Opponents and Others 2023-24

[upprdeck]

Another example of how the system plays out is Cornell vs Prov
They dont play but they have played 6 games vs COP.

Cornell 4-0-2  no losses. Prov 3-3 three losses and it means nothing

Playing a harder schedule I get, but when you play past a certain number of COP and have a much higher result that should count for something.

[upprdeck]

Mich loses so up to 13.

Win next week and Hope BU takes card of Prov and BC does the same to Umass

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

Mich loses so up to 13.

Win next week and Hope BU takes card of Prov and BC does the same to Umass

Actually, we were up to 13 before the UM v MSU game went final.  In fact, that final actually narrowed the gap between us and St. Cloud.

[BearLover]

Mich loses so up to 13.

Win next week and Hope BU takes card of Prov and BC does the same to Umass

Actually, we were up to 13 before the UM v MSU game went final.  In fact, that final actually narrowed the gap between us and St. Cloud.

Per CHN we are now exactly tied with SCSU (in RPI and therefore in PWR).

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

Mich loses so up to 13.

Win next week and Hope BU takes card of Prov and BC does the same to Umass

Actually, we were up to 13 before the UM v MSU game went final.  In fact, that final actually narrowed the gap between us and St. Cloud.

Per CHN we are now exactly tied with SCSU (in RPI and therefore in PWR).

And when I say we were up on SCSU, we were ahead by 0.0001 RPI point.  :-O

[Dafatone]

It remains a weird year for RPI. We are at .5590, which would have us around 8th most years.

[upprdeck]

Even last yr a PWR of .5800 gets you 3rd and this yr its ninth..

Non of it matters until the end. Hard to know where it was last yr at this time.

[BearLover]

There have been almost no upsets the last few weekends. We need WMU/SCSU/Prov/UMass/Mich to lose to a bad team, but that hasn't been happening. It would also probably be good if, when these teams happen to play each other (eg. SCSU plays WMU for two games in a couple weeks), one team sweeps rather than the teams splitting.

[upprdeck]

It doesn't help to have almost the whole ECAC be pretty poor.  Better play brings them up and that helps Cornell and brings down all the teams OC that they lost to.

Its hard to have a 4-5-6 loss season no matter what teams you play.

[BearLover]

It doesn't help to have almost the whole ECAC be pretty poor.  Better play brings them up and that helps Cornell and brings down all the teams OC that they lost to.

Its hard to have a 4-5-6 loss season no matter what teams you play.

RPI is meant to adjust for this, so I still don't really buy these arguments. But yes, I think that, in the case where there are only one or two good teams in our league (as is the case this year), there is added importance for the ECAC to do well out of conference.  For example, if Harvard were to do the impossible and beat BC on Monday, then all the ECAC teams would benefit in SOS and all the HE teams would suffer. The difference being that there are two HE teams directly ahead of us that we are trying to catch, but no ECAC teams.

In short: RPI is meant to adjust for SOS, so how good our league is or isn't shouldn't really affect RPI. Whether Harvard is good or bad, that should be a wash from our perspective.* Remember, our league being better = we are more likely to lose when we play in-league games. However, what we DO want to happen is for Harvard to get lucky in out of conference games, even if overall they are bad.

*actually, we do benefit from Harvard and the rest of our league sucking, once we are outside the context of RPI/PWR, because it increases our odds of winning the ECAC tournament.

[Trotsky]

Unless I am grossly misunderstanding your argument or RPI, you have it exactly backwards.  RPI's adjustment for SoS is what brings it into consideration. Far from diminishing it, it quantifies it.  That is indeed the whole point of RPI: to compare members of different sets which do not have direct common games.

Without something like RPI we would go by winning percentage and then you would be correct: beating on the Little Sisters of the Poor would be optimal. But with RPI, and quite rightly, a great record against bum opponents is discounted, and surviving with a mediocre record against great opponents is rewarded.

As in society, a rising tide raises all boats.  As in society, gross inequality damages even those on top.  We need a stronger ECAC to support a stronger Cornell.  We have nothing to lose but our chains.

[Scersk '97]

As in society, a rising tide raises all boats.  As in society, gross inequality damages even those on top.  We need a stronger ECAC to support a stronger Cornell.  We have nothing to lose but our chains.

As you've said in other places, these things are cyclical. There has been, at least for the ECAC, quite a bit of coaching turnover lately, if you count lately as "in the last 10 years." The long-termers, with the exception of Whittet, who has never been good at anything except keeping in the good graces of the administration it seems, and Allain, who seems to have lost the plot entirely, have either stabilized or raised the profiles of their programs. (I have to believe Teddy's year this year is a blip, but we shall see.) I think Brekke will eventually right the ship at St. Lawrence; I think Casey has Clarkson back on an even keel, but there are institutional and wider college hockey reasons that are making it difficult to keep a team together; and I feel for Ron Fogarty at Princeton, the purgatory of coaches. The new hires are good, particularly Harder at Colgate (no surprise considering how he played) and Cashman at Dartmouth. Whoever coaches at RPI has a tough road, it seems, but at least the institution itself is turning around.

What bothers me more is that Pandolfo and Greg Brown seem to be very, very good. And we already know Carvel and Leaman are good. And now a sleeping giant has been awoken by Ben Barr. We're at a coaching disadvantage to Hockey East for the first time in a while, and that's a tough row to hoe. In order to have a chance of winning nationally, we need to be the best in the East. And, since our relative stature depends on so few games that we tend to play against the West, we desperately need the rest of the league, particularly Harvard and Quinnipiac, to take care of business vs. Hockey East.

