Passing Maine

The frustrating loss in Florida notwithstanding, you could make the argument that we're playing substantially better (and have been for a month) than the Black Bears. And now the RPI is getting close. (Maine's RPI: .6008, Cornell's RPI: .5985) Has anyone figured out the sorts of scenarios where we pass 'em and lock in on an ugly MAC first-rounder. Were the Red to win out and (I know, I'm tempting fate here, don't flame me) sweep in Albany, what would it take to knock 'em off? A couple more regular season brain locks (possibly against our buddies BU)? A first-round Hockey East Tourney exit? Sure, I have delusions of grandeur. Shut up.

Winning RPI is the only possibility, because head-to-head isn't going to change. And Cornell can't afford a loss to Harvard in Albany because that would swing the common-opponents comparison--unless BU comes through for us in Orono or in the Hockey East tournament.

On a related note, Western Michigan is wobbling (three straight losses) and looking like an "away" team in the CCHA tournament. Gotta hope they step it up the next three weekends, or their "TUC-ness" may disappear.

It's hard to figure out playoff scenarios at this point, which are important since RPI and PWR are computed at the end of the tournaments, not the regular season.

But by the end of the RS, if Cornell wins out, their RPI will drop to between .594 and .595 because their opponents (Op) records are weak from here in. Op records make up 50% of the RPI.

In contrast, before considering whether Maine wins or loses, their last 4 RS games will raise their RPI about .0014 based on Op records. OpOp records are disregarded for this simple minded analysis.

So the question is, with Cornell at .5945 (best case) what would Maine's record have to be to drop it below that number. The answer is that Maine cannot do better than a win and a tie if Cornell is to have any shot at them.

Practically speaking this means UMass (2-8-0 in their last 10) needs a tie with Maine next weekend and BU needs to sweep at Orono the next. Don't hold your breath.

The bigger question for Cornell is can they hold onto their comparisons against other close competitors so they can get a #1 seed in the east? We know their RPI will drop, perhaps below .5900. If so, what happens (pre league tournaments)?

UNH - Even if they lose RPI, TUC and COp will probably still win it for Cornell
BC - Same as UNH
BU - TUC and COp are closer than the 2 above, but Cornell's head to head wins means BU has to reverse all three criteria to win. I'd bet on Cornell.
ND - Determined strickly on RPI. They've got some tough games remaining plus two against RPI killer Wisconsin. A tossup.
MN - Like ND, strictly an RPI decision. Be conservative, call it a loss.
St. Cloud - If Cornell loses RPI then TUC becomes important. But SCSU is playing AA and WI in 4 of the last 6, so I'd bet on Cornell winning RPI (unless they tank)
The rest - probably not at risk.

But even if this plays out for Cornell, UNH could still pick up comparsions from other teams, finish higher than the Big Red, and send them west as a #1, or lower, seed.

One thing that the RPI concerns bring up: we definitely will want to root for the all of the home teams in the first round of the ECAC playoffs. The last thing our RPI needs is to have Princeton come to town for a pair...

> The last thing our RPI needs is to have Princeton come to town for a pair...

Amen. The only exception I can imagine is (1) if a road 9 has a better overall record than a home 8, or (2) a visitor has picked up a win against a key NC opponent, and might thus help us with that particular pairwise, but in the latter case we would almost certainly have a 2-0 1.000 record against them going into the QF anyway, and you can't do better than 100%.

Not only do we root for the first round home teams to knock out the ugly visitors, but we root for them to sweep, since dragging out the three games will lower their OppPct records with the extra game, and also lower their own Pct with the extra loss.

Bottom line is Cornell probably cannot afford to lose any more games from now through Albany to have a good shot at a #1 east seed.

Well, the good news is if they run the table from here on out they not only could get a #1 East seed for the NCAAs but would have a legitimate shot at setting a single season school record for wins. Am I doing the math right in that a quarter final NCAA win would be #30?

