
3W Michigan (C) 4E Colgate (E)
6W Providence(H) 5E Miami (C)
For those of you with strong constitutions, we present the 160k in-depth rundown on the individual comparisons both with and without Nebraska-Omaha.