Cornell-BU

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

When I walked out of the Worcester DCU, that was it for me. Good ride, better season than I expected. For once, I'm not re-playing the playoffs with what-ifs. I thought we played BU even. They got a couple breaks. We didn't. I don't feel as crushed as the St. Cloud State fans. I was ready for St. Paul because I don't know if I'll live long enough to see Cornell in another title game, and I think I might feel that way if I was 30. LGR ... in the fall. Time to see how far lax can go.

Other than never seeing us in the final in my lifetime, I agree with you.

[BearLover]

Angello bolting is an illustration of why I don't think there is such a thing as "looking towards the future" or "playing with house money" in college hockey. When you make the tournament with a team that is good enough to win it, as we did this year, any loss is brutal, regardless of how many of your players are supposedly returning. With Yates (13 goals), Rauter (11), and now Angello (13) gone, we have no one returning who scored more than 7 goals this year. Which isn't to say we can't score or be good, but both of those things are far from guaranteed.

[ugarte]

Angello bolting is an illustration of why I don't think there is such a thing as "looking towards the future" or "playing with house money" in college hockey. When you make the tournament with a team that is good enough to win it, as we did this year, any loss is brutal, regardless of how many of your players are supposedly returning. With Yates (13 goals), Rauter (11), and now Angello (13) gone, we have no one returning who scored more than 7 goals this year. Which isn't to say we can't score or be good, but both of those things are far from guaranteed.

building from the back out does make it easier to withstand some loss of offense, and i really do think we have players that really can score more (Donaldson and Mallott in particular) but yeah it is going to be interesting to see if we can have another strong year where everyone scores a few but nobody scores a lot

[Tom Lento]

Angello bolting is an illustration of why I don't think there is such a thing as "looking towards the future" or "playing with house money" in college hockey. When you make the tournament with a team that is good enough to win it, as we did this year, any loss is brutal, regardless of how many of your players are supposedly returning. With Yates (13 goals), Rauter (11), and now Angello (13) gone, we have no one returning who scored more than 7 goals this year. Which isn't to say we can't score or be good, but both of those things are far from guaranteed.

I think this is also related to Greg's observation about persistence - teams generally win the title during an extended run of NCAA appearances. Teams that can absorb the loss of a key early departure or an entire class of immensely talented forwards (as Yale did) and maintain national relevance just get more chances (and probably better recruits, although Yale's pipeline seems to have dried up quite a bit).

Cornell hasn't been in that position for ~12 years and it's not clear the team is in that position now. Given the talent in the freshman class I'm still hopeful, but Angello leaving right now definitely hurts since there was reason to believe that next year was going to be Cornell's best shot since 2003.

[Tom Lento]

have none of you that advocate for playing the weaker schedule ever actually played a sport yourselves?   Sure, a weaker schedule might well make it easier to get in to the tournament...but what it won't do is help prepare us to *win* against the best in the country.  If you want to be able to beat the best out there come tourney time, you need to take the measure of yourself having some serious competition against the best you can find.

No one ever got better by only playing lesser opposition.  

Also, the experience of playing the best competition is useful to the players in that game for as long as they are playing with us, not just this year.

Cornell can't control schedule strength to any meaningful degree. There are 7 NC games in the Ivy schedule, all of them come before February, and they are all typically scheduled multiple years in advance. Add in the money factor (Cornell requires reciprocal arrangements for hosting and many perennial contenders will not travel to Ithaca) and you have a very thin set of options and a lot of volatility on the higher quality end of the spectrum. By way of example, Cornell had a pair of 2 game sets against MSU shortly after Ryan Miller backstopped them to multiple deep tourney runs, and by the time they came to Ithaca they were basically a .500 team.

The silly academic discussions about relative league strength are, well, silly. Everybody's got an opinion and that opinion is always based on a highly specific set of unstated - and probably unconscious - assumptions. Going up against the best helps prepare you for the tournament, but if you're sneaking in as an at large 14 seed from the fourth or fifth slot in the conference you have at best a puncher's chance of winning it all anyway. When you say "strong schedule is better!" you're assuming - whether you admit it or not - that Cornell will still get in to the tournament from near the top of the conference pile.

To put it another way, if the choice is "make the tournament every year for 8 years running by dominating a weak league and hope for the best" or "make the tournament 1 out of 3 years and generally be an underdog from a strong league anyway" I think it's totally reasonable to take the former. It's probably better to get lots of lottery tickets than figure out how to marginally improve your odds of winning with a specific set of numbers. If the choice is "make the tournament every year for 8 years running against a cupcake schedule" and "make the tournament every year for 8 years running as a relative favorite from a strong conference" I don't see any reason why you'd choose the easy route.

Where things get interesting is when the choice is "make the tournament every year against a weak conference" or "make the tournament half the time from a strong conference, sometimes near the top and sometimes not" - in those cases I prefer the strong conference. As a player I'd want the test. As a fan I want better hockey. You'll note those reasons have nothing to do with title odds.

[upprdeck]

Angello scored 13, but he had about 2/3 of them in a short span of time. not that
his goals that will be as much as his presence on the ice.. yates scored like crazy and then not for almost 2 months.

[Trotsky]

Cornell can't control schedule strength to any meaningful degree. There are 7 NC games in the Ivy schedule, all of them come before February, and they are all typically scheduled multiple years in advance. Add in the money factor (Cornell requires reciprocal arrangements for hosting and many perennial contenders will not travel to Ithaca) and you have a very thin set of options and a lot of volatility on the higher quality end of the spectrum. By way of example, Cornell had a pair of 2 game sets against MSU shortly after Ryan Miller backstopped them to multiple deep tourney runs, and by the time they came to Ithaca they were basically a .500 team.

