Conference Strengths

[Scersk '97]

On inspecting KRACH for a bit, the average* KRACH rating shows:

WCHA ~ CCHA > HE ~ ECAC

and median:

CCHA ~ WCHA ~ HE >> ECAC

by KRACH rank, it's:

CCHA > WCHA > HE > ECAC

and by KRACH median rank, it's:

CCHA > WCHA > HE > ECAC

The telling problem is that, while the bottoms of the four leagues are pretty equal in rating (Michigan Tech 43.78 ~ Princeton 42.42), the split happens higher in the ECAC than in the other leagues.  The big jump is between the 5th and 6th ranked teams in the ECAC rather than the jump between 5/6 in the WCHA and Hockey (L)East and 9/10 in the CCHA.  This of course, accounts for the wild difference between averages and medians.

This makes empirical sense.  The ECAC holds the advantage over HE, inter-conference, which holds the advantage over the WCHA, which leads the "Big 4" winning percentage race barely over the CCHA.  The WCHA, HE, and the ECAC are two-part conferences this year and the tops of those conferences are competitive with the tops of the other conferences.  The CCHA is competitive top to bottom.  (SLU had their trouble with BG last weekend.)  

Needless to say, had Vermont stayed in the ECAC this year, the league would have been very strong indeed.  As it is, we're pretty strong.  There are 5 strong teams in the ECAC, 6 in HE, 5 in the WCHA, and 9 in the CCHA.  Wisconsin, Miami, and Michigan are a step above the rest right now, but that probably won't last long.  I think that, should Cornell actually pull it together for the 2nd half, relative parity between leagues and teams is a good omen for us.

(* I know average KRACH rating is a funny number, since KRACH is about ratios and such, but I don't feel like doing the math.  Disregard the rating talk if you like; however, KRACH looks pretty smooth and linear between 58th and 4th, so I think the ranking analysis is valid.)

[jtwcornell91]

What you probably want to do to compare conferences is calculate the overall expected winning percentage if every team in the ECAC played every team in HE the same number of times.  I used to have a script that did that, but I'm too busy packing up and moving back to New Orleans to look for/kick-start it today.

[DeltaOne81]

Glad to hear it JTW :-)