Bracketology article

A good thorough analysis by Jayson Moy as to potential seedings:

[www.uscho.com]

Some comments:

1. He pretty much used the exact criteria the NCAA set and didn't deviate. We should assume the Committee won't either.
2. Neither Maine nor Cornell draws the MAAC or CHA champions in his pairings.
3. He assigns Cornell to the East Regional with Providence but Providence is the host of the Northeast Regional, not the East Regional as he states so I presume his brackets are reversed for the East and Northeast Regionals
4. For beating Providence in Providence, we would draw either a rematch with UHN or North Dakota which is really a #2 seed that's been playing like a #4 seed lately.
5. His brackets don't hold if Cornell doesn't win the ECAC championship.

I think it's sucks that we end up playing Providence whose playing well in their home rink.
But, we will see what happens anyway.
Either way, to be the best we must be able to beat every team in the country.
These guys can do it.
l

I agree playing PC in Providence is not an ideal draw but with only 4 games to win the whole thing - every game ends up being a tough one.

Question? Although the Dunkin Donuts Center would still be considered their home rink doesn't PC play most of their home games at a rink on campus?

PC's home rink is Schneider Arena, on campus. Info here:
[friars.ocsn.com]

North Dakota's last game at the Dunkin' Donuts Center, then called the Providence Civic Center resulted in them winning the 2000 National Championship. And yes Providence plays its home games at Schneider Arena.

Cornell last played at Providence early in the 1999-2000 season and lost. But none of that matters because that's in the past.

What does matter is UND's experience in the NCAA tournament. Their senior class has played in two national championship games winning one of them.

[Q]3. He assigns Cornell to the East Regional with Providence but Providence is the host of the Northeast Regional, not the East Regional as he states so I presume his brackets are reversed for the East and Northeast Regionals[/Q]
Nomenclature isn't important at all in this case, but I think Jayson has it right. The "East Regional" is in Providence, and the "Northeast Regional" is in Worcester. Four sources:

USCHO: [www.uscho.com]
NCAA: [www.ncaasports.com]
Worcester Centrum: [www.centrumcentre.com]
Donut Center: [www.provcc.com]

See Mo, I disagree that every game neccesarily would be a tough one no matter how the cards are stacked. In fact, I would argue that playing Mercyhurst or 'Bama would be very easy games for Cornell. See QU last year.

Sure, we never like to "woof" or whatever people on here say....but at some point realism has to take hold. Playing a MAAC or CHA team is easy; playing Providence in Providence is not.

I suspect the Providence problem may well go away. They're only a #4 seed if they finish #13 or #14 and there aren't any surprise tourney winners.
If BU sweeps them, it may knock them down a spot or two and out of the tourney.
If they sweep BU, they may well make it up to #12 and be a #3 seed.

Then all we need to do is TCoB and worry later about who we draw.

Sorry, I knew that but didn't double check before posting. Just assumed that since Worcester was hosting the East regional for this year long before there was such a thing as a Northeast regional that the additional regional (Providence) was the Northeast. Again, meaningless.

> Playing a MAAC or CHA team is easy;

All over the WCHA, CCHA, and HE, they are saying the same thing about you-know-who.

Its a snapshot in time, and the only reason for drawing Providence is that two WCHA teams are #4 seeds and 2 are #1 seeds. That will not persist, it can't, some of them have to lose. So, I wouldn't be too concerned yet. I'm not big on these IFSET things. The season doesn't end today, so no use telling me what the seedings are if it did. Maybe in two weeks, it'd mean a little more.

Greg, I'm sure they are saying that...but you know as well as I do that we're better than Mercyhurst, 'Bama, et al. QU was god awful last year, I would only expect more of the same from a similiar team this year.

Providence on the other hand has beaten some very good teams and plays top competition all year long.

So is it possible that from an NCAA seeding perspective, Cornell is better off getting to but losing the ECAC final? Assuming they could still retain a #1 seed, this would make the last 3 seeds the ECAC, CHA, and MAAC tourney winners.

