Cornell Women's Ice Hockey: March 2012

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

Robert Morris will not make the tournament. That conference doesn't get an auto-bid. Mercyhurst still likely to make the tournament based on Pairwise. Likely teams to come to Ithaca next week include St. Lawrence (again), Northeastern, BU or Providence (if it beats BU tomorrow). Obviously you'd hope for Providence.

My bad.  I assumed they got an autobid.

[ithacat]

Hosting BU.

[kingpin248]

The bracket, with first round games hosted by the seeded teams:

1. Wisconsin v. Mercyhurst
4. Boston College v. St. Lawrence

2. Minnesota v. North Dakota
3. Cornell v. Boston University

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

The bracket, with first round games hosted by the seeded teams:

1. Wisconsin v. Mercyhurst
4. Boston College v. St. Lawrence

2. Minnesota v. North Dakota
3. Cornell v. Boston University

Interesting.  PWR would have sent SLU to Wisconsin and Mercyhurst to BC.  I guess they kept SLU east since that's a bus trip, while Mercyhurst would have to fly no matter what.

Hopefully we get a little revenge for last year.

[Al DeFlorio]

The bracket, with first round games hosted by the seeded teams:

1. Wisconsin v. Mercyhurst
4. Boston College v. St. Lawrence

2. Minnesota v. North Dakota
3. Cornell v. Boston University

Strange to be seeded third when second in pairwise.

[bnr24]

The bracket, with first round games hosted by the seeded teams:

1. Wisconsin v. Mercyhurst
4. Boston College v. St. Lawrence

2. Minnesota v. North Dakota
3. Cornell v. Boston University

Interesting.  PWR would have sent SLU to Wisconsin and Mercyhurst to BC.  I guess they kept SLU east since that's a bus trip, while Mercyhurst would have to fly no matter what.

Hopefully we get a little revenge for last year.

That would be VERY nice.  Especially given that we kicked BU's ass in November.

Does this mean the women and men play at Lynah this weekend? Nevermind. Playing Saturday.  Awesome weekend of hockey in Lynah again!

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

The bracket, with first round games hosted by the seeded teams:

1. Wisconsin v. Mercyhurst
4. Boston College v. St. Lawrence

2. Minnesota v. North Dakota
3. Cornell v. Boston University

Strange to be seeded third when second in pairwise.

Western bias.

[David Harding]

The bracket, with first round games hosted by the seeded teams:

1. Wisconsin v. Mercyhurst
4. Boston College v. St. Lawrence

2. Minnesota v. North Dakota
3. Cornell v. Boston University

Strange to be seeded third when second in pairwise.

Well, the team is #3 in both polls and KRACH.

[Al DeFlorio]

The bracket, with first round games hosted by the seeded teams:

1. Wisconsin v. Mercyhurst
4. Boston College v. St. Lawrence

2. Minnesota v. North Dakota
3. Cornell v. Boston University

Strange to be seeded third when second in pairwise.

Well, the team is #3 in both polls and KRACH.

When did the NCAA start using KRACH for seeding?

[Tom Lento]

The bracket, with first round games hosted by the seeded teams:

1. Wisconsin v. Mercyhurst
4. Boston College v. St. Lawrence

2. Minnesota v. North Dakota
3. Cornell v. Boston University

Strange to be seeded third when second in pairwise.

Well, the team is #3 in both polls and KRACH.

When did the NCAA start using KRACH for seeding?

They deviated from PWR in most spots. Mercyhurst is 8th in the bracket but T-4th in the Pairwise. BC is T-4th and got 4th, but you could argue they should have been 5th (losing H2H comparison against Mercyhurst, but holding a better RPI). NoDak should pretty clearly be 5th by any measure but ended up in 7th, and SLU was 6th in PWR but wound up in 5th. BU should clearly be 8th but ended up in 6th in the bracket.

I think they used PWR to select the field and just mixed up the bracketing to meet some other set of criteria. For the most part, the 4-8 seeds line up by RPI (NoDak is the lone exception), but this way they get only 1 intra-conference matchup in the first round, they minimize air travel (which is important for women's hockey budgets), and if seeding holds they avoid intra-conference matchups in the semis.*

With all of the machinations the committee certainly could have put Cornell in 2nd and BU in 7th in place of Minnesota (3rd) and NoDak (6th). This would have lined up better with the rankings, and given Cornell the last change if the Big Red should get past BU. I'm not sure why they didn't do this - maybe they rewarded conference tournament winners with higher seeds. BU, Minnesota, and SLU all ended up higher than PWR would indicate, and Mercyhurst tumbled to 8th and a first-round trip to Wisco after losing to RMU.

At any rate, this isn't really a raw deal for Cornell. It's a little strange, but most of the seeding was strange so this basically fits right in.


* I'm assuming they don't re-seed for the women's Frozen Four, but the first two points hold either way.

[Al DeFlorio]

With all of the machinations the committee certainly could have put Cornell in 2nd and BU in 7th in place of Minnesota (3rd) and NoDak (6th). This would have lined up better with the rankings, and given Cornell the last change if the Big Red should get past BU.

Exactly.  Seems to me, given that travel in the first round is apparently an issue as it is in lacrosse, you seed the top four correctly and then slot five through eight as best you can considering pairwise (the NCAA's metric; no one else's) within travel constraints and intra-league match-up avoidance.  There are only three western teams so someone east has to go west and that's Mercyhurst.  We get BU and BC gets SLU to avoid intra-league first round games where possible.

[Jim Hyla]

According to the ECAC release here are the NCAA times.

Wisconsin enters the tournament as the No. 1 seed and will host Mercyhurst Saturday, March 10 at 8 p.m. ET. No. 2 seeded Minnesota will host North Dakota Saturday, March 10 at 5 p.m. Cornell enters the tournament as the No. 3 seed, and will host Boston U. Saturday, March 10 at 2 p.m. Boston College, the No. 4 seed, will take on St. Lawrence on March 10 at 1 p.m. All times are Eastern.

The semifinal games will be played at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. ET, Friday, March 16, and streamed live on NCAA.com. The championship game will be played live at 4 p.m. Eastern time, Sunday, March 18, on NCAA.com.

I think I can make the game at 2. Hope there is a big crowd.

[jtn27]

* I'm assuming they don't re-seed for the women's Frozen Four, but the first two points hold either way.

They do not reseed. In fact, they have brackets on their website. I already filled one out. I have Wisconsin, St. Lawrence, Minnesota, and Cornell winning in the first round, and then Cornell beating Wisconsin in the championship game.

[css228]

* I'm assuming they don't re-seed for the women's Frozen Four, but the first two points hold either way.

They do not reseed. In fact, they have brackets on their website. I already filled one out. I have Wisconsin, St. Lawrence, Minnesota, and Cornell winning in the first round, and then Cornell beating Wisconsin in the championship game.

I bet you the person who gets a perfect bracket fills out by which jerseys look the best.

[jtn27]

* I'm assuming they don't re-seed for the women's Frozen Four, but the first two points hold either way.

They do not reseed. In fact, they have brackets on their website. I already filled one out. I have Wisconsin, St. Lawrence, Minnesota, and Cornell winning in the first round, and then Cornell beating Wisconsin in the championship game.

I bet you the person who gets a perfect bracket fills out by which jerseys look the best.

That's how I did it.