It's tough to "go it alone," but that's where we (and Quinnipiac) are this year. I hope this situation plays out better in the future, and I hope we can stay on top of that rising tide.

[BearLover]

Unless I am grossly misunderstanding your argument or RPI, you have it exactly backwards.  RPI's adjustment for SoS is what brings it into consideration. Far from diminishing it, it quantifies it.  That is indeed the whole point of RPI: to compare members of different sets which do not have direct common games.

Without something like RPI we would go by winning percentage and then you would be correct: beating on the Little Sisters of the Poor would be optimal. But with RPI, and quite rightly, a great record against bum opponents is discounted, and surviving with a mediocre record against great opponents is rewarded.

As in society, a rising tide raises all boats.  As in society, gross inequality damages even those on top.  We need a stronger ECAC to support a stronger Cornell.  We have nothing to lose but our chains.

You're misunderstanding (or I'm not being clear enough). My argument is as follows: the reason RPI exists is because we need a way to compare teams who play different schedules of varying degrees of difficulty. RPI (if it works correctly) bakes in the disparity in difficulty of schedule. It is supposed to tell you the "true" strength of a team, accounting for the schedule it plays.

Let's take two teams as an example: Cornell and Providence. Currently RPI judges those teams to be about equal, i.e. their "true" strength is about equal. If RPI is correctly adjudicating teams, then, if Cornell and Providence swapped conferences for a year, their RPI would be UNCHANGED. Cornell (or Providence) should have the same RPI whether they are in the ECAC, HE, the CCHA, or are independent.

Because a team's "true" strength is not a function of its conference (it exists independently of its conference), RPI will not change based on the conference of a team.

Remember, if Cornell were to play in HE, or the ECAC were to be better, then Cornell's SOS would improve, but it's win% would go down. Its RPI, which, again, judges the "true" strength of Cornell, would be UNCHANGED. Therefore, being in a stronger conference would not benefit Cornell (or any team).

[Scersk '97]

Remember, if Cornell were to play in HE, or the ECAC were to be better, then Cornell's SOS would improve, but it's win% would go down. Its RPI, which, again, judges the "true" strength of Cornell, would be UNCHANGED. Therefore, being in a stronger conference would not benefit Cornell (or any team).

Basically, you're forgetting about the effects of small sample spaces. We can play lights out for the rest of the year, the kind of hockey that would put us just behind BU and BC, and it just doesn't matter. I think our absolute ceiling is a 2-seed. In this climate, that also means we have an infinitesimal margin for error, and any hiccup vs. a lower-ranked team really hurts.

We'd be better off in a better conference, particularly with our young team, because not every night is the season. Frankly, I think it would allow us to make further progress toward the freer but still defensively responsible kind of hockey we've been playing for the last ten years. So too would 36 games instead of 29, but I digress.

[BearLover]

As in society, a rising tide raises all boats.  As in society, gross inequality damages even those on top.  We need a stronger ECAC to support a stronger Cornell.  We have nothing to lose but our chains.

As you've said in other places, these things are cyclical. There has been, at least for the ECAC, quite a bit of coaching turnover lately, if you count lately as "in the last 10 years." The long-termers, with the exception of Whittet, who has never been good at anything except keeping in the good graces of the administration it seems, and Allain, who seems to have lost the plot entirely, have either stabilized or raised the profiles of their programs. (I have to believe Teddy's year this year is a blip, but we shall see.) I think Brekke will eventually right the ship at St. Lawrence; I think Casey has Clarkson back on an even keel, but there are institutional and wider college hockey reasons that are making it difficult to keep a team together; and I feel for Ron Fogarty at Princeton, the purgatory of coaches. The new hires are good, particularly Harder at Colgate (no surprise considering how he played) and Cashman at Dartmouth. Whoever coaches at RPI has a tough road, it seems, but at least the institution itself is turning around.

What bothers me more is that Pandolfo and Greg Brown seem to be very, very good. And we already know Carvel and Leaman are good. And now a sleeping giant has been awoken by Ben Barr. We're at a coaching disadvantage to Hockey East for the first time in a while, and that's a tough row to hoe. In order to have a chance of winning nationally, we need to be the best in the East. And, since our relative stature depends on so few games that we tend to play against the West, we desperately need the rest of the league, particularly Harvard and Quinnipiac, to take care of business vs. Hockey East.

It's tough to "go it alone," but that's where we (and Quinnipiac) are this year. I hope this situation plays out better in the future, and I hope we can stay on top of that rising tide.

The real problem is that the blue bloods now take advantage of the transfer portal to plug holes left by early departures. In the past, BU, BC, etc. would get the best recruits, but they would leave early, so teams with solid four-year players like Cornell could beat them with size and experience, and without having to deal with gaping holes in their roster. That has changed. Continuing to take BU, and BC
examples:
—In the past, BU would not have had a goalie this year. They have an extremely talented set of forwards and defensemen, but they would have had a big problem in goal. But they were able to poach Caron from Brown, so now instead of a major weakness they have a highly serviceable goalie.
—In the past, BC would have struggled with size and experience, despite the most talented freshman class in the country. Sure, they'd be bringing in an entire forward line of first round draft picks, including the 4th and 8th overall picks. But what about the PK, what about going up against a bigger, stronger, more experienced team? Well, now they can just add players from the portal like our own Jack Malone, a graduate transfer who plays on their PK/third line, to plug that hole.