If the Season Ended Today: Thoughts on Regional Pairings

[Tom Pasniewski 98]

I'd be among the first to tell anybody it's too early to tell where any team if or will wind up in the NCAA Tournament.  This is more for a discussion of past and present 'rules' and 'conventions' using the 16 teams that would most likely be in right now.  PWR can and probably will change a lot between now and March 23rd when the NCAA pairings are announced.  Comments on each of these rules encouraged.

In terms of seeding, USCHO offers some clues as to how the 16 team seeding might work but it's never been done before so no one truly knows and we're coming off a year when the Committee decided no matter how weak you were, you were staying in your home region.   So since I'm practically the only one in my office here in Boston because I walk to work, I'd thought I'd have some fun with the current PWR and bring up many of the rules and conventions used in the past to create regionals 'if the season ended today'.

I would imagine the Committee would break the teams down into East and West first.  Taking the top 14 teams in PWR and the current first-place CHA team and MAAC team for argument's sake, we have:

East:
Maine
Cornell
New Hampshire
Boston College
Boston University
Providence
MAAC

West:
Colorado College
Minnesota
North Dakota
St. Cloud State
Ferris State
Ohio State
Michigan
Denver
CHA

So, there's 7 east teams and 9 west teams, so we send the worst team east which if it turns out to be UAH as CHA champ, then it's a hell of a trip to anywhere.  So move CHA to below MAAC in the East.  Some rules that come into conflict:

1.  Host team stays in their regional (mandatory)
2.  Avoid intraconference first-round matchups (highly desirable)
3.  Swap the lowest two teams (used to be the case - who knows now?)


For now, which east and which west regional is not that important other than Providence and BU stay east and Minnesota and Michigan stay west.  

Now we have five Hockey East teams in the east and five WCHA teams
in the west which has to create two first-round matchups between teams from the same conference if we leave things as they are.

So, how would rule #2 and rule #3 come into play.  Well, the two weakest teams in the East now are the CHA team which has already been swapped from the west and would get swapped back and the MAAC champion.  The two weakest 'swappable' (is that a word) teams in the west are Denver and Ohio State.  But what if the CHA champion is from the midwest - do they deserve to stay west while Ohio State comes east?  IMHO, no, we keep the CHA champion east and don't swap them back to their home region.  This could vary if UAH was the champion since they are really in no man's land.

But we have a bigger problem back east.  To avoid intraconference first round games, we have to send one of the five Hockey East teams west but we can't touch the two weakest Hockey East teams because they are hosting regionals.  Can we justify sending BC which is tied for 6th in the PWR west because they're the weakest 'swappable' team.  IMHO, no.

So, what can be done?  Well, first we've already swapped the CHA team to the east because we have a different number of teams.  We then do a one-for-one swap and send the MAAC team west and send Denver east as the fans would have to fly to any regional anyway.  This avoids a west intraconference first round matchup.  So, we now have:

East:
Maine
Cornell
New Hampshire
Boston College
Boston University
Providence
Denver
CHA

West:
Colorado College
Minnesota
North Dakota
St. Cloud State
Ferris State
Ohio State
Michigan
MAAC

There is another written/unwritten rule that used to be the top four teams got byes but since there aren't any byes anymore, the top four teams in the PWR get the #1 seeds.  This rule can be used to help a team and avoid intraconference matchups.  There are three east teams in the top four.  The weakest 'top four' east team, UNH, gets moved west to leave just four Hockey East schools in the east.  But we've now sent two teams east and two teams west in the CHA and Denver and UNH and MAAC respectively to give us:

East:
Maine
Cornell
Boston College
Boston University
Denver
Providence
CHA

West:
Colorado College
New Hampshire
Minnesota
North Dakota
St. Cloud State
Ferris State
Ohio State
Michigan
MAAC

Following the thought that Quinnipiac could not have fared any worse last year had they been sent west, we give the MAAC team fans a break and keep them east.   We then wind up with the final east/west before regionals:

East:
Maine
Cornell
Boston College
Boston University
Denver
Providence
CHA
MAAC

West:
Colorado College
New Hampshire
Minnesota
North Dakota
St. Cloud State
Ferris State
Ohio State
Michigan

Avoiding quarterfinal intraconference matchups are impossible so we throw that out the window.  So, we keep the hosts home, avoid intraconference matchups, keep the teams as close as possible to their home and go in PWR ranking order to get regionals with comments why next to each team.  With that:

Worcester:
1.  Maine - the #1 team in the east should not have to play Providence in its home town in the quarters if Providence wins.
2.  Boston University - must be here
3.  Denver
4.  MAAC - Maine gets the weakest eastern team

Providence:
1.  Cornell - also should be a #1 seed
2.  Boston College - Cornell-BC hasn't been seen in a long time
3.  CHA - swapped to avoid PC-BC
4.  Providence - what, we've gone all the way through this just to wind up with Cornell playing the host school?    Well, frankly yes.

Ann Arbor:
1.  New Hampshire
2.  North Dakota
3.  Michigan - swapped to avoid SCSU and UND
4.  St. Cloud State -  weakest of the WCHA territory moves to CCHA territory.

Minneapolis:
1.  Colorado College
2.  Minnesota
3.  Ferris State
4.  Ohio State - nope don't like this one - CC deserves an easier first round opponent if it might have to face Minnesota on their home turf.  Switch Ohio State (who already lost to Maine) and MAAC to produce:


Worcester:
1.  Maine -
2.  Boston University
3.  Denver
4.  Ohio State

Providence:
1.  Cornell
2.  Boston College
3.  CHA
4.  Providence

Ann Arbor:
1.  New Hampshire
2.  North Dakota
3.  Michigan
4.  St. Cloud State

Minneapolis:
1.  Colorado College
2.  Minnesota
3.  Ferris State
4.  MAAC

Discussion on any and all of the written and unwritten rules and thinking used here encouraged because you can probably get completely different regionals using different interpretations.

[rhovorka]

Well, that's a lot of flopping, but a well thought out argument.  In the end, since there's no precedent as to what's most important to the committee, I guess we'll have a "wait and see" approach and just have our best guesses.  I have one comment to your final pairings:

[Q]Worcester:
1. Maine
2. Boston University
3. Denver
4. Ohio State

Providence:
1. Cornell
2. Boston College
3. CHA
4. Providence [/Q]
OSU is hardly a reward to Maine for earning the #1 Eastern slot.  I say swap the CHA team and OSU.  Still no same-conference matchups, and you reward Maine a bit more.  You also don't give BC an easier matchup than the regional #1.  This gives:

Worcester:
1. Maine
2. Boston University
3. Denver
4. CHA

Providence:
1. Cornell
2. Boston College
3. Ohio State
4. Providence

which I think is a fair set-up for the East.

[Adam]

Wait wait wait.....Cornell's reward for getting a #1 seed is having to play a tough Providence squad in their home city, as opposed to playing a soft Alabama-Huntsville team?  Thanks, but no thanks.  I'll take a loss to any of our remaining regular season opponents, if that means that we get to play Alabama instead of Providence in the NCAA's.

[Keith K]

We don't really have any good idea how they will seed the 16 team tournament.  What you can say with some certainty is that the top 4 teams in the PWC will get #1 regional seeds.  This will be done without concern for region, except that if one region has more than two #1 seeds, the lowest ranked one should be sent to the other region.  This is consistent with the way byes were handled (recently at least) and with the NC$$ championship rules as I understand them.

After that it's unclear.  They probably will try to avoid interconference matchups in the first round.  They might set up the brackets simply by following the rankings (i.e. 1-16 and 8-9, 2-15 and 7-10, 3-14 and 6-11, 4-13 and 5-12).