The silly academic discussions about relative league strength are, well, silly. Everybody's got an opinion and that opinion is always based on a highly specific set of unstated - and probably unconscious - assumptions. Going up against the best helps prepare you for the tournament, but if you're sneaking in as an at large 14 seed from the fourth or fifth slot in the conference you have at best a puncher's chance of winning it all anyway. When you say "strong schedule is better!" you're assuming - whether you admit it or not - that Cornell will still get in to the tournament from near the top of the conference pile.

To put it another way, if the choice is "make the tournament every year for 8 years running by dominating a weak league and hope for the best" or "make the tournament 1 out of 3 years and generally be an underdog from a strong league anyway" I think it's totally reasonable to take the former. It's probably better to get lots of lottery tickets than figure out how to marginally improve your odds of winning with a specific set of numbers. If the choice is "make the tournament every year for 8 years running against a cupcake schedule" and "make the tournament every year for 8 years running as a relative favorite from a strong conference" I don't see any reason why you'd choose the easy route.

Where things get interesting is when the choice is "make the tournament every year against a weak conference" or "make the tournament half the time from a strong conference, sometimes near the top and sometimes not" - in those cases I prefer the strong conference. As a player I'd want the test. As a fan I want better hockey. You'll note those reasons have nothing to do with title odds.

This is well put.  BTW, if the NMU games were scheduled a few years ago it looks like we may be fortunate there, as they made a big leap in 2018 and have no early departures.

[billhoward]

I think this is also related to Greg's observation about persistence - teams generally win the title during an extended run of NCAA appearances. Teams that can absorb the loss of a key early departure or an entire class of immensely talented forwards (as Yale did) and maintain national relevance just get more chances (and probably better recruits, although Yale's pipeline seems to have dried up quite a bit).

Cornell hasn't been in that position for ~12 years and it's not clear the team is in that position now. Given the talent in the freshman class I'm still hopeful, but Angello leaving right now definitely hurts since there was reason to believe that next year was going to be Cornell's best shot since 2003.

You make an extended run of NCAA appearances, doesn't that actuarially improve your odds on its own (Gretzky's 'you miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take')? There is also the tournament theory that even a blind squirrel finds some nuts. E.g. UMBC vs. Virginia. I would love to see that on a warmup tee-shirt instead of Prove You're Worth [sic], Believe In Yourself, or One Team One Destiny, the kind of stuff made by a moonlighting Hallmark card writer.

As regards believing in yourself, USCHO summed up Notre Dame's never-arrived-late-game-goal in the title round against Minnesota-Duluth.

[BearLover]

Yes, the biggest and clearest reason making the tournament a bunch of times is better is because more pulls of the lever-->more chances of hitting jackpot

[ugarte]

last at-large team in wins again

[Scersk '97]

last at-large team in wins again

I think the only one I have a problem with is Providence.

If you blow your league's quarters, thus backing into a rest weekend right before regionals, you shouldn't make the tournament.

PS I'm aware this rule would limit leagues to four participants. That would be a good thing.
PPS I'm also willing to limit the Big Ten and WCHA to two teams because of their non-standard playoff systems. Want four teams, potentially? Fall in line.

[BearLover]

last at-large team in wins again

I think the only one I have a problem with is Providence.

If you blow your league's quarters, thus backing into a rest weekend right before regionals, you shouldn't make the tournament.

Isn't that what Yale did?

[Scersk '97]

last at-large team in wins again

I think the only one I have a problem with is Providence.

If you blow your league's quarters, thus backing into a rest weekend right before regionals, you shouldn't make the tournament.

Isn't that what Yale did?

No, they were in Atlantic City in 2013. Even played a consie.

[Jim Hyla]

last at-large team in wins again

I think the only one I have a problem with is Providence.

If you blow your league's quarters, thus backing into a rest weekend right before regionals, you shouldn't make the tournament.

PS I'm aware this rule would limit leagues to four participants. That would be a good thing.
PPS I'm also willing to limit the Big Ten and WCHA to two teams because of their non-standard playoff systems. Want four teams, potentially? Fall in line.

What's a "standard playoff system"? If you mean what we, and some others, currently do, then realize that "playoff systems" have changed over the years. Even the ECAC has changed.

If you mean having a tournament at a big neutral arena, then why, as far as the NCAA goes, is that better than playing at home rinks? I like it, but that doesn't make it better.

[jtwcornell91]

last at-large team in wins again

I think the only one I have a problem with is Providence.

If you blow your league's quarters, thus backing into a rest weekend right before regionals, you shouldn't make the tournament.

PS I'm aware this rule would limit leagues to four participants. That would be a good thing.
PPS I'm also willing to limit the Big Ten and WCHA to two teams because of their non-standard playoff systems. Want four teams, potentially? Fall in line.

What's a "standard playoff system"? If you mean what we, and some others, currently do, then realize that "playoff systems" have changed over the years. Even the ECAC has changed.

If you mean having a tournament at a big neutral arena, then why, as far as the NCAA goes, is that better than playing at home rinks? I like it, but that doesn't make it better.

I think Scott's idea is to disqualify any team not playing the weekend before the regionals start.  It might have the unintended consequence of getting conferences to adopt Final Five and Super Six formats...