NCAA tourney

[BearLover]

Since the ECAC got tougher almost a decade ago, Cornell has won the ECAC less, made the NCAAs less, and won less once getting to the NCAAs.  You're welcome to root for whomever you'd like based on wanting to see the Ivies succeed and whatnot (I personally disagree), and I won't bother to call you out on these subjective rooting interests, but objectively there's still nothing to suggest Cornell is any better off now than we've been at any point since '05/'06, the last time we were on top of the ECAC.  No marked improvement in recruiting, marked downturn in fan support, slight downturn in overall success.

I simply want to support a team that is in a very good conference. Don't you want to watch a team playing against the best competition? I don't like the old days of the EZAC and SOS near the bottom.

I'd lump that in with other subjective rooting interests.  For me, a big part of my not wanting other teams to win a championship is that Cornell has been so good for so long that I feel we are far more due than a team like Yale or Union or Q.  In the abstract, I do want to play in a competitive conference.  I may even want the aforementioned opponents to make the Frozen Four.  But I do no want them to win it all before we do.  Now that that has happened, I no longer get the same feeling of Big Red Exceptionalism.  And I don't think recruits seeking a strong academic school do either.

[RichH]

Luckily for us (read: Harvard losing), Denver looks unbeatable

I'm in favor of any Ivy school (any) winning the tournament.

Nope. Can't do it. I can get myself on board to root on any other ECAC/Ivy team, in a "hey, good luck, pal of mine" kind of way, but not this one. I gave myself a day to reevaluate, but the heart wants what it wants, and mine continues to come back to this one sentiment:

https://youtu.be/mCjBspxuUmU

With the old WCHA superiority complex mostly dissolved, I'm easily pulling for a Denver-Duluth Final.

[Jim Hyla]

Since the ECAC got tougher almost a decade ago, Cornell has won the ECAC less, made the NCAAs less, and won less once getting to the NCAAs.  You're welcome to root for whomever you'd like based on wanting to see the Ivies succeed and whatnot (I personally disagree), and I won't bother to call you out on these subjective rooting interests, but objectively there's still nothing to suggest Cornell is any better off now that we haven't been the best team in the ECAC since 2006.  No marked improvement in recruiting, marked downturn in fan support, slight downturn in overall success.

This horse is waaaaaay past beaten to death, but haven't we had more NHL draft picks come through in the past decade or so than the five years before (per year, I mean).

I do not believe we have: draft picks.

Here is the direct page.

That's what I get for relying on my gut instinct.

Or.  A lot of those earlier picks were 8th and 9th rounders, which no longer exist.  Therefore I'm still right?

Nah.

Actually I think you're right. Eliminate those 8^th & 9^thers, and starting with current team draftees, I think you get 19 for last 10 years (2005-14) and 11 for prior 10 years (1995-2004). That seems like a significant increase.

One of our big problems was a great recruiting class, on paper, that never panned out. We can't hope to have great classes every year and when you get duds, your program suffers. I think we're over that now, and hope I'm right. If so, we may be in a period of extended NCAA appearances.

[cth95]

I'm not sure if I would have felt the same when I was younger, but I would rather see us swim towards the top of a big pond with decent results than have to practically go undefeated to earn a high ranking as the only big fish in a little pond.

[upprdeck]

cornell is vastly underfunded.

[Give My Regards]

...there's still nothing to suggest Cornell is any better off now than we've been at any point since '05/'06, the last time we were on top of the ECAC....

There's a Whitelaw from 2010 that you can check out in the trophy case when you next visit Mike and the gang.

Oh, I'm aware.  But we dodged Yale, who we could never ever beat back then, because they got upset in an early round of the ECAC Tournament.

Oh, J F'in C, this again?  It's beyond ridiculous to devalue the 2010 championship just because Cornell didn't beat Yale to win it.  See, the way a single-elimination tournament works is, you advance by beating the team you're playing.  Cornell did that in 2010 in the quarterfinal round, semis, and championship game.  Yale did not.  Regular-season-champ Yale lost in the quarterfinal round to Brown, who finished eleventh that year.  Big bad Yale couldn't get past the ELEVENTH SEED in a best-of-3 on their own ice.  Again, Cornell held up their end, and Yale failed to.

By the same token, I guess, we should ignore the 1996 championship, since Cornell didn't beat #1 Vermont to get it.  Similarly, the 1986 championshio isn't legitimate, since Cornell didn't beat #1 Harvard to win that one.  How about that, I thought the Big Red had had a ten-year period without an ECAC championship (1986-1996) -- turns out it was 23 years (1980-2003).

