Pairwise Rankings

Just checked USCHO... After this evening's games (or most of them, anyway), Cornell is up to 9th in the PWR! Pretty impressive, I have to say. Next highest ECAC team is Harvard at 20th, behind such powerhouses as Mercyhurst. Nice to know that we still have a shot at an at-large, though obviously we all hope we don't need one.

That is actually a pretty important jump. If we stayed around 11th, and then lost the ECAC, there was very little chance of an at-large. For us to lose, that means one of the lower ranked ECAC teams would get a bid, plus a lower ranked MAAC team. Even if the other three auto bids went to higher ranked teams, we would have been bumped out. If we can stay around 9, however, there would need to be several conference tourney upsets to bump us out. Of course none of this will matter, because CU will bring home the hardware at Placid this year

Sorry, I posted the full Pairwise on a separate thread. But one question.

Did we jump more because we beat Brown or Harvard. I know that Brown has some very impressive out of conference wins, but then, Brown is not a TUC right now.

I guess I don't fully understand the Pairwise, so could someone please enlighten me?

Thanks.

Oh, and by the way, GREAT weekend sweep.

I think we were still #12 in PWR after the Harvard game. It may have been more a combo of the Brown win *and* other teams moving in/out of TUC (e.g., RPI).

BTW, Cornell is actually tied for *8th* in PWR, with 21 pair wins, though they drop to 9th on the RPICH tie-break.

I think having RPI and Clarkson become TUCs tonight had the most to do with our jump. Beating Brown doesn't really help much since they are not a TUC. It may have helped Common opponents against someone (e.g. Lowell) but that didn't make much difference.

In terms of other teams, the big things we need to root for in the ECAC stretch is for the near TUC teams that we've beaten to stay above or reach .500. RPI and Clarkson are at .500, Harvard is just over and Brown and Colgate have outside chances of making it (Gate looks better if they do get the home ice berth that they ciurrently are in line for).

Of course, what we really want is for the Red to run the table in the ECAC. And when it comes to PWR I'm not just concerned about at large bids. A strong finish and some favorable TUC "bounces" and we could get a decent seed for a change.

A great run could keep Cornell in the East, anyway. UNH and Maine are going to be ahead of us in PWR, and they'll stay east. It's unclear whether the "less flying" policy would affect schools like Denver (they have to fly anywhere). You know they'll keep every Michigan school west no matter what for attendence.

Those dates:

West Regional, 3/22-23: Ann Arbor

East Regional, 3/23-24: Worcester

Frozen Four: 4/4, 4/6: St. Paul

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BTW, I caught this warning on USCHO:

Fans holding tickets to the NCAA Division I men's East Regional in March may want to double check the game times.

Because of a printing error, an unspecified number of fans received tickets printed with the wrong start times. The incorrect tickets say the games start at 5 and 8:30 p.m.

The correct start times for the East Regional are 12 noon and 3:30 p.m. on Saturday-Sunday, March 23-24. The games this year are at the Centrum Centre in Worcester, Mass.

The NCAA says it will be re-printing the tickets, and sending the corrected version to all fans.

What has to happen for Cornell to end up at Ann Arbor as opposed to Worcester?

something that will help cornell in the long run is harvard beating NEastern this week. NMU losing was big also this weekend. the teams becoming tuc caused the jump in comparisons. UAH getting over .500 later down the road as well as the team near the falls staying over .500 would be great. we shall see. cornell needs to win. any help from elsewhere will be an added bonus. lowell losing 2day will also help cornell....LGR!

It probably helped, also, that our "last 16" record just changed, too. Ironically, if I counted right, the 17th game was the loss to Harvard.

Our "Last 16" record is as follows (indeed, it got better this week):

Before the Harv-Brown weekend: 10-5-1
After the Harv-Brown weekend: 11-4-1

If 2 additional wins are earned next weekend: 12-3-1

The way we should be counting it, our last 16 record stands at 4-0-0. Twelve more games til the tournament, assuming all goes right in the post-season (and if it doesn't who cares about PWR?)