If the season ended today, 2002 February 26

© 2000-2002, Joe Schlobotnik (archives)

URL for this frameset: http://elynah.com/tbrw/tbrw.cgi?2002/pairwise.020226.shtml

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

One week remains in the regular season of five of the six Division I conferences, and according to the NCAA's Men's Division I Championship Handbook, the Division I advisory committee had a teleconference today, so it's time for another dry run of the NCAA selection procedure.

A big part of the procedure are pairwise comparisons carried out according to the selection criteria. Here's a rundown of the pairwise comparisons among the 29 tournament-eligible teams with records at or above .500:

Pairwise Comparisons (including games of 2002 February 25)

Pairwise Comparisons
Rk Team PWR RPI Comparisons Won
1 New Hampshire (H) 28 .6138 DU SC BU MS Mn Mi Me CC Ak Cr WM NM Mh NO NE ML OS Bn BC Ck RP Da WS SH Qn Ni HC Ca
2 Denver U  (W) 26 .6278 SC BU   Mn Mi Me CC Ak Cr WM NM Mh NO NE ML OS Bn BC Ck RP Da WS SH Qn Ni HC Ca
3 St Cloud  (W) 26 .6154   BU MS Mn Mi Me CC Ak Cr WM NM Mh NO NE ML OS Bn BC Ck RP Da WS SH Qn Ni HC Ca
4 Boston Univ  (H) 25 .6123     MS Mn Mi Me CC Ak Cr WM NM Mh NO NE ML OS Bn BC Ck RP Da WS SH Qn Ni HC Ca
5 Mich State  (C) 24 .5994 DU       Mi Me CC Ak Cr WM NM Mh NO NE ML OS Bn BC Ck RP Da WS SH Qn Ni HC Ca
6 Minnesota  (W) 23 .6120       MS Mi Me CC Ak   WM NM Mh NO NE ML OS Bn BC Ck RP Da WS SH Qn Ni HC Ca
7 Michigan  (C) 22 .5807           Me CC Ak Cr WM NM Mh NO NE ML OS Bn BC Ck RP Da WS SH Qn Ni HC Ca
8 Maine  (H) 21 .5788             CC Ak Cr WM NM Mh NO NE ML OS Bn BC Ck RP Da WS SH Qn Ni HC Ca
9 CO College  (W) 20 .5775               Ak Cr WM NM Mh NO NE ML OS Bn BC Ck RP Da WS SH Qn Ni HC Ca
10 AK-Fairbanks  (C) 19 .5730                 Cr WM NM Mh NO NE ML OS Bn BC Ck RP Da WS SH Qn Ni HC Ca
11 Cornell  (E) 19 .5707         Mn         WM NM Mh NO NE ML OS Bn BC Ck RP Da WS SH Qn Ni HC Ca
12 Western Mich  (C) 17 .5661                     NM Mh NO NE ML OS Bn BC Ck RP Da WS SH Qn Ni HC Ca
13 Northern Mich (C) 16 .5534                       Mh NO NE ML OS Bn BC Ck RP Da WS SH Qn Ni HC Ca
14 Mercyhurst  (M) 14 .5463                         NO NE   OS Bn BC Ck RP Da WS SH Qn Ni HC Ca
15 NE-Omaha  (C) 13 .5547                           NE   OS Bn BC Ck RP Da WS SH Qn Ni HC Ca
16 NorthEastern  (H) 13 .5432                             ML OS Bn BC Ck RP Da WS SH Qn Ni HC Ca
17 Mass-Lowell  (H) 12 .5603                         Mh NO   OS   BC Ck RP Da WS   Qn Ni HC Ca
18 Ohio State  (C) 11 .5303                                 Bn BC Ck RP Da WS SH Qn Ni HC Ca
19 Brown  (E) 11 .5151                               ML   BC Ck RP Da WS SH Qn Ni HC Ca
20 Boston Coll  (H) 8 .5292                                     Ck RP Da   SH Qn Ni HC Ca
21 Clarkson  (E) 8 .5051                                       RP Da WS SH Qn Ni HC Ca
22 RPI  (E) 7 .4982                                         Da WS SH Qn Ni HC Ca
23 Dartmouth  (E) 6 .4894                                           WS SH Qn Ni HC Ca
24 Wayne State  (A) 6 .4815                                     BC       SH Qn Ni HC Ca
25 Sacred Heart  (M) 5 .4811                               ML               Qn Ni HC Ca
26 Quinnipiac  (M) 3 .4786                                                 Ni HC Ca
27 Niagara  (A) 2 .4785                                                   HC Ca
28 Holy Cross  (M) 1 .4730                                                     Ca
29 Canisius  (M) 0 .4622                                                      