[Hooking]

Talent alone does not produce winners. Attitude, coaching, strategy, teamwork and even fan support play large roles in determining a team's success. And the latter qualities, like recruiting, are variables which may be influenced by deliberate change.

[underskill]

...there's still nothing to suggest Cornell is any better off now than we've been at any point since '05/'06, the last time we were on top of the ECAC....

There's a Whitelaw from 2010 that you can check out in the trophy case when you next visit Mike and the gang.

Oh, I'm aware.  But we dodged Yale, who we could never ever beat back then, because they got upset in an early round of the ECAC Tournament.

Oh, J F'in C, this again?  It's beyond ridiculous to devalue the 2010 championship just because Cornell didn't beat Yale to win it.  See, the way a single-elimination tournament works is, you advance by beating the team you're playing.  Cornell did that in 2010 in the quarterfinal round, semis, and championship game.  Yale did not.  Regular-season-champ Yale lost in the quarterfinal round to Brown, who finished eleventh that year.  Big bad Yale couldn't get past the ELEVENTH SEED in a best-of-3 on their own ice.  Again, Cornell held up their end, and Yale failed to.

By the same token, I guess, we should ignore the 1996 championship, since Cornell didn't beat #1 Vermont to get it.  Similarly, the 1986 championshio isn't legitimate, since Cornell didn't beat #1 Harvard to win that one.  How about that, I thought the Big Red had had a ten-year period without an ECAC championship (1986-1996) -- turns out it was 23 years (1980-2003).

I don't think he's necessarily devaluing it, but it's a pretty fair point that Yale was the dominant team

[BearLover]

...there's still nothing to suggest Cornell is any better off now than we've been at any point since '05/'06, the last time we were on top of the ECAC....

There's a Whitelaw from 2010 that you can check out in the trophy case when you next visit Mike and the gang.

Oh, I'm aware.  But we dodged Yale, who we could never ever beat back then, because they got upset in an early round of the ECAC Tournament.

Oh, J F'in C, this again?  It's beyond ridiculous to devalue the 2010 championship just because Cornell didn't beat Yale to win it.  See, the way a single-elimination tournament works is, you advance by beating the team you're playing.  Cornell did that in 2010 in the quarterfinal round, semis, and championship game.  Yale did not.  Regular-season-champ Yale lost in the quarterfinal round to Brown, who finished eleventh that year.  Big bad Yale couldn't get past the ELEVENTH SEED in a best-of-3 on their own ice.  Again, Cornell held up their end, and Yale failed to.

By the same token, I guess, we should ignore the 1996 championship, since Cornell didn't beat #1 Vermont to get it.  Similarly, the 1986 championshio isn't legitimate, since Cornell didn't beat #1 Harvard to win that one.  How about that, I thought the Big Red had had a ten-year period without an ECAC championship (1986-1996) -- turns out it was 23 years (1980-2003).

Yeah, I'm not devaluing anything.  Cornell absolutely earned and deserved that trophy.  But this conversation is about when Cornell was a dominant force in the ECAC, which we weren't that year because we got shellacked by Yale every time we faced them.

[RichH]

But this conversation is about when Cornell was a dominant force in the ECAC, which we weren't that year because we got shellacked by Yale every time we faced them.

2010, Cornell was 21-9-4 overall and 14-5-3 (31 pts) in league play while finishing 2nd to Yale, who was 21-10-3 overall and 15-5-2 (32 pts) in the ECAC. Kind of ridiculous that you pick only one of these teams to be a "dominant force in the ECAC."

Head-to-head, Yale did sweep Cornell by the "shellacking" scores of 4-2 and 2-1 (OT).

I'd like to put to bed this whole "Yale has surpassed us as a program" narrative. Yes, they had an impressive 5-year run of talent from 2008-2013, and a team with a worse record than we had this year caught lightning in a bottle to cash in a NC. Most programs have rises and falls. Princeton in the late-90s, for example. QU wasn't close to what they've been.  Yale went 13-15-5, which is close to our "disasterous" 2015 record.

[Dafatone]

But this conversation is about when Cornell was a dominant force in the ECAC, which we weren't that year because we got shellacked by Yale every time we faced them.

2010, Cornell was 21-9-4 overall and 14-5-3 (31 pts) in league play while finishing 2nd to Yale, who was 21-10-3 overall and 15-5-2 (32 pts) in the ECAC. Kind of ridiculous that you pick only one of these teams to be a "dominant force in the ECAC."

Head-to-head, Yale did sweep Cornell by the "shellacking" scores of 4-2 and 2-1 (OT).

