Stupid Selection Committee Tricks?

[Greg Berge]

The possibility of a "good road win, bad home loss" bonus point system being tacked onto the current PWR selection process was broached on a USCHO thread, in the wake of the Committee chair's public statements.

Source: http://board.uscho.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=22608

Now, this couldn't hurt Cornell as of today, and indeed could help if say the OSU and Harvard road wins were considered worthy of a bonus.  Still, it's an awful idea unless precisely defined and published in advance of the selection (and preferably with a little more time than just a few weeks before selection).

[Keith K]

USCHO is reporting on the stupid committee tricks:
 
http://uscho.com/news/2003/02/26_006290.php

Sounds like a poorly thought out idea to me.  Adding a very crude modifier like "good road wins" and "bad home losses" is dumb.  This criterion may be "objective" in the sense that the rules for applying it are cut and dried, but they're not telling anyone how it works so it might as well be back room subjectivity.  Plus, eliminating the transparency of the process is a major step backwards, all in the name of "adding a little mystery".  Don't they realize that hockey fans don't want mystery and excitement on selection day - they want a fair process that's clear and open.

As Greg says, this shouldn't hurt us as of the moment, unless other teams gain while we sit still.  Still a very bad idea...

[rhovorka]

Awful idea.  What's next, making margin of victory count too?   ::yark::

It's easy to see why this hurts teams in weaker conferences, but this also discourages any of the major teams from wanting to schedule CHA or MAAC teams.  So much for the advancement of the game.  This essentially deepens the emerging class system that is IMO the biggest threat to the college game.  Auto-bids and expansion of the NCAA tournament were steps in the right direction, and now this happens.  Why should teams like Maine and Michigan ever want to use an OOC game on a Quinnipiac or Wayne State if there's much more for them to lose than gain?

[ugarte]

Is Colgate low enough for this to hurt us?  Is Dartmouth?

[Al DeFlorio]

big red apple wrote:

Is Colgate low enough for this to hurt us?  Is Dartmouth?

Who knows?  

I suppose the good news is we've finished the regular season with no home losses--to any opponent.  Now we have to sweep the ECAC quarterfinals.

[ugarte]

It appears that the article has been edited. http://uscho.com/news/2003/02/26_006290.php

While good wins (OOC wins over a top 15 RPI team) are rewarded with bonus RPI points, bad losses are not penalized with deductions.  The bonus is based on the end of season (post-conference tournament) RPI.

As it currently stands, we would get bonus points for beating BU (x2), but OSU (16) and WMU (19) would not give us bonus points.  Maine and OSU get credit for beating us.

[rhovorka]

OK...that's a little better.  Still, in strong conferences where there are 3-5 top 15 teams, there are more opportunities for that "good win" bonus.  One could argue that the "good win" bonus is to compensate for the worse record a bubble team would likely have by being in a strong conference.  Why not instead use a system like KRACH which inherently accounts for the strength of opponents instead of this "good win" voodoo component?  (Yes, count me as another convert)

Wasn't this "good win" logic pretty much how CU got into the NCAA Lax tournament last year, on the basis of our win vs. Syracuse?

[JordanCS]

Rich, being in a strong conference will make no difference, since only out of conference games are being counted in the "good wins" criterion.

[Al DeFlorio]

Looks like the home losses against weak teams factor has already disappeared.  Wonder what changes tomorrow will bring.

So far this new wrinkle looks like a way to keep Harvard out of the tournament as an at-large team, since they have no "good wins" this year.  [And let's hope that doesn't change in Albany ::uhoh::]

[nshapiro]

I was about to comment on Al's post, but then I wondered - do conference tournament games count as non-conference games???

What about non-conference games (eg holiday tournament games) that happen to be against conference opponents?

[ugarte]

Right, Jordan.  It seems like they are providing a strong incentive to schedule the top teams for OOC matchups.

Now I will look into my crystal ball:  If basketball is any indication, you will see plenty of Cornell v. North Dakota type matchups (sort of like annual Indiana - Kentucky games) but very little like Cornell - Niagara (Kentucky very rarely schedules EKU or Murray State).  Since the big players will be willing to schedule us (when we are strong) the SOS advantages for RPI and the potential bonus points will probably outweigh any risk of losing to the big guns or altruism towards the MAAC and CHA.  The bottoms of the leagues will end up scheduling eachother.  

And the best laid plans of mice and men will backfire when the strength of the teams differ in the year in which the games are played from the year the games are arranged.

[Greg Berge]

OOC isn't the same as NC.  OOC is a game against a team from a different conference.  NC is any game other than a conference RS game.  (God knows what the HE-WCHA games in the 80's were -- interconference meetings that counted in conference standiongs  ::nut:: ).

If conference tourny games can count, then the strong conferences do get a boost as there are lots of possible big wins to be handed out during their tourny.  If they do not, then theoretically strong conferences get a tiny bit hurt, since the probabilty that a random NC opponent will be top 15 is lower than for a member of a weaker conference.  Either way, the Ivy restriction below the NCAA limit is an even worse handicap than before.

I would look for the traditional powers to lock up cozy home-and-home series agreements.  Since there's no loss associated with dumping a "big win," might as well max out the number of potential big wins on your schedule.  There is no incentive for a top 15 team to schedule a second tier team, lower its strength of schedule, and risk handing out a big win with no chance of getting one themselves, when instead they can schedule another top 15 giant, get the s.o.s. bump, and have a 50-50 shot at picking up their own big win.

Icky idea.

[Al DeFlorio]

You ask too many questions, Neil.;-)   If the committee were to read 'em, they'd change the rules again tomorrow.

[Josh '99]

Don't like this at all.  It's unfair to teams that play fewer nonconference games, and it adds unnecessary fog to the selection process.

[ugarte]

It sounded like McCaw liked being able to keep the public in the dark. Jerk.

Sure, it adds to the "mystery" if we don't know the exact procedure, but it also adds to the perception that they are a bunch of biased and corrupt wheeler-dealers.