The first five bids go to champions of five Division I conferences. Each of the conferences has decided to give this bid to the winner of its tournaments, so even though Cornell and Mercyhurst have clinched their conferences' regular seasons titles, they have not yet secured NCAA tournament berths. But for the purposes of this exercise, let's assume each conference tournament is won by the team which currently has the best winning percentage in their conference. That would be Cornell in the ECAC, Mercyhurst in the MAAC, Denver in the WCHA, Michigan in the CCHA, and New Hampshire in Hockey East. The seven at-large bids are easy to assign because St. Cloud, Boston University, Minnesota, Michigan State, Maine, Colorado College, and Alaska-Fairbanks win their pairwise comparisons with all the other teams under consideration for an at-large bid. This gives us a hypothetical tournament field of:

TeamlPWRRPI Comparisons Won
New Hampshire (H) 11 .6138 DU SC BU MS Mn Mi Me CC Ak Cr Mh
Denver U (W) 9 .6278 SC BU   Mn Mi Me CC Ak Cr Mh
St Cloud (W) 9 .6154   BU MS Mn Mi Me CC Ak Cr Mh
Boston Univ (H) 8 .6123     MS Mn Mi Me CC Ak Cr Mh
Mich State (C) 7 .5994 DU       Mi Me CC Ak Cr Mh
Minnesota (W) 6 .6120       MS Mi Me CC Ak   Mh
Michigan (C) 5 .5807           Me CC Ak Cr Mh
Maine (H) 4 .5788             CC Ak Cr Mh
CO College (W) 3 .5775               Ak Cr Mh
AK-Fairbanks (C) 2 .5730                 Cr Mh
Cornell (E) 2 .5707         Mn         Mh
Mercyhurst (M) 0 .5463                    

The first-round byes are given to the top four teams. The top four are pretty clearly UNH, DU, SCSU, and BU, although #5 does win the "out of order" pairwise comparison with #2 DU. Within this top four, BU loses and UNH wins comparisons with all the others. This means that the top four should be put into the brackets so that BU and UNH would play in the semifinals if they both advance out of the regionals. This makes things a little strange, since BU has to play in the East regional as host, which means UNH has to be sent West for bracketing reasons. So this means UNH ends up as the first seed in the West and BU as the second seed in the East. The placement of Denver and St. Cloud is more or less arbitrary, since either team would have to fly to either regional venue. Denver, on the basis of their pairwise comparison win with SCSU, could be rewarded with a spot in the West or with a #1 seed. Let's suppose it's the latter.

Of the remaining eight teams, five come from the West, so we need to send one of them to the East Regional. Alaska-Fairbanks is the obvious choice, since either regional means a plane flight and four time zones for the Nanooks, plus they're last among the Western teams in terms of pairwise comparisons, and at least one CCHA team needs to go East to avoid a first-round intraconference game. This gives us the following regionals:

Western Regional
(Grand Rapids, MI)

Eastern Regional
(Worcester, MA)
TeamlPWRRPI Comps Won
New Hampshire (H) 1 .6138 SC
St Cloud (W) 0 .6154
Minnesota (W) 3 .6120 MS Mi CC
Mich State (C) 2 .5994 Mi CC
Michigan (C) 1 .5807   CC
CO College (W) 0 .5775    
TeamlPWRRPI Comps Won
Denver U (W) 1 .6278 BU
Boston Univ (H) 0 .6123
Maine (H) 3 .5788 Ak Cr Mh
AK-Fairbanks (C) 2 .5730 Cr Mh
Cornell (E) 1 .5707   Mh
Mercyhurst (M) 0 .5463    

The East Regional can be seeded directly according to the pairwise comparisons; in the West we need to change things a little to avoid having first-round intraconference games, so we switch Michigan and Colorado College and end up with the following brackets: 

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

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. You can also go though the process yourself using today's pairwise comparisons with the "You Are The Committee" script.

Last Modified: 2020 February 1

Joe Schlobotnik / joe@amurgsval.org

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