If I were running things, I'd do it more like the old days.  With Tom's list of teams, send the lowest three east teams west and the lowest four west teams east.  That leads to regionals with a varied field, which I think most fans prefer.  Swap as needed to avoid conference matchups. (I may fill in the pairings I'd come up with later...)

[atb9]

There's a good discussion about this on the USCHO.com message boards.  Here's what the original poster came up with and it seemed like most (East and West) generally agreed if things ended today.  It's very close to what Tom came up with:

West
1. Colorado College
2. Minnesota
3. Ferris State
4. UAH (CHA)

Midwest
1. New Hampshire
2. North Dakota
3. Michigan
4. Denver/ECAC surprise tourney winner

Northeast
1. Maine
2. Boston University
3. St. Cloud State
4. Quinny (MAAC)

East
1. Cornell
2. Boston College
3. Ohio State
4. Providence

Last teams in: Providence, Denver
Last team out: Mankato

[Tom Pasniewski 98]

Yes, my bad, CHA and Ohio State should be reversed.  The fact that BC beat Maine in Orono ending their long home unbeaten streak is irrelevant.

[Ken 70]

Providence probably won't make it (MSU will beat them out on RPI).  Maine also won't finish 2nd in PWR.  But let's go with your teams as they stand now.

The NCAA splits the 16 teams into 4 flights based on PWR, with 1 team from each flight at each regional. On a 1 v 16, 2 v 15 etc basis, with the traditional arrangement used in all competitions, as a starting point you'd have:

Worcester
Maine (2)
NoDak(7)
Ferris St(10)
Al-Huntsville(15)


Providence
Cornell(3)
BU(6)
Ohio St.(11)
Providence(14)

Ann Arbor
UNH(4)
BC(5)
Michigan(12)
Denver(13)

Minneapolis
CC(1)
MN(
St Cloud(9)
Mercyhurst(16)


The only 2 problems you have are that BU has to play at Worcester and MN can't play St Cloud. You don't violate the seedings much by flipping BU(6) and NoDak(7) to get BU to Worcester, and swapping St Cloud (9) for Ohio State (11).

So you end up with:


Worcester
Maine(2)
BU(6)
Ferris St(10)
Al-Huntsville(15)


Providence
Cornell(3)
NoDak(7)
St Cloud (9)
Providence(14)

Ann Arbor
UNH(4)
BC(5)
Michigan(12)
Denver(13)

Minneapolis
CC(1)
MN(
Ohio State(11)
Mercyhurst(16)

Pretty straightforward.  Puts Cornell in the "Group of Death", as they say in soccer, but there's an excellent chance Maine will end up losing at least 2 comparisons it's now winning (NoDak, MN, UNH, SCSU are the most likely) so the Big Red may end up in Worcester with BU, Ferris St and Al-Hunstville.

How sweet it would be....

[Ken 70]

Obviously SCSU(9) flips with Ferris St.(10) instead of Ohio St(11) to get:

Worcester
Maine(2)
BU(6)
SCSU(9)
Al-Huntsville(15)


Providence
Cornell(3)
NoDak(7)
Ohio St. (11)
Providence(14)

Ann Arbor
UNH(4)
BC(5)
Michigan(12)
Denver(13)

Minneapolis
CC(1)
MN(
Ferris St. (10)
Mercyhurst(16)

Sorry, (too much time behind a snowblower today).

[Tom Pasniewski 98]

So is it safe to say that in a perfect world where the following resulted in no first-round intraconference matchups and kept Minnesota, Michigan and BU where they need to be that you need only assign 1 though 4 and the rest falls into place because the regional with the #1 seed must also have the #8, #9 and #16 seed in it.  

Thus, Colorado College is assigned first and gets the closest west regional and 8,9, 16 follow CC to Minneapolis.  Maine is second and gets the closest east regional and 7,10 and 15 follow Maine to Worcester (could be Providence if Cornell wasn't paired with Providence in the 'if the season ended today' example).  Cornell is third and gets the other east regional and 6, 11 and 14 follow Cornell to say Providence and UNH is fourth but the only regional open is a west one (which I think an east team was okay with if it meant getting a bye in the days of 12) and 5, 12 and 13 follow UNH to Ann Arbor.

