Cornell 4 St. Lawrence 3 (ot)

[Al DeFlorio]

I think you think it makes no sense just because it's not how we do it now.  But that's certainly how they do it in Ivy League basketball.  Finish the regular season on the top of the standings?  Boom.  NCAA auto-bid.

Key difference:  No tournament in Ivy b-ball.  If the regular-season winner gets the auto-bid, then just scrap the then-irrelevant tournament.

Ivy lacrosse, incidentally, is just the reverse.  Win the regular season?  You're Ivy champ, but no aut0o-bid.  Win the tournament?  Auto-bid.

Personally, I'm with Kyle, except maybe I'd allow six teams in the ECAC tournament, although four is also fine.  Finish in the bottom half of the league?  See ya next year.

[Beeeej]

I think six is a little silly because, although it represents the "top half" as you note, it still creates the same unwieldy bye system we have now.  I think eight is a fine number, and I thought so back when it was eight (and thought ten was absolutely absurd), even on the rarest of occasions when that meant Cornell didn't make it.

[Trotsky]

I think six is a little silly because, although it represents the "top half" as you note, it still creates the same unwieldy bye system we have now.  I think eight is a fine number, and I thought so back when it was eight (and thought ten was absolutely absurd), even on the rarest of occasions when that meant Cornell didn't make it.

I think 8 was ideal, particularly in a 12-team league.  It used to be 8 when the ECAC had 17 teams!  (But for that matter, the NCAAs used to just be 4.)

[Ben]

Actually, the Whitelaw Trophy is the award. :-) But there are some cases where the regular season winner is considered the champion, e.g., most Ivy League sports, the McNaughton Cup over in the WCHA, most European soccer leagues...  It's slightly unusual to use the standings of the regular season to seed a playoff and also consider the RS winner as the champion.  (E.g., in English soccer, the Premiership is a sort of RS title, and there's a simultaneous FA cup, which is seeded mostly randomly and played concurrently with the premiereship season.)

The Barclays Premier League (cha-ching) is only a 'regular season'. Play everyone home and away, most points wins. It's by far the fairest system possible considering the time constraints of the football season. Playoffs are not the most accurate way of determining the best team, but they are a necessary instrument in college sports, where there are far too many teams for everyone to play everyone else. Of course, the ECAC doesn't need playoffs, but as stated above, it is all about the money.

[KeithK]

I think you think it makes no sense just because it's not how we do it now.  But that's certainly how they do it in Ivy League basketball.  Finish the regular season on the top of the standings?  Boom.  NCAA auto-bid.

Key difference:  No tournament in Ivy b-ball.  If the regular-season winner gets the auto-bid, then just scrap the then-irrelevant tournament.

Ivy lacrosse, incidentally, is just the reverse.  Win the regular season?  You're Ivy champ, but no aut0o-bid.  Win the tournament?  Auto-bid.

Personally, I'm with Kyle, except maybe I'd allow six teams in the ECAC tournament, although four is also fine.  Finish in the bottom half of the league?  See ya next year.

(I can't help myself.) If the idea is to select the best team in the league then RS champion after completing a balanced roud robin schedule is superior to a tournament. So if that's the goal just use the RS and skip the tournament entirely.

We have an ECAC tournament because once upon a time the schedule was anything but balanced.  There were 17 ECAC teams and everyone made up their own schedules.  It wasn't fair to pick best just on winning percentage so you play a tournament as a next best way to decide the championship. Plus it's a fun event.

We have a tournament and after 50 years of history (and dollars) we aren't going to scrap it, Still, it's better to have a smaller field so that the RS means something. (I like teams, 6 wouldn't be bad and 8 at least sends some bad teams home.)

On top of that I like the idea of using the RS standings/championship as part of NCAA championship selection/seeding because it provides more information among teams in the same league and it rewards finishing first.  There's a whole host of ways to do that other than that giving an autobid to RS champ.

[jtn27]

I think it's good that each "valid conference" received one not two autobids to the NC$$ tourney.  The question then is how to award the autobid.  If ECAC gave the autobid to the regular season champion there would be much less relevance to the ECAC tournament championship.  Given the choice I'd keep the current system which lessens the benefit of the Jell-O Mold.

I'd flip this. I like the tournament but I wish it were the ceramic dalmatian. Change the name from Cleary to Dryden and give the autobid to the regular season winner.*


* I am trying to get a +1 from KeithK.

It would make no sense to give the auto-bid to the winner of the regular season.

