PWR volatile, Cornell -> #8t

Must be a lot of close teams according to PWR. With all but 3 scores in (2 WCHA, 1 CHA), Cornell jumped from 13t -> 8 tonight with the win over Brown (22t after the loss).

Every game really will be very important, with one day making the difference between getting to the NCAA tournament "with some luck" vs. "a lock".

Note: UND is #9 and their score isn't in yet, and they won, so we very well may end up 9 or below by the end of the night, but my point is made . Also, #3 DU is down 2-0 after 2, and the CHA game involves, of course, no TUCs.


Edit: UND score comes through and Cornell and UND now tied for 8th. CHA score also in. DU looks ready to lose to Mich Tech, so we'll see if that shakes anything up.

Now we need Brown to win a few to keep their RPI over .500 so we keep two wins over a TUC.

It apparently depends a lot on what values you use for the QW bonuses.

Using .0030, .0020, .0010, I get us down to 9th, which we really are now anyway.

Using .0050, .0030, .0010, I get us down to 11th (tie 10th).

Same thing with .0050, .0025, .0010.

Its probably in that range, right? I can't find a likely bonus situation that hurts us too much. Although it would if we were a few spots lower.

Maybe not.

Before last night when we were in a three way tie with Lowell and Wisconsin, the 5,3,1 combo dropped Wisco below us, and kept us in the tie with Lowell.

Just keep winning and make it irrelevant.

Tied w/ Colgate for 13th now, losing the tiebreaker via our RPI.

However, more of note is the conference breakdowns:
WCHA: 5
CCHA: 3
HEA: 4
ECAC: 4 (Harv, us, Colg, UVM)

Granted our top team is Harvard at #8, whereas the others have CC-Mich-BC in the top 3, but it's definitely a start and an improvement.

Since our schedule is mostly insular now except for the Harvard at the Beanpot and I think Brown/Providence, does anyone know if intra-ECAC matchups will hurt us (the conference as a whole) overall? I would imagine so, since it would lower our opponent's RPI compared to OOC matchups, but it's hard to guess all the other factors that could take place...

The insularity only hurts in that it drives down our RPI, which is just one point in the pairwise comparison. Except for matchups with conference teams, the H2H is already established. That leaves TUC and COP, and the unsurprising result that the better they do, the better they'll rank.

Having a preponderance of games against relatively weak TUCs helps both by (if everything goes well) raising the record against TUCs and helping out with quality win hocus pocus. (If you get the same bonus for beating a .801 and a .501, then what the hey...)

Don't forget, you only get QW bonuses for interconference games.

Aha. In that case, it only helps with TUC, not the Double Secret Bonus.

At the conclusion of the conference tournaments in March, do the CHA and AHA winners become TUCs in the pairwise rankings prior to NCAA tournament selection?

(The reason I ask: Cornell beat Canisius, currently at the top of the AHA standings).

I believe so.

Brown (with 61 shots on goal tonight, including 27 in the first period) defeated American International 5-2, but by playing them, Brown's RPI dipped under .500, meaning that, for the time being, they are no longer a TUC. This dropped Cornell's PWR from 13th to 16th.

The PWR have not yet been updated (as of 10:00pm) to reflect Dartmouth's 9-8 (!) win over New Hampshire (in which UNH blew a 4 goal lead). Dartmouth is the third ECAC team (Yale, Vermont) to beat New Hampshire over the past 2 seasons.

I didn't help us for now because Dartmouth became a TUC, an Cornell is 0-1 against them. If we beat Dartmouth, though, that will even out and we will be helped in the long run by the ECAC's overall improved NC record. Cornell's RPI is back above 0.55

gotta say that i'm more than a little worried about this team. they have all the talent in the world, but they seem to be pussyfooting around a lot this year. when they play with confidence and hit hard- they win. when they don't, well, you all have seen the results. this team, week in and out, has the respect of the pollsters and all opponents, but still hasn't proven that they are 'for real'. i cant help but feel like they blew it big time against Harvard, in what was one of our last chances to prove ourselves in the regular season as a true contender. We still have big weekends against Vermont and Dartmouth and Colgate, and it aint over till the playoffs are won, but it had better be an amazing run from here on out, or this team is sunk.
Statisticly, this is a great team. #2 Defence, #11 Offence (top ranked of ECEC teams nationaly) #3 PK, #7 PP, #1 combined special teams, #3 scoring margin and #39 in penalty mins (thats good).
all that means crap if we cant win against real tough teams, and so far we realy haven't (exceptions being maine and one against sucks)

heres to a great second half run. lets go red.

