[sort of OT] Beanpot predictions

so who does everyone think will win?

I think it will be BU vs. BC in the final, with BU winning

Should I be <shudder> rooting for Harvard in this one?

Kyle

Dpperk29
I think it will be BU vs. BC in the final, with BU winning

That's the choice of 34% of USCHO poll respondants.
31% say BC over BU.

nyc94

Dpperk29
I think it will be BU vs. BC in the final, with BU winning

That's the choice of 34% of USCHO poll respondants.
31% say BC over BU.

You can't mean more than one-third of the respondents think H or N are gonna win?

only 8% say H is gonna win, and 5% for N. The other 20 some comes from other variations to either BC or BU winning

Al DeFlorio
You can't mean more than one-third of the respondents think H or N are gonna win?

Shocking but only 8% say Harvard will win. 5% for Northeastern. 37% for BU. 44% for BC. 8% couldn't even make a guess. And 2% of rounding error.

Dpperk29
so who does everyone think will win?

I think it will be BU vs. BC in the final, with BU winning

Wow, what an edgy prediction. Don't go doing anything crazy like predicting that the Red Sox and Yankees will battle for the AL East this year, with the Yankees winning in the last week

DeltaOne81
Wow, what an edgy prediction. Don't go doing anything crazy like predicting that the Red Sox and Yankees will battle for the AL East this year, with the Yankees winning in the last week

Actually, that sounds like a bit of an edgy prediction. We can come back to this in about 7 months, but I doubt the Sox will even be contending for the wild card by the last week of the season.

they will have clinched it already probably

And watch those retooled Blue Jays. If things click for them, they could definitely be in the hunt. That said, I'm just another Yankee fan who can't wait for Spring Training.

Not to put a damper on things with boring numbers, but here's what KRACH has to say about the probabilities of various outcomes. I'm HTML illiterate, so bear with me...

1       2       3       4       probability
BC	BU	H	NU	27.35%
BC	H	BU	NU	23.00%
BU	BC	H	NU	20.63%
H	BC	BU	NU	12.33%
BC	BU	NU	H	3.71%
BU	BC	NU	H	2.80%
BU	NU	BC	H	2.35%
BC	H	NU	BU	2.22%
H	NU	BC	BU	1.41%
BU	NU	H	BC	1.26%
H	BC	NU	BU	1.19%
H	NU	BU	BC	1.07%
NU	BU	BC	H	0.23%
NU	H	BC	BU	0.19%
NU	H	BU	BC	0.14%
NU	BU	H	BC	0.12%

Cross-summing the possibilities, here's the probability that a team will finish in a given position:

	1	2	3	4
BC	56.28%	36.94%	4.18%	2.59%
BU	27.04%	31.41%	36.54%	5.01%
H	16.00%	25.55%	49.36%	9.09%
NU	0.68%	6.09%	9.91%	83.31%

Definitely not looking too good for NU, there. Harvard should finish 2nd or 3rd - probably another consy win for them. I would have thought that BC would have had a higher chance of winning than 56%, but KRACH says that they only have a 57% chance of beating BU, so it makes sense.

We really need Harvard to beat BU (42% chance), and it would be really nice if they'd turn around and beat BC in the championship. Surprisingly, that should actually happen 13% of the time (taking into account Harvard over BU, BC over NU, and Harvard over BC), so keep your fingers crossed...

Regardless of what KRACH says this is still the BU invitational. So they have to be semi-favorites - they always seem to win. When is the last time Harvard actually made the final, let alone won it all?

KeithK
When is the last time Harvard actually made the final...?

1998

Are there going to be free audio broadcasts of the games?

or are these games on tv?

It would be nice if one of our resident experts told us who to root for, pairwise-wise.

jy3
or are these games on tv?

If you get NESN, they're on. Don't know if anyone else carries the games.

Trotsky
It would be nice if one of our resident experts told us who to root for, pairwise-wise.

Go use the script yourself, lazy boy, if you're concerned with the actual numbers, but losses by Harvard and Northeastern kick us out of the top 4.

Scersk '97

Trotsky
It would be nice if one of our resident experts told us who to root for, pairwise-wise.

Go use the script yourself, lazy boy, if you're concerned with the actual numbers, but losses by Harvard and Northeastern kick us out of the top 4.

