Bracketology 2016-17 Style

[Dafatone]

Two things strangely missing from this rather technical discussion are standard errors and confidence intervals. I'm neither familiar with, nor particularly interested in, the inner workings of the models. But it seems to me that, other things being equal, the standard errors of a prediction regarding a team's prospects will decrease as the team plays more games, but the impact will decrease as the number of games increases. Since Cornell has played fewer games than the factory schools, one would therefore expect an additional game to have a bigger impact on Cornell's standard errors than the competition's. Also, since confidence intervals are wider with smaller N, an additional datum will have a larger impact, percentage wise.

But since such considerations have been absent from the discussion thus far, I have the impression that the predictions are essentially point estimates rather than interval estimates (with some plausibly associated probability distribution) -- the famous "margin of error" routinely misrepresented and misunderstood by the media when reporting survey data.

Comments from someone in the know?

I think the lower number of total games is the best explanation for our volatility.

[ugarte]

Talking head analysts like to blather about how good teams win the close ones; the more numerically inclined have known for a while that blowouts are a much better indicator of talent because the close ones are coin-flips, not proof of grit. A team with a high win percentage driven by tons of close wins is probably primed for a fall (but since a season has an arbitrary endpoint, it may not happen until after the banner is hung). In baseball it probably means being propped up by a solid bullpen, in hockey, by the goalie.

There are flaws in using goal differential, certainly, and it probably isn't the easiest thing to properly integrate, but a system that doesn't integrate it at all will always overstate the likelihood of success of teams like Cornell.

We can and should win this afternoon, though, so let's do that. Whatever our team is, it spent a season showing that we're modestly better than Clarkson, so let's get that result on the board.

[adamw]

Adam, your CHN model showed a 98% chance before this weekend.  Given that we had a 35% KRACH chance of losing on Friday, then 35% of the model's average Cornell NCAA chances after a Friday loss plus 65% of Cornell's average NCAA chances after a Friday win would have to get you to that 98%.  So, that would mean, if the model was correctly programmed, that Cornell, after a Friday loss would still have a 94% average chance.  So if the 65% after Friday was right, that was quite a huge outlier.  And the 94% chance after a loss does not at all pass the smell test.  It's not the non-adjusting of KRACH that's causing the problem.

It's showing 88% now.

I'm 99.999% sure it's not programmed incorrectly. If it were, a lot of other teams would have crazy effects too. That is not the case. This big swing only happened to Cornell.

[Hooking]

Cornell apparently has been slow to react to the forechecks some teams have used against them. I hope this is the case rather than a lack of talent which limited them to three shots in two periods of hockey Friday. It's easier to change your clear and your attack than it is to change your personnel.

[marty]

9

Cornell apparently has been slow to react to the forechecks some teams have used against them. I hope this is the case rather than a lack of talent which limited them to three shots in two periods of hockey Friday. It's easier to change your clear and your attack than it is to change your personnel.

And besides, it's past the trading deadline.  ;-)

[Trotsky]

We can and should win this afternoon, though, so let's do that. Whatever our team is, it spent a season showing that we're modestly better than Clarkson, so let's get that result on the board.

This.  Me want Lake Placid.

[abmarks]

We can and should win this afternoon, though, so let's do that. Whatever our team is, it spent a season showing that we're modestly better than Clarkson, so let's get that result on the board.

This.  Me want Lake Placid  Chicago.

FYP.

[Dafatone]

In case anyone's curious about out of conference rooting interests, we have a conundrum in UNH vs UML.

A UNH win helps our RPI, but we absolutely don't want UNH winning that conference tournament.  This is only the quarterfinals, so I think I'm tentatively rooting for UNH.  For what it's worth, we probably want UML or BU (ugh) to win the tourney itself.  Notre Dame is a couple spots ahead of us and passable, and BC is right on the bubble.  If BC wins it, they probably rise enough that they are no longer on the bubble, so that's probably less of a concern than it looks.

There's a WCHA game that doesn't appear to matter at all (winner of Minnesota State and Michigan Tech plays Bowling Green in the finals), but I'm sure has some RPI implications for someone somewhere.

In the NCHC, Omaha plays Western Michigan.  Barring some unforeseen RPI implications, we want Western Michigan, and then we want Western Michigan, Denver, or UMD to win that tournament, instead of North Dakota, who we have a shot of passing.  Again, ND winning the tournament puts them high enough that it's probably not as much of a concern, but I live in South Dakota (which is the better Dakota) and North Dakota sucks, so...

The Big10 tournament is next week.  We want Minnesota to win it.  Beyond that, it'd be swell if Ohio State and Penn State could lose in the 1st round, as they are in the two spots right below us.  Wisconsin is the 2 seed with a bye in the 6 team tourney, but they're below the bubble.  So really, go Minnesota.

In the AH, Air Force is sitting in a tie for 15th.  Hard to believe they could wind up above the bubble, even if they win the AH, but that's the best possibility.  They face the winner of Army and Mercyhurst next weekend in the semis.

Point being, Let's Go Red.

[Trotsky]

Final Lynah game for the seniors; hope for some extra inspiration.

[ugarte]

In case anyone's curious about out of conference rooting interests, we have a conundrum in UNH vs UML.

6 first period goals by Lowell have rendered this conundrum irrelevant.

[scoop85]

In case anyone's curious about out of conference rooting interests, we have a conundrum in UNH vs UML.

6 first period goals by Lowell have rendered this conundrum irrelevant.

Whoa! If Umile is indeed going out the door, not exactly the way you'd want to go.

[RichH]

One thing to consider.  PWR is no longer a mystery.  It's just RPI.  If a whole bunch of factors line up perfectly, a team can win a comparison against a higher RPI team.  But they need to win head to head against them.  At any given time, there are only a few slight differences between the RPI rankings and the pairwise.

The only odd-ball situation existed before this weekend, as Providence sat two spots behind us at 12 despite having a higher RPI than both us (at 10) and Notre Dame (at 11). While PC won our comparison, they lost the H2H comparison with both Notre Dame AND BC. That meant that we won more comparisons than PC, and the same # as Notre Dame, but because we had a higher RPI than ND, we got the higher "ranking."

That has untangled a bit now, as ND has the higher RPI, so we've dropped that comparison and are now tied in comparisons with PC, but we lose the RPI and get the lower "ranking."

Since PC is out of the HEA playoffs, their RPI won't change dramatically from here on. We sit (before the conclusion of Sunday's game) 0.0007 behind them.

[upprdeck]

will 1-1 be enough next weekend.

2-0 this weekend puts us at 8 and a loss wouldnt have hurt.  2-1 put us in first team out territory again,

[adamw]

will 1-1 be enough next weekend.

2-0 this weekend puts us at 8 and a loss wouldnt have hurt.  2-1 put us in first team out territory again,

1-1 will most certainly be enough.  The question is whether 0-1 is enough.  I'd say most likely, but not certainly.

[upprdeck]

I have a hard time seeing 0-1 being good enough with the teams that are likely to lose already being ahead of us.