Not that I don't think Keith is up to the task, but playing devil's advocate here, why not?  In a balanced schedule, winning the regular season demonstrates that you were consistently the best team over the course of the long haul.  You beat the other teams in the conference more often than any of the other teams did.  Winning the conference tournament could just mean you got hot enough to win two games out of three three weekends in a row - or even two weekends in a row.

I think you think it makes no sense just because it's not how we do it now.  But that's certainly how they do it in Ivy League basketball.  Finish the regular season on the top of the standings?  Boom.  NCAA auto-bid.

You kind of took what I was saying out of context (or maybe I just wasn't clear). It makes no sense to give the auto-bid to the winner of the regular season AND have a playoff. If there's a tournament (and there is) then the winner of that has to be the champion and get the auto-bid, otherwise the tournament is pointless. It would only make sense to give the auto-bid to the team with the best regular season record if there's no tournament.

[css228]

I think you think it makes no sense just because it's not how we do it now.  But that's certainly how they do it in Ivy League basketball.  Finish the regular season on the top of the standings?  Boom.  NCAA auto-bid.

Key difference:  No tournament in Ivy b-ball.  If the regular-season winner gets the auto-bid, then just scrap the then-irrelevant tournament.

Ivy lacrosse, incidentally, is just the reverse.  Win the regular season?  You're Ivy champ, but no aut0o-bid.  Win the tournament?  Auto-bid.

Personally, I'm with Kyle, except maybe I'd allow six teams in the ECAC tournament, although four is also fine.  Finish in the bottom half of the league?  See ya next year.

(I can't help myself.) If the idea is to select the best team in the league then RS champion after completing a balanced roud robin schedule is superior to a tournament. So if that's the goal just use the RS and skip the tournament entirely.

We have an ECAC tournament because once upon a time the schedule was anything but balanced.  There were 17 ECAC teams and everyone made up their own schedules.  It wasn't fair to pick best just on winning percentage so you play a tournament as a next best way to decide the championship. Plus it's a fun event.

We have a tournament and after 50 years of history (and dollars) we aren't going to scrap it, Still, it's better to have a smaller field so that the RS means something. (I like teams, 6 wouldn't be bad and 8 at least sends some bad teams home.)

On top of that I like the idea of using the RS standings/championship as part of NCAA championship selection/seeding because it provides more information among teams in the same league and it rewards finishing first.  There's a whole host of ways to do that other than that giving an autobid to RS champ.

Here, here. No  need for Brown to get a playoff series. Perhaps that way the Ivies could extend their regular season and give another weekend of OOC to the teams without starting earlier as they seem so loathe to do.

[ugarte]

I think it's good that each "valid conference" received one not two autobids to the NC$$ tourney.  The question then is how to award the autobid.  If ECAC gave the autobid to the regular season champion there would be much less relevance to the ECAC tournament championship.  Given the choice I'd keep the current system which lessens the benefit of the Jell-O Mold.

I'd flip this. I like the tournament but I wish it were the ceramic dalmatian. Change the name from Cleary to Dryden and give the autobid to the regular season winner.*


* I am trying to get a +1 from KeithK.

I know when I'm being mocked without footnotes.

But I appreciate the effort. :-D

It wasn't mockery! It was sincere. I wouldn't mind giving the autobid to the regular season champion and following it with a meaningless tournament.

[French Rage]

If the ECAC made the tournament meaningless, they'd lost the big payday they get from the capacity crowds that flock each year to the tournament held in the heart of ECAC country.

[Al DeFlorio]

I think six is a little silly because, although it represents the "top half" as you note, it still creates the same unwieldy bye system we have now.  I think eight is a fine number, and I thought so back when it was eight (and thought ten was absolutely absurd), even on the rarest of occasions when that meant Cornell didn't make it.

I think 8 was ideal, particularly in a 12-team league.  It used to be 8 when the ECAC had 17 teams!  (But for that matter, the NCAAs used to just be 4.)

With eight teams you will almost inevitably have teams with a losing record in the tournament.  That makes no sense to me.  Have 3-6 and 4-5 single-game elimination followed by a four-team weekend tournament.  Give the top two teams an advantage.  And I see nothing at all "unwieldy" about a "bye system."

[Jim Hyla]

OK, so most people want it changed. I'll say I like it the way it is, not AC however. The tourney "supposedly" picks the best team at season's end. Having all teams in allows a team like last year's Colgate to show how good they are when they finally get it together. After all, their run last year showed how much different they might be this year. If a team like RPI gets booted out, they have the NCAAs to fall back on. The top 4 teams get a bye to rest injured players, that might help us this year, and they play teams that might have had their own injury problems from playing the week before. The reseeding allows the best teams to play the supposed worst, not Colgate however. The playoff weekends are exciting, and having 3 of them adds excitement. As far as I can see the only downside is AC, and that can't be solved by any tournament.