"The scripts" don't really help, active boy, because the season doesn't end when the Beanpot ends. What may help us this week isn't necessarily what's good in the long run.

Trotsky

Scersk '97

Trotsky
It would be nice if one of our resident experts told us who to root for, pairwise-wise.

Go use the script yourself, lazy boy, if you're concerned with the actual numbers, but losses by Harvard and Northeastern kick us out of the top 4.

"The scripts" don't really help, active boy, because the season doesn't end when the Beanpot ends. What may help us this week isn't necessarily what's good in the long run.

So you just asked our resident experts to predict the future, then?

Simple. Root for BU and BC to lose because they're good teams that we haven't played. Root for Harvard and NU to win because they're not and we play them. Root for HU doubly because they're ECAC.

But I'm sure you knew that. No intricate analysis needed.

RichH
So you just asked our resident experts to predict the future, then?

I expect nothing less from a Cornell graduate.

KeithK
Simple. Root for BU and BC to lose because they're good teams that we haven't played. Root for Harvard and NU to win because they're not and we play them. Root for HU doubly because they're ECAC.

But I'm sure you knew that. No intricate analysis needed.

OK, cool. In a system where a Robert Morris loss to American International can flip-flop BC and Denver, I wanted to be sure.

I don't swear that NU beating BC in an amazing upset couldn't set off a chain of events causing Cornell to plummet to 33rd in the PWR. But I suspect it's damn unlikely and not worth the time to try to figure it out. Also unlikely to be permanent, because any change that is that unusual is likely enough to flip back before all is said and done. When the weelend of 3/17-18 rolls around it makes sense to consider all sorts of arcane possibilities because the total number of combinations becomes manageable.

Trotsky

RichH
So you just asked our resident experts to predict the future, then?

I expect nothing less from a Cornell graduate.

Excellent point. We're moving this to Vegas and starting the most lucrative sports book ever, then.

RichH

Trotsky

RichH
So you just asked our resident experts to predict the future, then?

I expect nothing less from a Cornell graduate.

Excellent point. We're moving this to Vegas and starting the most lucrative sports book ever, then.

Predicting the future is easy. Getting it right, not so much.

And the way Northeastern is playing, they ain't helpin' us...

Trotsky
"The scripts" don't really help, active boy, because the season doesn't end when the Beanpot ends. What may help us this week isn't necessarily what's good in the long run.

Well, that's the point, isn't it? What does it matter now when the calculations are so complex that it boggles the mind?

Really, it comes down to faith/philosophy: would you rather we effect change in our potential pairwise status or let BC/BU do it for us? If you think we can beat Harvard in a couple of weeks, then there can be no question that we want Harvard to win, increasing our strength of schedule, etc. (There's practically no chance for Harvard to fall out of being a TUC and very little chance of them overtaking us in common opponents, for starters.) If you think we may have eventual trouble with the Harvard comparison, then you want BU to beat them and for them to stay weak.

If, however, you were originally being snarky in your first message, implying that the PWR, at this point of the year, is too unstable to really care about, then, hey, I'm with you. People that are concerned about every nitty gritty of every comparison at this point in the year obviously don't really get the system.

Or, in other words, what KeithK and Rich said.

Scersk '97
People that are concerned about every nitty gritty of every comparison at this point in the year obviously don't really get the system.

I was going to resent that, but then I wondered what you meant by "concerned." In my mind, I'm not concerned about it - sad as it may be, messing around with this stuff is fun for me, so it's purely for my own enjoyment... Plus I'm living in the desert and there's certainly nothing better to do!

Robb
I was going to resent that, but then I wondered what you meant by "concerned." In my mind, I'm not concerned about it - sad as it may be, messing around with this stuff is fun for me, so it's purely for my own enjoyment... Plus I'm living in the desert and there's certainly nothing better to do!

You know me better than myself. Exactly.

krose
Should I be <shudder> rooting for Harvard in this one?

Kyle

Whenever H can help us, they never come through. Never. I swore off rooting for them in non-conference games several years ago for that reason.

[q]Whenever H can help us, they never come through. Never. I swore off rooting for them in non-conference games several years ago for that reason.[/q]Well, by the time we're worrying about how Harvard can help us it's the Beanpot. And Harvard always loses there.