Adding back in the imperfections, the Committee must then be sure this resulted in the hosts being where they need to be - for example, if necessary exchanging Minnesota with the team in the 5 to 8 group that wound up in Minneapolis based on the above system and in effect exchanging seeds as well.  I would hope that this part would be automatic with no subjectivity.

Then the subjectivity would come in if say, UNH finsihes 7 and BC 10, you would need to move one team presumably the higher team #7 UNH to another #2 seed, most likely to a region where the #1 and #3 seeds in that region were not Hockey East teams thus avoiding first and second round matchups.  Actually if the Committee keeps movement of teams from how they naturally fall to the fewest, then there is not much room for subjectivity.

I had the system down pat for 12 teams and assigning byes and swapping teams and just want to be sure that I understand the new system so that I'm not surprised should Cornell, against all realm of possible thought, fall to #4 in the PWR and wind up in the west.

[Ken 70]

Whether your playing in your golf league's tournament, the world cup, or the NCAA hockey tournament, playoffs always start off with (as an ideal):

1 v 16_____
8 v 9
                    ----------
4 v 13_____
5 v 12
                                ----------
2 v 15_____
7 v 10
                    ----------
3 v 14_____
6 v 11

The goal is that 1 plays 2 in the final; 1 plays 4 and 2 plays 3 in the semis; 1 plays 8, 2 plays 7, 3 plays 6, and 4 plays 5 in the quarters: etc.

Add in rules about hosts having to play in a certain place and no first round matchups from the same conference and you get quickly to the brackets I hypothesized.

So 1, 8, 9 and 16 always go together as do 4, 5, 12 and 13, etc. in a 16 team format spread over 4 locations.

[Tom Pasniewski 98]

Apparently, I needed to have only waited a few hours to have my questions answered by USCHO:

http://www.uscho.com/news/2003/02/18_006219.php

As Ken did, one can pretty much create the regionals at any point from here on out.  I think that while meaning some fans will have to travel east or west, it is fundamentally a good process.

[ZooeyDog]

In response to the last part of this message, about Maine falling prey RPI-wise to two among NoDak, MN, UNH, and SCSU..... If that happened, would that take Maine down to #4 in PWR overall? Obviously, if they were only as low as #3 in PWR by the time seeding came around, and if Providence definitely made the field (something that you also think is questionable, though if they keep ripping through Hockey East faves....), then Maine is probably still in Worcester, right, because the NCAA Lords of the Boards wouldn't want a Maine-PC matchup in the first round. In other words, if Cornell keeps winning through the postseason, and if Providence is able to fight off MSU in PWR, we need Maine to fall *two* notches in PWR for it to matter to us...otherwise, we head to Providence as a #2 and Maine stays in Worcester as a #3 anyway. Right?

Am I making any sense?

ZD

[Josh '99]

I don't think anyone linked it so far in this thread.  The NCAA just recently (I think) finalized and released the seeding criteria.  One thing I noticed is that there's nothing at all about avoiding second-round conference matchups (even as a guideline or suggestion or anything non-binding).

[jtwcornell91]

As long as we're in the top 4 overall and top 2 in the East, we should get a #1 seed in either Providence or Worcester.  The incentive to pass Maine is that we'd likely be paired with the CHA champion for seeding purposes.  (Although if PC makes the tournament as a #4 seed, we might get stuck with them to avoid a Maine-PC matchup.)

Still a lot of hockey to be played before then; these things can change a lot in the last month or so of the season.  I'm not confident making any predictions about what might actually happen until the week before the conference tourneys.

[Tom Pasniewski 98]

To keep home teams home, put the top four teams as the #1 seeds, avoid first round conference matchups and avoid second round conference matchups is next to impossible to all ensure especially if you take five teams from one conference.