Closest Regional

[jtwcornell91]

If Cornell is the top team in the East and BU is not a 1-seed, we'll get sent to the closest regional.  Is there a consensus on what that is?  Driving mileage and time to Worcester is less, but Providence might be closer as the crow flies.  (It turns out to be a lot more convenient for the committee if we go to Worcester, since they can send Harvard to a Providence regional which looks to be a little light on Eastern teams.)

[jkahn]

using www.indo.com/distance
it's 241 to Worcester, 265 to Providence.
But if Providence makes the tournament, it's close enough that they could  decide to send us there to avoid the UNH-Providence match-up.

[Tub(a)]

I know that as the pep band bus flies, it always feels shorter to Worcester.

And if its convenient for the commitee...



Post Edited (03-21-03 22:29)

[Jeff Hopkins \'82]

And there are only 3 ways that I can figure out that Providence gets in without bonus points:

CC must win the WCHA, Michigan must win the CCHA, and Dartmouth must win the ECAC consolation for all three to occur.

If all that happens,
if we lose, and OSU wins the CCHA consy, PC is in.
If we win, the CCHA consy is irrelevant - PC is in.

If Minnesota, Ferris St., or Brown win, Providence is out.

I didn't do the permutations on the WCHA consy or let Quinnipiac win the MAAC, so there may be a few more, but I doubt it.  Everything else, and St. Cloud wins the pairwise and RPI versus Providence.

JH

[ZooeyDog]

Plus St. Cloud swept Providence. You have to think if *any* subjectivity (in terms of bonus points or whatever) is gonna come into play, it might be there.

(I know, I know, don't flame me, there's *no* subjectivity, it's *all* hard math, yadda yadda yadda. If you believe that, I've got a bridge in Baghdad I'd like to sell you.)


See you in Albany,

ZD

[jtwcornell91]

It's not all objective (*), but fudging the comparisons because one team swept another is not one of the ways in which it's subjective.  Besides which, the head-to-head games between SCSU and PC are already considered in that pairwise comparison, counting as two whole criteria, so that PC has to have the advantage in all three other categories to take the PWC.

(*) The only non-deteministic things about choosing the field are:
1. The conference strength fudge, which won't come into play now that the MAAC and CHA teams are so low down in the new RPI.
2. Figuring out what to do when the comparisons are non-transitive.  This isn't exactly subjective, it's just that the process is ill-defined in that case.

The NCAA is shooting themselves in the foot by not releasing the bonus weights, since it makes people think the procedure is less objective than it is.  The reason they gave, "If we released it [...] you get to the point where everybody looks on College Hockey Online and there's no need to have our selection show" is pretty inane, even ignoring the fact that they got the name of USCHO wrong.  God forbid the process should be transparent.

And, yes, the bonus point system would be bad even if they released the weights, because, among other things: it's not in the handbook, it's unfair to teams without a lot of top-15 NC games on their schedule, and it's another ugly kludge on an already kludgy system.