I agree the team needs to turn it up a notch for the stretch drive. Cornell needs to be firing right out of the gate instead of waiting to fall behind to turn it on.

The 2-4-2 record against TUCs is what's hurting the Red in the PWR right now. Here are a few things to be optimistic about though:

1. Of the 8 games so far against TUCs, only one was at Lynah. 5 of the 8 remaining games against TUCs are at home.

2. The composite record of the TUCs played so far are quite a bit better than the records of the TUCs we have left on the schedule.

3. Brown can easily flip back to being a TUC, giving Cornell 2 more wins.


So far the Red have done a good job beating the teams they should. In spite of all the TUCs left on the schedule, the only remaining game that I think we're an underdog is the one @Colgate. If we run up a good record down the stretch, as we should be able to, an NCAA bid will follow without too much worrying.

Rancor, we still have another big chance with the Colgate weekend. That will be huge, in terms of conference standings, RPI, especially TUCs, and the h2h matchup with them in the PWR. That will definitely be the make or beak weekend in my opnion.

Also, keep rooting for Brown to win and Dartmouth to lose.

Cornell seems to have a history of starting slow and finishing strong. Not just in hockey. Think lacrosse, too, both recent years and those Tim Goldstein - Joe Niewendyk (well, we could have hoped for Joe to play his other natural sport) teams circa 1987 that came from a just-over-.500 record to make the NCAA final four or almost make it.

Maybe it's just our imagination that it's a Cornell-specific disease. I certainly think it applies to northern teams in, say, lacrosse, where Carolina or Virginia is already looking at short sleeve weather (well, almost) in a couple weeks. And maybe in hockey because some of our competitors have played eight or ten games more. 24 vs. 15 games played at midseason is a big difference, compared to say 34 vs. 29 games played as the regular season ends. Plus I think Schafer's methodical (some say boring) style of play really catches on around February and that's when a) Cornell really gets tough and b) you start to think about all those silly losses on the road to the Vermonts or Dartmouths etcetera that shouldn't have happened.

The toughest barrier Cornell has to hurdle may be the law of averages: 58 teams looking for 16 playoff spots and four slots in the Frozen Four. And if you make the playoffs, you've got to win four not two games to be national champion, which means four not two chances for an underdog to get lucky and knock off a higher-ranked team, as it did the last couple years to North Dakota or Colorado College or (maybe) Cornell by UNH. OTOH in a year such as this when Cornell is odds on favorite to not win it all, at least there's a greater chance we get to go to the dance and who knows, maybe get lucky. Just as nobody wants to play Princeton in round one of the NCAA squeakball tournament, who'd want to try their luck against the Cornell D in the NCAAs if they could instead have, say, a Colgate or Clarkson to play?

[Q]billhoward Wrote:
Cornell seems to have a history of starting slow and finishing strong. Not just in hockey. Think lacrosse, too, both recent years and those Tim Goldstein - Joe Niewendyk (well, we could have hoped for Joe to play his other natural sport) teams circa 1987 that came from a just-over-.500 record to make the NCAA final four or almost make it. [/q]
so which is it, did they make it or not? and if my math is correct you're speaking of the 13-1 runner-up team of 1987 ... somehow i don't think that's going to fit into the "just over .500" club. someone call me crazy, pleeease???

now if you're speaking of the '86 and '88 (NCAA runner-up) teams being at or close to .500 [7-6 and 9-6 respectively] then you have a point ... but that's not how it reads in your post. it would appear you're trying to speak about a team within the same season, not those prior.

[q] Cornell seems to have a history of starting slow and finishing strong. Not just in hockey. [/q]Um, I think you're off base here, at least regarding recent hockey history. IIRC Cornell has been the last undefeated team in the nation on several occasions during Mike Schafer's tenure. I'd say we generally have a tendency to start quite strong, at least as measured by wins and losses. It just hasn't always carried over to the middle of the season. (The early season success that I'm referring to has often been due to a weak schedule in November.)

We definitely start out winning, if not necessarily strong, against soft teams like Army, Canisus, Sacred Heart, Mercyhurst, etcetera (except for the occasional upset) in the very first games. This year our status as the last unbeaten team was a combination of soft first couple games and everyone else playing 8-10 games (increasing the odds they'd lose one somewhere) as we got up to five games or so.

Last year, for instance, we started okay, then had the January troubles (~2-5-1), and kept climbing up the ladder with an excellent February, but not with quite enough points to overtake the regular season leader, Colgate. I believe Cornell was 7 of 8 of 8 of 9 in February and except for that bizarre 3-0 loss to Union, never gave up more than 2 goals. At the end of January 2004 we were ~one game above .500, at the end of the regular season we were 15-8-6.

