You are the Committee

[jkahn]

Things are looking tricky for the committee.  Harvard and Minn. St. are tied for 12th, with Harvard winning tiebreaker.  St. Cloud is 14th.  With CC and Minn. both #1 seeds, there are three possibilities.  1) Cornell will have to play a WCHA team to avoid a WCHA intra-conference first round match-up, 2)  #1 Cornell will be given a better match-up, by switching Harv. and Minn. St.- although that would mean Harvard would have to get sent west or 3)  they have a WCHA first round game.  Any guesses?

[jtwcornell91]

The best-case scenario is if the bonus is sufficient to give SCSU the comparison with Mankato (they need at least .0021 for a quality road win).  In that case they pull even with Harvard at 12th in the PWR.  But 11th-place OSU is actually in a rock-scissors-paper comparison situation with SCSU and Harvard; the only reason they're not all tied in the PWR is that SCSU and Harvard lose comparisons to Dartmouth and NMU, respectively.  So if they only look at comparisons among tournament teams when setting the band (which is in keeping with what's been done on the past, focussing on individual comparisons), they have to pick two 3-seeds and one 4-seed out of OSU, Harvard, and SCSU using the RPI.  OSU has the lowest RPI of the bunch (unless the neutral quality win bonus is big enough to put them past Harvard, but it would have to be .0077 for that), which means they'd be a 4-seed.  Then all is well, since Minnesota can be paired with OSU and UNH with Mankato, leaving Wayne State and the MAAC winner for Cornell and CC.

[neil shapiro]

I sure hope you are right John...but at this point, I know that I will have a lot more interest in the selection show than thought I would!

[jkahn]

Based on the input above from John, here's a shot at the regionals:
Worcester: Cornell, BU, St. Cloud, Mercyhurst (or Q'pac)
Providence: UNH, Maine, Harvard, Minn. St.
Ann Arbor: CC, BC, Mich., Wayne St.
Minn: Minn., Ferris St., UND, Ohio St.
John, hopefully the committee will only look at comparisons between tournament teams - it would be easier if "you are the committee"



Post Edited (03-23-03 00:00)

[Denison]

Any idea when tomorrow that the real committee makes public its determination?

[Denison]

I should have said when today the committee makes up its mind?

[jtwcornell91]

There is a selection show at 6pm Eastern, televised on either ESPN or ESPNews, depending on basketball and war.

[Leung \'96]

Interesting, but accurate way to put it, John.

[neil shapiro]

JTW,

As I understand it, you used the PWR from the current TUC list of RPI .500+ and any NCAA AQs.

What would the PWR look like if you made the TUC list just the 16 schools that are in the Tourney?

[jtwcornell91]

neil shapiro wrote:
As I understand it, you used the PWR from the current TUC list of RPI .500+ and any NCAA AQs.

What would the PWR look like if you made the TUC list just the 16 schools that are in the Tourney?

Actually I looked at pairwise comparisons among teams in the tourney.  That's how Harvard and SCSU end up with the last two 3-seeds rather than OSU and Harvard.  OSU is ahead of Harvard and SCSU in the overall PWR but they all win the same number of comparisons against the tournament field itself.  (Making reasonable assumptions for the size of the quality wins bonus.)

[jkahn]

See Adam Wodon's well written article on the seeding procedure at:
http://uscho.com/news/2003/03/24_006604.php
Of course, if the committee had read this thread Sunday morning, see JTW's post at 23:01 and mine at 23:59 Saturday, all this angst could have been avoided.  How do we get JTW, Adam or someone who understands math on the committee - perhaps as a consultant?  This is not sour grapes, and the committee needs to understand that.   Last year our first round game was easier than we deserved.

[jtwcornell91]

Yeah, that's the frustrating thing; they were not painted entirely into a corner, but missed the way out that several of us pointed out Saturday night.

[CrazyLarry]

I think it is only a matter of time before John is appointed to the committtee.  The entire college hockey world recognizes him as the statistical authority of record.

[Jeff Hopkins \'82]

It'll never happen.  

I think the NCAA actually enjoys being clueless.  That way they can continue to retain their amateur status.

JH