2/11/02

USCHO puts us at #7!!

With a #1 vote.

Beeeej

Here are the standings.....can't believe that we got a # 1(especially since 4 thru 6 didn't!)


February 11, 2002

Team (First Place Votes) Record Pts Last Week
1 Denver (21) 24- 5-1 568 1
2 St. Cloud (13) 24- 5-2 558 2
3 New Hampshire (5) 20- 5-3 532 3
4 Minnesota 21- 6-4 472 5
5 Michigan State 20- 6-5 419 4
6 Colorado College 19- 8-3 381 6
7 Cornell (1) 17- 5-1 360 8
8 Boston University 18- 7-2 348 9
9 Michigan 18- 8-5 281 11
10 Maine 16- 9-5 226 7
11 Alaska-Fairbanks 18-10-2 180 14
12 UMass-Lowell 17- 8-3 168 12
13 Northern Michigan 18-10-2 94 10
14 Northeastern 16-10-3 87 -
15 Western Michigan 16-10-4 56 -

Others receiving votes: Nebraska-Omaha 50, Mercyhurst 9,
Miami 4, Ohio State 4, Harvard 2, Wisconsin 1

I can't believe Hahvahd's still getting votes.

Beeeej

Harvard probably got a #14 from the same person who voted us #1 to throw the ECAC a bone. And it is certainly no worse than 9 votes for Mercyhurst. Mercyhurst is 1-6 out of conference, and that record includes only one game against HE (Northeastern), no games against the WCHA or CCHA and includes a pair of losses to Findlay as well as a loss to RPI and two losses to Clarkson in which they were outscored a combined 10-1. (Their only nc win was against Colgate, Version 1.0 back in November)

Melissa wrote: ".....can't believe that we got a # 1(especially since 4 thru 6 didn't!) "

It might be due to the fact that Minnesota and Colorado College are clearly not the best teams in their conference (since they trail #1 and #2 in the nation), and so cannot possibly be considered for a number one vote, and MSU, although tied for first with Michigan, is only 1-1-2 in the last four games, including ties against OSU and a loss to Notre Dame.

good point!

Here's USA Today for comparison (4 ECAC schools with votes):


T-1. St. Cloud 265 (7)
New Hampshire, 265 (7)
3. Denver, 256 (4)
4. Minnesota, 216
5. Michigan State, 193
6. Colorado College, 192
7. Cornell, 171 (1)
8. Boston University, 168
9. Michigan, 142
10. Maine, 101
11. Alaska-Fairbanks, 85
12. UMass-Lowell, 76
13. Northeastern, 50
14. Northern Michigan, 36
15. Western Michigan, 29

Others receiving votes: Nebraska-Omaha 25, Clarkson 6, Harvard 3, Colgate 1.

Interesting, Chris - where'd you get that? It's not updated on the USCHO.com site or the USA Today site.

Beeeej

How much do you think the losses over the break in tourney in Florida hurt us in the polls at this point? No. Michigan and Ohio St were slightly behind us then and are now falling further behind. Considering No Michigan was in double OT I figure that game is largely ignored. But seeing as these are the only non conference tests, do the voters hold that against us?

And we do they keep trying to rank hahvahd (SUCKS)?

More than likely, the reason Harvard gets votes is that a couple voters run out of teams around 14-15, notice that they've only ranked one ECAC team, glance at the standings and jot down the #2 team. The good thing is that the 2nd hottest ECAC team finally got a vote in the USAToday poll (Colgate).

Anyone else realize that over the past 3 weekends, only 2 points have been taken from the Central-NY teams? Clarkson and Princeton both tied Colgate, and that's been it. 22 out of 24 points.

After tonight's BU win over NU in the Beanpot (5-3), BU moves to #5 in the PWR, leaving Cornell in #8.

Are our hopes of catching BU pretty much over? If so, should we just hope that BU continues to win to help out our PWR?

> How much do you think the losses over the break in tourney in Florida hurt us in the polls at this point?

To be brutally honest (and I have *NO* problem with the team so far) -- a lot. Being wistful for a moment, just imagine what an Estero sweep would have meant with all subsequent results the same. 19-3-1. 13-1-0 in the last 14, and 16 games with just 1 loss. Wins over another quality WCHA and HE team. I think we might be looking at a #4 ranking and a #2 East seed.

End wistful mode. There is so much to enjoy about where the team is right now -- the high point in my Cornell hockey fandom, certainly, in terms of what it appears the team could do.

And regardless of rankings, they are n+4+4 wins away from an utter miracle, and counting down.

Here's a quick calculation. With the two Estero wins we would be 19-3-1 (.8478) which would raise our RPI to .6120. (Head to head games aren't counted in the RPI SOS components, right?) Our TUC record would be 8-3-0 (.7273). The effect on L16 is spurious since these games won't be L16 come tournament time so I'll ignore that.
With the new TUC and RPI values we have the #4 RPI in the nation and win comparisons with everyone except Denver and UNH. (We would beat #3 RPI team St. Cloud basically because of the Brown game.) So we would presumably be the #2 East behind UNH.
If we DO include the L16 effect then we beat Denver and are still barely behind UNH based on about .003 of RPI. Then we'd still be #2 East, assumng the NC$$ wouldn't try to "reward" us for the #2 PWR by giving us the #1 West seed.
This is, of course, all a pipedream, since we did lose those games. I'm with Greg - this season is lots of fun regardless of those two games and hopefully the fun contniues for a while yet.

And what if we finished in 2d (W over NM, L to Maine)? or 3d (L to NM, W over OSU)? People-who-rely-on-others-for-their-statistical-evaluations want to know!

Well, which team we beat of the two only affects Copp which I wasn't affecting anyway so for the sake of this argument I'll assume it'sirrelevant. 1-1 At Estero means RPI of ~ .5968 (#6, slightly ahead of CC) and TUC of 7-4 (.6363). We'd still beat MSU, CC and Minn ni PWR, pushing our comparison wins to 27. With Minnesotas loss to us we'd tied to 4th in ranks but would still lose the H2H with BU (26 wins) so based on interpretation of the process we'd be either 4th or 5th in the country.
This gets hazy the more assumptions you make, of course. And even with one or more wins at Estero, a coulpe of losses down the stretch(particularly against TUCs like Clk, Dar, Uni or RPI) would make it very difficult to hold onto those putative rankings (based so strongly n Win% as they are).