uscho "game"

[A-19]

apparently uscho has unveilled some game with the lamest prizes ever if you can make certain unlikely situations happen in the PWCs. they have 3 scenarios: (1) make minny and umich both #1 seeds, (2) make harvard a #1 seed, also make harvard miss the tourney in another scenario, (3) some random other stuff.

i spent a few minutes on it and was able to get 1 to happen:
CCHA Play-in #2: Alaska-Fairbanks defeats Northern Michigan.
CCHA Play-in #1: Nebraska-Omaha defeats Michigan State.
CCHA Semifinal #2: Ohio State defeats Nebraska-Omaha.
CCHA Semifinal #1: Michigan defeats Alaska-Fairbanks.
CCHA Championship game: Michigan defeats Ohio State.
CCHA Consolation game: Alaska-Fairbanks defeats Nebraska-Omaha.
ECAC Semifinal #2: Harvard defeats Colgate.
ECAC Semifinal #1: Vermont defeats Cornell.
ECAC Championship game: Vermont defeats Harvard.
ECAC Consolation game: Colgate defeats Cornell.
Hockey East Semifinal #2: New Hampshire defeats Boston University.
Hockey East Semifinal #1: Boston College defeats Maine.
Hockey East Championship game: Boston College defeats New Hampshire.
WCHA Play-in #1: North Dakota defeats Wisconsin.
WCHA Semifinal #2: Minnesota defeats Colorado College.
WCHA Semifinal #1: North Dakota defeats Denver.
WCHA Championship game: Minnesota defeats North Dakota.
WCHA Consolation game: Colorado College defeats Denver.
Atlantic Hockey Semifinal #2: Holy Cross defeats Mercyhurst.
Atlantic Hockey Semifinal #1: Quinnipiac defeats Bentley.
Atlantic Hockey Championship game: Quinnipiac defeats Holy Cross.

however, i couldn't get harvard to be a #1 seed in Q2. i tried to have them pass over minny in one situation and denver in another (the BU comparison was key to this) but the best i could get was tied for 4th (and harvard would lose the ties b/c it loses the HA comparison to the team it's tied with-- that's how ties in ranking are dealt with, right?). i can't get harvard above 5th when trying to go over BC, and CC appears untouchable to displace.

-mike

[Josh 03]

Speak for yourself...I would love an old Fairfield Hockey media guide!  And no more giving away the answers.

~Josh

[nyc94]

Those prizes resemble things you might find in the back of the office supply closet, behind the copier toner and the three year old coffee packets.

[A-19]

am i right to state that when two teams are tied for a pairwise spot, the higher # goes to the team which wins the comparison between the two teams? ie if cornell and minny were tied for 4th, the team that wins the cu/min comparison would be the higher prw #?

i understand that rpi is used as a tiebreaker WITHIN comparisons to determine who gets the comparison in the first place. but i didn't think rpi was the deciding factor to determine pwr ties themselves.

my suspicions are confirmed by uscho's listing of one "tied" team ahead of another when the one team wins the comparison between those two. can anyone confirm this as a rule of selection?

-mike

[DeltaOne81]

Yes, that is the way its been done. The exception is a 3  (or more) way, intransitive tie (A beats B, B beats C, C beats A) when they go back to RPI.

[Will]

From the USCHO PWR explanation http://www.uscho.com/FAQs/?data=pwrexplanation :

[q]Teams are then ranked by PWR point total, with ties broken by looking at the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI). Note: this tiebreaking procedure is used solely for convenience in displaying the PWR, and will not necessarily match the committee's process. This is especially true near the end of the top 16, where the committee looks more closely at head-to-head comparisons when selecting the last few teams. However, the committee does indeed use RPI to break ties within those head-to-head matchups. For example, if that head-to-head comparison is tied, or if there is a transitive tie in a three-way comparison (A def. B -- B def. C -- C def. A), then RPI is indeed used to break the deadlock.[/q]

[jtwcornell91]

I wouldn't be all that confident about this actually.  The committee didn't use to use total PWR in the way the apparently do now.  They used to look more at individual comparisons, so that was the obvious way to break PWR ties.  But it's harder to code than using RPI as the tie-breaker, so most listings of PWR written by people other than me just used RPI.  Since we don't know what the list the committee uses looks like, I don't know that we can say with certaintly that two-team ties are broken "sensibly".