The reason lacrosse, and even basketball tournaments are not as relavent, IMHO, is because their league seasons are so short, so who cares about a tournament. Would we have a wrestling tournament?

And if we went to fewer teams in the tournament, we'd have to give back some of our trophys.::dribble:: Do you really want Clarkson to have more than us, or do you like the idea that of all schools, we seem to have the ability to peak at the end, and Clarkson does the opposite.

[KeithK]

I think six is a little silly because, although it represents the "top half" as you note, it still creates the same unwieldy bye system we have now.  I think eight is a fine number, and I thought so back when it was eight (and thought ten was absolutely absurd), even on the rarest of occasions when that meant Cornell didn't make it.

I think 8 was ideal, particularly in a 12-team league.  It used to be 8 when the ECAC had 17 teams!  (But for that matter, the NCAAs used to just be 4.)

With eight teams you will almost inevitably have teams with a losing record in the tournament.  That makes no sense to me.  Have 3-6 and 4-5 single-game elimination followed by a four-team weekend tournament.  Give the top two teams an advantage.  And I see nothing at all "unwieldy" about a "bye system."

I'm not fond of the bye week but I wouldn't really call it unwieldy. while it does give the top seeds a chance to rest it also means a week without playing, which sometimes leads to rust.  For fans it means breaking up the rhythm of the season, which isn't a good thing.

If the players weren't students I think a six team field with Tuesday night first round games (like in the old days) for 3 through 6 would work nicely.

[Al DeFlorio]

And if we went to fewer teams in the tournament, we'd have to give back some of our trophys.::dribble:: Do you really want Clarkson to have more than us, or do you like the idea that of all schools, we seem to have the ability to peak at the end, and Clarkson does the opposite.

Jim, the only year Cornell won the Whitelaw and didn't finish in the top four was 1980.  That year Cornell finished eighth of seventeen teams, in the top half of the league, and had a .500 record.  With seventeen teams instead of the current twelve, eight teams was not an unreasonable number to have in the championship tournament.  Eight of twelve, in my opinion, is too many.  If a team "peaks at the end" and still finishes in the bottom half of the league, they peaked too late.

[Trotsky]

I think 8 was ideal, particularly in a 12-team league.  It used to be 8 when the ECAC had 17 teams!  (But for that matter, the NCAAs used to just be 4.)

With eight teams you will almost inevitably have teams with a losing record in the tournament.  That makes no sense to me.

I like the symmetry of having 4 teams get QF home, 4 teams get QF road, and 4 teams eliminated.  It keeps a balance between too many teams having nothing to play for and the RS being meaningless.

[Aaron M. Griffin]

Ken Schott writes about Union's quandry after Union goalie Grosenick reinjured his ankle this weekend.

Thanks for posting this link.  I feel brain dead after realizing that getting to some of Ken Schott's writing is as easy as clicking on the blogs area of the Gazette.  I had been clicking on "Sports" and since I don't have a subscription, was blocked out of the content there.  Too bad the Troy Record doesn't hide Weaver's homerism from the masses.

Schott says, "I believe Union coach Rick Bennett is going to have an interesting decision to make over the next few days. He will have to weigh what is more important — winning the Cleary Cup or having a healthy Troy Grosenick for the ECAC Hockey tournament." If the ankle is injured, not just a boo-boo that a bandaid will fix, you get your team healthy for the playoffs and rest the goalie.

Union prioritizes winning the Jell-O Mold way too much. It defines the success of its program by competing for and winning it. I don't get it. I don't need a history lesson in response to that claim, I realize how general success is new to them, but winning the regular season doesn't advance one's season beyond where it was going inevitably, especially once a team has a bye. I am going to lose respect for Bennett if he puts winning an arguably meaningless trophy over the welfare of a player. It doesn't seem like the hard decision that Schott presents.

Schott concludes exactly the same thing:

Winning the Cleary Cup would be nice. But having a healthy Grosenick ready for the ECACH tournament may be more important. If Grosenick's not 100 percent this coming week, give him the time off and play Stevens.

It appears as though Bennett is going to play Grosenick against Cornell on Friday night.

No, no we're not. We're going to push him as best we possibly can, and hopefully he's ready to go. We don't have time to be cautious. If Troy can go, he's going to play. I think it's a lot better than people made it out to be.

I am not sure what I think of that. It is from the most recent ECAC article from USCHO.