The out-of-towns get particularly interesting at this time of year. Other things to root for (in addition to UND, CC, BC, UNH and MN tanking):

- Wisconsin continues to lose so a) it doesn't sneak back into TUC and 2) #2 WCHA seed (UND?) gets its RPI driven into the ground in it's 2 game playoff series.
- AA continues to lose, same rationale for WCHA #1 as 2), above.
- Northeastern continues to lose so HE #1 (may we dare hope UNH?) gets its RPI nailed in round 1, and NE stays out of TUC.)
- Brown gets to TUC (we're not perfect against them, but a .750 in that category is mighty good to add)
- Maine, BU, Ohio State and WMU win out, or as close as possible since BU finishes at Maine (positive-sum game for our Op record)

Yes, you are doing the math right. A straight sweep would give them:

24 after the RS
26 after the ECAC QF
28 after Albany
30 after the NCAA regional
32 after Buffalo

So who says they can't go 12-0 from here on out?

Looks like Western's going into the tank again against Ferris. 4-1 after two.

also these guys tanking to go below .500 rpi would be good too (i assume that the teams above have decent records vs these guys)

25 Massachusetts 31 15-15- 1 0.5000 27 | 0.5156 24 | 3
Minnesota-Duluth 30 15-11- 4 0.5667 22 | 0.5076 27 | 3
27 Mass.-Lowell 30 10-17- 3 0.3833 45 | 0.5106 26 | 2

huntsville staying above .500 rpi at least keeps the surprise now not a tuc now a tuc after they win their tourney (if they do) fully evident

I'll buy most of what was said in this thread. It seems like we're saying that good losers (for the purpose of direct comparison) would be:

North Dakota
Colorado College
Boston College
New Hampshire
Minnesota

Good losers for the sake of opponents % would be:

Wisconsin
Northeastern
Minn-Duluth
UMass-Lowell

And good winners for the sake of our opponents % would be:

Brown (go TUC!)
Boston University
Ohio State
Western Michigan


However, I'm not sure I buy that we're really really rooting for Maine to clobber UMass-Amherst twice.... I mean, sure, it's probably going to happen, but losses to a crummy UMass team would surely hurt the Bears' RPI more than the side benefit we'd get from having Maine's winning % be slightly better, and having UMass fall out of TUC. Okay, full disclosure: I'm *in* Amherst, and I'll be going to one if not both of the games this weekend. As of right now, my (wildly influential) psychic energies will be placed squarely on the wilting shoulders of Toots' boys. That is, unless someone tells me otherwise.

ZD

While waiting for the blizzard to start in 20 minutes and since everyone else is being so esoteric, I foresee a number one seed in Ann Arbor, first game; Denver, second game to get to the F F. Michigan due to home court advantage.

God, I hope you are wrong!

No matter what losses Maine takes there is probably no chance that their RPI will drop below ours - even if Cornell wins out. Remember, if Maine drops to 3 or 4 in HE, that means the winning % of their 1st round HE tournament opponent is that much higher, somewhat offsetting their losing.

There's no chance UMASS, Merrimack or any HE team other than NE and Lowell will drop from TUC.

Being pragmatic, we don't need to finish #1 east. #2 east is just as good, so let Maine have it since their RPI will (95% probability) be higher than ours anyway.

Maine winning out means at least BC or UNH, and maybe both, have a tournament loss, and 1 of them doesn't get to play another game (HE final) against a team with a high winning % (there's no consolation game in HE - so if you lose in the semis you're done).

The rational on Wisconsin, AA, NE changes somewhat in the league tournaments. We want them to take their opening series to 3 games, aggravating the effect of their dismal records on their high RPI opponents.

Since we're getting out the prediciton goggles, I'm going with the #1 seed in Providence, playing the Friars in the first round. A prospect, I might add, that looks a little more daunting given PC's play against saggy Maine this weekend.

The bottom line, I guess, is I'm going to root for UMass against Maine, simply on the principle of the thing. If the Minuteman are able to pull out a point, you'll know why.

ZD