This would decrease our odds of playing Providence in the first round and increase our odds of playing the CHA/MAAC to avoid a 1st round intraconference matchup with the ECAC team.

Not saying I want them to lose, just food for thought.

Not in Boston, Columbus or Kalamazoo. And probably not in Orono or Durham either.

Getting a 2 seed (a very plausible result of losing the ECAC tourney) would also increase our chances of going West. I do not want to do anything that would increase our chances of going West. We would be much worse off playing Minnesota in Minnesota or Michigan in Michigan than we would be playing Providence in Providence.

We are only adding fuel to the fire underneath HE fans who think we are overrated by consistently saying over and over that we are trying to avoid Providence. Would a CHA team be easier? On paper, yes. On any given day, one can't say. We are also adding fuel to the fire by trying to figure out the easiest route to the Frozen Four. There is no such thing as a good result of not winning the ECAC championship in Albany. The team will be ready to play whoever they have to.

I think it is less fear than a lamentation. It is just disappointing to have a season so successful that it earns a high seed only to be forced into a road game in what is theoretically a neutral site tournament. It isn't so much that we are worried that Providence will beat us, only that playing in Providence increases their chances.

They sure as hell wouldn't want to play us in Ithaca.

Agree. Win what you can win, and then go on. If we knew we could win the NCAA's by losing the ECAC's, then do it. But how would you like to lose the ECAC's and again lose the NCAA's? Or putting it another way, last year would you have felt better losing the ECAC's and beating QU like we did; or would you rather have won the ECAC's and lost to UNH or someone else in the first round. I know my answer.

So let's get what we can for as long as we can.

Hypothetical--

Does the committee take the top 4 PWR teams as the number one seeds or is it discretionary?

Luke '05 wrote:

Does the committee take the top 4 PWR teams as the number one seeds or is it discretionary?

According to the championships handbook, the committee ranks the teams according to the selection criteria (which are the same criteria used to generate KRACH), then gives #1 seeds to the top four teams. So there is not supposed to be any discretion involved.

Orono, ME US Providence, RI US


Total Distance: 298.69 miles Total Estimated Time: 4 hours, 55 minutes

Orono, ME US to Worcester, MA US


Total Distance: 288.17 miles Total Estimated Time: 4 hours, 52 minutes
Ithaca, NY US to Worcester, MA US


Total Distance: 329.33 miles Total Estimated Time: 5 hours, 41 minutes
Ithaca, NY US to Providence, RI US


Total Distance: 362.30 miles Total Estimated Time: 6 hours, 17 minutes

At what point prior to the NCAA seeding of the Regional sites will our studied bracjetolgists feel that they have a 80% chance of determining inwhich Regional that Cornell will be?

Probably not until the weekend of the conference championships. I was able to determine last year that we had an at-large bid and would be staying East by running "You Are The Committee" on my laptop between periods of the ECAC Championship Game.

Also, it's more complicated this year with the four regionals, but if we're a #1 seed it should be somewhat easier, especially if the conference affiliation and host status of the #4 seeds comes into play.

If there are upsets in the ECAC's this weekend, will our RPI drop even though we are idle? Or will we stay the same because the increase in, say, Princeton's RPI is offset by the drop in Brown's?

ECAC results this weekend should only have a minimal impact on our RPI. In Opponents' Winning Percentage, for every win added there'd be a loss added. An upset would actually help temporarily, for example, a win for Princeton would move their winning pct. up by more than Brown's goes down. Unfortunately, this would be dramatically offset the next week if we added two (or heaven forbid three) games against a team with a lower winning percentage to our schedule.

But before we get to changes in our RPI this weekend, there will be changes in our RPI tonight with two opponents of ours on the HE three-game schedule tonight. Most notably of course is Maine v. UMass-Amherst, Round 5 tonight and Round 6 tomorrow. Maine leads 3-1 in regular season matchups. If UMass is to beat Maine, it will probably have to come in three games with a round 7 on Saturday.