[added] I made of graph of Cornell's cumulative points in the regular season (it finished with 36) vs. the average over the season (1.24 ppg, or 36 points in 29 regular season games). It was a slow start. Except for a brief period in November, it was not until the Everblades championship game and the following Harvard game that Cornell was above the season pace (of 1.24 points times the number of games played so far). The January slump pushed Cornell to >4 points below the average and February was all uphill to reach the season average (although it was also chasing an eventual season season pace the got better each time Cornell won a game in February.) So, yes, last year at least, slow start, brief peak, slump, great final month ... and a roller coaster if you watched the PWR ratings.

[Q]billhoward Wrote:

Cornell seems to have a history of starting slow and finishing strong. . . Maybe it's just our imagination that it's a Cornell-specific disease. [/q]

I suspect a lot of this pattern has to do with having superior coaching, in that staff is doing a good job in identifying weaknesses and fine tuning as the season progresses. From that perspective the close games - even the losses - are helpful in highlighting problems that need work. Blowouts mid-season are fun for the fans but generally not as much help in preparing for the "real" season.

Well, blowouts are good for mid-season too if in fact we are truly that dominant. But I don't think that's happened in a while, if ever, not even in 02-03.

With Brown and Union jumping into TUC territory, we get three more TUC wins to 5-3-2, and are 12th, ties with NoDak at 11th.

Now in 11th, ahead of Sioux but trailing Harvard and Colgate.

Cornell can flip the comparison with Mass.-Lowell by beating RPI AND after Lowell plays at Brown on Tuesday. They are currently tied in the common opponents category at 2-2. Of course, I don't know what will happen to Brown's RPI if they lose the game but if they are no longer a TUC then we lose out anyway. I should probably stop looking ahead.

Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, 3 of the top 10 PWR are ECAC after the early games of 1/15:

7: Harvard
8: Colgate
10: Cornell

Break up the ECAC!

[Q]nyc94 Wrote:

Cornell can flip the comparison with Mass.-Lowell by beating RPI AND after Lowell plays at Brown on Tuesday. They are currently tied in the common opponents category at 2-2. Of course, I don't know what will happen to Brown's RPI if they lose the game but if they are no longer a TUC then we lose out anyway. I should probably stop looking ahead.




Edited 1 times. Last edit at 01/15/05 05:54PM by nyc94.[/q]

Maine is back in the RPI top 15, so that's bonus points for Cornell. Depending on how they determine the bonus, Cornell might actually win that comparison (with UML) if the season ended right now. Lowell has one quality home win (vs. colgate). Cornell has the one quality neutral ice win and trails in RPI by 0.0020. The fact that we may still be battling UML for positioning down the road only makes the Colgate series bigger for the COP calculation.

Of course all this will mean nothing by tuesday probably. It hardly means anything now.

It'd be great to move past UML and everything, but even if we stay exactly where we are, we're in great shape. If this team wants to go real far, then some impressive wins against 'gate, UMV, and Dartmouth in the 2nd half would go a long way.

But in a way, the goal is to get to the NCAAs with a team capable of hitting a hot streak. I know we're capable of doing it - although we haven't too much so far - and right now we're in great shape to make the NCAAs. Can't really complain about 11th, which is at large bid-land unless all 6 conferences are won by teams 12th or less. Not too likely.

Of the top sixteen teams in PWR, Hockey East and WCHA have five, ECAC four, and CCHA two. Not bad balance.

[Q]Al DeFlorio Wrote:

Of the top sixteen teams in PWR, Hockey East and WCHA have five, ECAC four, and CCHA two. Not bad balance.[/q]

Well, it is for the CCHA.

[Q]Al DeFlorio Wrote:

Of the top sixteen teams in PWR, Hockey East and WCHA have five, ECAC four, and CCHA two. Not bad balance.[/q]

Maybe it's too soon - or it's never too soon to play what-if? - to ask how many of the top sixteen teams are capable are making the title game?

[Q]billhoward Wrote:

Al DeFlorio Wrote:

Of the top sixteen teams in PWR, Hockey East and WCHA have five, ECAC four, and CCHA two. Not bad balance.[/Q]
Maybe it's too soon - or it's never too soon to play what-if? - to ask how many of the top sixteen teams are capable are making the title game? [/q]

That'd be the one area where we're still behind, as the other 3 have Minn, CC, Mich, and BC, but our best is still only #7.