http://msn.espn.go.com/ncaa/s/wodonpicks.html
No, not to win it all, but to beat us.:-(
Shame on you Adam!
Just Kidding! No one can say that he wasn't objective!
Adam has as much faith in the team as the rest of us. He just didn't want to woof in such a highly visible forum. :-D
Who is Adam? A cornell alumni?
Adam Wodon is the voice of Big Red hockey.
Folks ... please don't take those picks seriously.
I didn't even realize this was a topic of controversy until I just got home.
I never, ever make public predictions. I was forced to - and basically, was trying not to be biased, and not to put the whammy on.
It's just a cockamamie bracket. It means nothing - and I've explained that to the coaches and players.
I never make predictions, because in sports, it's way too easy to be wrong .... There's a number of teams capable of winning it all, and there's absolutely no reason why Cornell can't be one of them.
Hope that clears that all up.
From my perspective, I wouldn't say that "controversy" is the right word - but you can hardly expect that we wouldn't notice, Adam.
I assumed nothing more than that you picked who you felt would win at the time you were filling out the brackets, and might not feel that way tomorrow. I also assume that you would rather be wrong than right about the Cornell/BC game, should that be the second round matchup.
Post Edited (03-24-03 01:56)
I'm saying that I'd rather not make any predictions, and just root like heck (inside). :-)
heck? :-D
I don't think so.
I put together a program that simulates the playing of the tournament based on the head-to-head winning percentages derived from KRACH. I ran the simulation 10,000,000 times. (This is similar to what LaxPower does each spring.) Below is the breakdown of how many times each team won the title, and the projected odds of winning:
# Team Wins Pct Odds
1 Colorado College 2,258,109 22.58% 3.43
2 Cornell 1,477,366 14.77% 5.77
3 Minnesota 1,441,153 14.41% 5.94
4 New Hampshire 1,246,373 12.46% 7.02
5 Boston College 758,006 7.58% 12.19
6 Boston University 678,266 6.78% 13.74
7 Maine 574,233 5.74% 16.41
8 North Dakota 335,466 3.35% 28.81
9 Michigan 320,582 3.21% 30.19
10 Ferris State 282,941 2.83% 34.34
11 Minn. St.-Mankato 236,352 2.36% 41.31
12 St. Cloud State 146,305 1.46% 67.35
13 Harvard 133,897 1.34% 73.68
14 Ohio State 110,703 1.11% 89.33
15 Wayne State 241 0.00% 41,492.78
16 Mercyhurst 7 0.00% 1,428,570.43
The odds are interpreted as XX-to-1, where XX is the number in a team's row. The #1 seeds, as a group, have a substantially better shot than everybody else.
I have posted at http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/mfc22/HOCKYSIM.EXE a modified version of the program. It plays the tournament the same way, but runs the simulations one at a time and displays them.
Post Edited (03-24-03 11:38)
If I bet a dollar on Mercyhurst, will you pay me $1,428,570.43 when they win? :-D
But, two other analysts picked the Big Red to win it all...
Hey Adam,
I was surprised to see someone who actually knew something about college hockey on the ESPN selection show!
Very nice.
Do you think Mel Allen ever picked the Dodgers...
I was really happy to see Adam on there. And he handled it very well. Kudos.
We've been very lucky to have Grady and now Adam as the Voice of the Big Red.
Hmm, I've been meaning to do something like this (although with a straight calculation of the probabilities for the different outcomes rather than a Monte Carlo), and I'm a little surprised to see that Cornell's KRACH advantage over Minnesota is enough to more than make up for their harder road to the title. I suspect Minny still has better odds of making the Frozen Four.
And Adam not under a 30 second time constraint shows he's up to a thoughtful criticism of the committee:
http://www.uscho.com/news/2003/03/24_006604.php
Here are the odds calculated straight from KRACH. My method did not recalculate KRACH after every round, but I'm gambling that that these games wouldn't have a tremendous effect this late in the season.
Team win place show
Colorado College 3:1 5:3 1:2
Cornell 6:1 3:1 1:2
Minnesota 6:1 5:2 1:4
New Hampshire 7:1 3:1 2:5
Boston College 12:1 5:1 even
Boston University 14:1 6:1 3:4
Maine 16:1 7:1 3:1
North Dakota 29:1 11:1 5:2
Michigan 30:1 13:1 4:1
Ferris State 34:1 13:1 3:1
MSU-Mankato 41:1 15:1 3:1
St. Cloud State 68:1 22:1 3:1
Harvard 74:1 23:1 3:1
Ohio State 89:1 27:1 4:1
Wayne State 41590:1 3100:1 611:1
Mercyhurst 1766618:1 48256:1 6904:1
Show hypothesizes a consolation game.
Post Edited (03-26-03 00:44)
I've done round-by-round probability breakdowns using KRACH and KASA (KRACH with home ice effects) to predict the probabilities. Here are links to the HOCKEY-L posts:
http://lists.maine.edu/cgi/wa?A2=ind0303&L=hockey-l&D=0&F=P&P=30931&F=
http://lists.maine.edu/cgi/wa?A2=ind0303&L=hockey-l&D=0&P=31044
It looks like the KRACH odds are consistent with Matt's Monte Carlo.