I'd like to put to bed this whole "Yale has surpassed us as a program" narrative. Yes, they had an impressive 5-year run of talent from 2008-2013, and a team with a worse record than we had this year caught lightning in a bottle to cash in a NC. Most programs have rises and falls. Princeton in the late-90s, for example. QU wasn't close to what they've been.  Yale went 13-15-5, which is close to our "disasterous" 2015 record.

Most of the other best teams of the last fifteen or so years have had really bad stretches.  I have to figure that we've had the best worst years (as in, our worst years were better than everyone else's worst years) in the conference over the period we're talking about.  Maybe we'd prefer more hardware and a couple real clunkers, but it's debatable.

[BearLover]

But this conversation is about when Cornell was a dominant force in the ECAC, which we weren't that year because we got shellacked by Yale every time we faced them.

2010, Cornell was 21-9-4 overall and 14-5-3 (31 pts) in league play while finishing 2nd to Yale, who was 21-10-3 overall and 15-5-2 (32 pts) in the ECAC. Kind of ridiculous that you pick only one of these teams to be a "dominant force in the ECAC."

Head-to-head, Yale did sweep Cornell by the "shellacking" scores of 4-2 and 2-1 (OT).

I'd like to put to bed this whole "Yale has surpassed us as a program" narrative. Yes, they had an impressive 5-year run of talent from 2008-2013, and a team with a worse record than we had this year caught lightning in a bottle to cash in a NC. Most programs have rises and falls. Princeton in the late-90s, for example. QU wasn't close to what they've been.  Yale went 13-15-5, which is close to our "disasterous" 2015 record.

I'm talking beyond simply 2010: between 2009 and 2011, our games vs. Yale were:
L 3-4
L 2-4
L 0-5 (ECAC Championship Game)
L 2-4
L 1-2 (OT) (I was at that game, and it was nowhere near as close as the score; SOG were 56-21)
L 2-4
L 1-4
L 0-6 (ECAC Championship Game)


And whether they've surpassed us as a program or not, Yale's NC didn't come out of nowhere--they'd had sustained success since 2008--and that success didn't end in 2013--they also made the NCAAs in 2015 and 2016.

EDIT: missed the 2009 ECAC Championship Game result.  Cornell lost two ECAC tournament finals to Yale by a combined 11-0.

[KGR11]

I did some data analysis based on what BearLover's saying. I found the ECAC'S OOC winning % for each year for Schafer's tenure (Source: CHN) and plotted it against the number of Cornell NCAA Tournament games (TBRW). There is a negative correlation: A 10% increase in ECAC OOC% means a 0.33 decrease in the number of NCAA tournament games Cornell plays (Rsquared value=0.04).

This comparison leaves a lot to be desired since there's only 4 discreet values for the number of NCAA tournament games. To make up for this, I also plotted OOC vs. Cornell's RPI rank as reported in TBRW (only available for years 2017,2014,2013,2003-2010). There was still a negative correlation: for a 10% increase in ECAC OOC%, our RPI ranking dropped 6.6 spots (Rsquared value=0.22).

Rsquared values aren't necessarily great and I'm not fully capturing Bearlover's argument (I didn't take into account a lag between ECAC OOC performance and Cornell's results), but there is a correlation during Schafer's time that a weak ECAC OOC is good for Cornell.

[Hooking]

Have rules changes/interpretation in the last decade or so influenced what style of play in college hockey is more successful? For example, is the defensive "trap" strategy less or more successful? Has the relative success of speed versus strength changed? Have recruiting priorities changed, and if so how?

[nshapiro]

I did some data analysis based on what BearLover's saying. I found the ECAC'S OOC winning % for each year for Schafer's tenure (Source: CHN) and plotted it against the number of Cornell NCAA Tournament games (TBRW). There is a negative correlation: A 10% increase in ECAC OOC% means a 0.33 decrease in the number of NCAA tournament games Cornell plays (Rsquared value=0.04).

This comparison leaves a lot to be desired since there's only 4 discreet values for the number of NCAA tournament games. To make up for this, I also plotted OOC vs. Cornell's RPI rank as reported in TBRW (only available for years 2017,2014,2013,2003-2010). There was still a negative correlation: for a 10% increase in ECAC OOC%, our RPI ranking dropped 6.6 spots (Rsquared value=0.22).

Rsquared values aren't necessarily great and I'm not fully capturing Bearlover's argument (I didn't take into account a lag between ECAC OOC performance and Cornell's results), but there is a correlation during Schafer's time that a weak ECAC OOC is good for Cornell.

Couldn't this be interpreted as saying that Cornell's performance is a constant, and when the ECAC is improved, Cornell looks relatively worse?