At Large Bid to NCAAs?

Does anyone know Cornell's chances for an at large bid to the NCAA tournament assuming we lose in the ECAC tournament? If we lose in the first round of the ECACs, will we make the NCAAs?

don't know but HIGHLY doubt it!

from what I can gather from all the discussion (all the stats and numbers make my mind a little )

the only sure way to NCAA tourney is to win the ECAC tourny.
after that, there's still a chance if we lose the championship game. then, if we lose the semifinal game or if we lose this weekend, our season is over

I am new at all this so I am not sure I understand why. If our season has been so successful so far, why would our chances of making the NCAAs completely disappear if we lose the ECAC tournament??

judy '01 wrote:

there's still a chance if we lose the championship game. then, if we lose the semifinal game or if we lose this weekend, our season is over

Is that necessarily true? The computer rankings make no distinction between a loss in the first round and a loss in the finals. Of course a quarterfinal loss would require two games lost. But then again, wouldn't we be better off losing to a team that is not a TUC than, say, Clarkson? Or is my understanding of how this all works just really off?

i'm tired, my mind's not working, and I can't offer any explanations cuz I don't understand it all. those were just my impressions from all the discussions and numbers and scenarios.

i'm just going to sit back and hope we win the tourny and not have to worry about an at large bid

I generally understand this pretty well, though I am pretty tired at the moment, but I just want to back up the idea that a tournmanet game counts no more than any other game. Loosing in the first round would hurt because it would have to be two games we've lost. As far as loosing the championship game vs. the semifinals, it doesn't make a difference (so long as we win the consolation in the later case).

In either case however, we're very near the edge right now. 12 teams make the tourney, one of them will be a MAAC team. If we won't win, it means two non-top 12 teams make the NCAAs, so it'd be them plus the top 10, assuming no more major upsets.

Where are we now? Well, we're 9. So seeing as us loosing would mean a minimum of the top 10 make it (plus two others) and that we're already 9 (probably would drop with a loss), means we're very on the edge.

So, the only guarantee is if we win the ECAC tourney, giving us the automatic qualifier. Anything else'll be close.

-DeltaOne81 '03, Fred

Graham Meli '02 wrote:

Is that necessarily true? The computer rankings make no distinction between a loss in the first round and a loss in the finals. Of course a quarterfinal loss would require two games lost.

Also, a loss in the finals would mean three more wins BEFORE that loss.

Losing this weekend means we go 1-2 in the playoffs. If we sweep this weekend and either lose the final or lose in the semis and then win in the consolation game, we end up 3-1 in the playoffs. In principle losing in the semis is worse because the consolation opponent is likely to do less for our strength of schedule than the championship opponent.

This year I don't think you can make a clear statement about semifinal vs. consolation opponentes and RPI/PWR. Everyone else is just too close.

Of course, losing to a TUC in the finals might be worse than losing to a non-TUC in the semis...

I would guess the rough odds of our getting an NCAA bid start at 20%, increase 20% with each additional win in the ECAC's, and drop 20% with each additional loss.

So:

2-x, 2-0: 100% (auto bid)
2-0, 1-1: 60%
2-1, 1-1: 40%
2-0, 0-2: 20%
2-1, 0-2: 0%
x-2: 0%

Not to belabor the point, but JTW, it's entirely possible (though not likely) for losing this weekend to mean we went 0-2 in the playoffs.

Beeeej

1) Not anymore.

2) I think he meant "if we lose, at best, we go 1-2 in the playoffs"

1) Gosh, really?

2) I know, like, and respect John, and I'm pretty sure he knew what the possibilities were. His statement, however, did not leave room for the interpretation you suggest, and I thought it best to point that out for the benefit of those who might take it on faith that he was correct.

Beeeej

As I mentioned at dinner, I wasn't overly concerned with the jinx factor of assuming we wouldn't go 0-2; I'm pretty sure if that had happened, no one would have said "Damn, if only we had gone 1-2 like JTW assumed we would!"