Vermont misses NCAA's APR threshold

[DeltaOne81]

[Q]jtwcornell91 Wrote:

 [Q2]CornellChris Wrote:

 Quinnipiac is replacing Vermont, right? They're at 968, which would be good for next to last in the new ECAC (Clarkson at 944). Still a significant improvement from Vermont's 900 though. I also see that Quinnipiac is #19 in those INCH Power Rankings linked in another thread (Vermont was #16). They also got a vote in the USA Today poll. Looks like they were a nice choice for the replacement!
[/Q]
I wouldn't get too excited about where they stand in the polls, or even in RPI, whose problems handling minor conference schedules are well-documented.  Quinnipiac is
#49 in KRACH  .   In KASA, which takes home ice advantage into consideration, they're #48   .  Vermont is #22 in both rankings.  OTOH, Yale is #48 and #50, respectively.[/q]
Quinnipiac will be an interesting case study for the validity of the rankings - KRACH, PWR, and RPI.

It might be reasonably expected that QU will be approximately as good next year as they are this year. So if moving them to the ECAC jumps them from #49 to #30-35 simply on SOS, then its pretty good evidence that the systems (either explicitly or implicitly) overweight S.O.S. Hopefully we can judge whether they are a similar level team by their OOC results agains their old AHA buddies.

A similar case could be made for UVM, but since they're clearly an up and coming team last year to this year, its hard to say that they'll be the same next year. QU seems to have been more steady.

The ideal would be to have the identical team play the identical season twice is two different conferences, but obviously that's impossible. But to have three quarters of a steady team play in two conferences in two back to back years, with a sample of how they still do against their old conference, is about as good as we're gonna get.

[Hillel Hoffmann]

[Q]Beeeej Wrote: Last I heard, Cornell's varsity athletes had a higher...graduation rate...than the average student at Cornell. I think that's impressive.Beeeej[/q]
It is impressive, but far more common than people realize. When it comes to graduation rates, the national average for athletes is higher the national average for all students. Nationally, student-athletes have had higher graduation rates than non-athletes for nearly 20 years. For example, here at Temple -- a school with unique challenges that doesn't come out looking very good at all in the APR -- the graduation rate of student athletes is about 10 percentage points higher than the graduation rate of all TU students.

[KeithK]

In order to understand the effect of conference on Quinnipiac 's rankings we'd have to control for the normal change in ranking from year to year.  While this may not be right from a rigorous point of view, we can probably get an idea by looking at the year to year variation of all teams over the last x years (for as long as we can get data).

Looking at everyone doesn't take into account specific effects like number of players returning, points returning, number of seniors, etc.  It might be better to try to find teams that have similar makeups (however you decide that) and compare only their results with Quinnipiac.

Again, this all depends on available data (and people willing to analyze it).  But I think most of what would be needed is in the USCHO archives.

[adamw]

Another factor in favor of Quinnipiac ... with this move, they will give 18 scholarships instead of 11.  Holy Cross would be at zero scholarships either way.  Theoretically, QU is only going to continue to improve on the ice.  Don't assume they will always be a #45 KRACH team.

[billhoward]

When you break out athlete graduation rates, you may see differences between walk-ons and recruited athletes, scholarhship and non-scholarhip athletes, and major and other sports. There might be differences between starters and reserves. (Some of the breakouts were covered in more detail in Bowen's second book.) At Temple, the Temple News (2/22) cites the higher overall graduation rate for athletes that you mention. But hasn't John Chaney had a running battle with the NCAA over the graduation rate of his players, with the water being muddied by a lot of name-calling back and forth?

[ganderson]

Where did this nickname come from?  (I guess I wasn't reading the boards at the right time myself...)

[Hillel Hoffmann]

[Q]billhoward Wrote: At Temple, the Temple News (2/22) cites the higher overall graduation rate for athletes that you mention. But hasn't John Chaney had a running battle with the NCAA over the graduation rate of his players, with the water being muddied by a lot of name-calling back and forth?[/q]
I can't talk about Chaney in a rational or calm way because I am/was/am/was (rinse and repeat) a huge fan and it's just too close. But I'm mighty proud of the student who wrote the article in The Temple News (our undergrad paper) that you mentioned. It was the first in a four-part series on the student-athlete experience. In fact, I paraphrased a sentence from the article without citing it. It was written by Benjamin Watanabe, the paper's sports editor. Nice work, Benjamin.

[jtwcornell91]

[Q]ganderson Wrote:

 Where did this nickname come from?  (I guess I wasn't reading the boards at the right time myself...)[/q]

After they dropped the "Braves" nickname they spent a season with no nickname before settling on "Bobcats".  During that year people (like Jayson and Becky, I think) made up nicknames for them, and "Fighting Deerticks" was the one that stuck.

[jeh25]

[Q]jtwcornell91 Wrote:

 [Q2]ganderson Wrote:

 Where did this nickname come from?  (I guess I wasn't reading the boards at the right time myself...)[/Q]
After they dropped the "Braves" nickname they spent a season with no nickname before settling on "Bobcats".  During that year people (like Jayson and Becky, I think) made up nicknames for them, and "Fighting Deerticks" was the one that stuck.[/q]

If memory serves, Age coined the name, if only because he needed a placeholder name for the CHDB. If I recall correctly, the other contender was the Quinnipiac Quahogs. But lyme disease is funnier than the Family Guy...or something.

Checking the archives reveals that the first eLF post refering to Quinnipiac as the Fighting Deerticks was, in fact, made by Age.

http://elf.elynah.com/read.php?1,5707,5707#msg-5707

From there, it stuck.