NCAA QF - Denver

[arugula]

I guess I'm just kind of tired of it. "The future is bright." "This freshman class is gonna be really special." "Cornell will be the favorite in the ECAC next season." That's all well and good but at some point you actually have to win. It took a crazy series of events for us to end up in the NCAA quarterfinals with a great chance to win, but we DID end up there, and we DIDN'T win. Feels like we've been "excited for the future" for a long time now. I'm just venting—it was a really good season.

Edit: this was posted before I saw BigDingus's useless post and is not in any way a reply to that

I think it's particularly frustrating that we keep losing in exactly the same round. Which is its own bummer.

And yeah, there's a lot of optimism and talk about the future. But for a year after we lost a lot of big pieces, I'll take this year. It's less frustrating than last year for me. Partially cause we won the conference, and partially cause we really did look good.

One of the weird outcomes of us repeatedly losing in the same round is that the pressure comes on so abruptly. Going into the first round of the NCAAs this year, we were still basking in the glory of winning the ECAC. And even in the years we don't win the ECAC, there's still a mission-accomplished feeling that we made the tournament. I was going to be happy even if we lost to Maine. But then, when we beat Maine and were again face to face with the NCAA quarterfinals, the pressure jumped from 0 to 100. The same thing happened last year: first round I'm happy to be there; second round I desperately need a win. That feeling will never dissipate until Cornell does finally make it to a Frozen Four.

But by the end of the season, you are what your record says you are. Have we gotten our fair share of puck luck? probably not.   But we're basically playing to our seeding every year. Could we have had some better lucK/puck luck? sure.   But it's not like we we're blowing most of these games as the favorite.
 
 Here's what I found after adding tournament seedings to Trotsky's chart.
 

In 9 of those 11 losses we were the underdog per the seeds.

-The first two of those losses were in 2 game total goal series where we got beaten up pretty good in the first game - and both of those were at the higher seeds campus site.   Winning either of those series as the visiting team would've been real tough.  

     
-6 of the 7 single-elimination losses as the 'dog were by 1 goal, but that look where those games were played - so many were basically home games from the bad guys.

   Minny in Minneapolis
   Wisco in Green Bay
   BU in Manchester
   UNH in Worcester.  

   taking our lumps 5-2 from UND in Grand Rapids can't be far off from that given the geography and the way UND travels.

-of the 2 losses when we were the favorite, one was the drubbing by Providence...played in Providence, and eh other against Bemiji there is simply no excuse for though.

  THe one game we won, we were the seeded favorite vs BC in Providence in a thriller 2ot game.  ANd anyone who was there wojld say that the faithful were loud, and a significantly bigger presence than the BC fans.  



Location and fan support in the stands aren't exactly the biggest factor in determining outcomes.   But we essentially lost the games we were expected to lose, especially given the game locations and opponents in so many of those. And when favored, we won one, lost one against a 4th seeded host who got to play at home, and blew only one- the Bemiji game.


SUre it hurts to lose over and over again in the QF.  But by coming in as a lower seed so often, I can't find myself nearly as gutted as if we'd often been the 1 or 2 seed in the region and lost these games.   Winning a QF as the 'dog is actually overachieving. I don't remember all these games well enough to judge, but if we were to apply the soccer terminology of "deserved the win" based on the run of play, were there any other games besides perhaps the Wisco loss where one could argue with a straight face that we'd had he better of it?


To be fair, you can't win a title without getting to the title game.  But while we've seen some lower seeded teams go on a magical run to the title, it's not realistic to expect that we'd have any great chance at winning the  whole thing if we did squeek out an upset here or there in a QF.

This is far too rational.  Reality is sometimes the lower seed wins. It's not simply that the favorite wins everytime therefore this  is to be expected.  Yale won for gods sake. RIT went to the Frozen Four. I don't think we should've beaten Denver, BU, Wisconsin, Minnesota, UND, etc etc.   but I think we should've beaten at least one of them.

[BearLover]

I guess I'm just kind of tired of it. "The future is bright." "This freshman class is gonna be really special." "Cornell will be the favorite in the ECAC next season." That's all well and good but at some point you actually have to win. It took a crazy series of events for us to end up in the NCAA quarterfinals with a great chance to win, but we DID end up there, and we DIDN'T win. Feels like we've been "excited for the future" for a long time now. I'm just venting—it was a really good season.

Edit: this was posted before I saw BigDingus's useless post and is not in any way a reply to that

I think it's particularly frustrating that we keep losing in exactly the same round. Which is its own bummer.

And yeah, there's a lot of optimism and talk about the future. But for a year after we lost a lot of big pieces, I'll take this year. It's less frustrating than last year for me. Partially cause we won the conference, and partially cause we really did look good.

It's a mixed bag of emotions for me. The ECAC crown was exhilarating and does take a bit of the sting away. But unlike last year, when I didn't think we were quite there talent wise against BU, yesterday we had every chance to win that game and to come up again short in the quarters is painful.

The ECAC championship was awesome and made this a great year no matter the ending. But I still think that when you look at yesterday's NCAA quarterfinals game as an isolated event rather than in the context of the broader season, it is one of the most crushing losses of the Schafer era.

[Scersk '97]

Somebody just needs to do the math:
What percentage of the time does a 2 beat a 1?
What percentage of the time does a 3 beat a 1? Etc.
Then, you can calculate Cornell's expected win percentage in the NCAA quarterfinals over the years. That will show you how lucky or unlucky we've gotten (hint: extremely unlucky).

Because it's a day off, I have no interest in doing the math, but that percentage is going to be pretty low. We have a tendency to remember the upsets, but they don't happen very often. And when they happen, they're usually hockey factories putting it together at the end of a season rather than true, happy-to-be-here upsets--like RIT in 2010, that then gets squashed like a bug.

For example, in only one tournament that we've been in since the beginning of Schafer's tenure has a team other than one of the top 4 seeds won: 2018, when UMD showed up a year early.

Maybe there's something to this seeding thing? Last change?

[arugula]

I know we weren't in the tournament that year but isn't Yale a rather large exception and very good comparable?

[arugula]

Providence too

[chimpfood]

Quinnipiac last year?

[BearLover]

Somebody just needs to do the math:
What percentage of the time does a 2 beat a 1?
What percentage of the time does a 3 beat a 1? Etc.
Then, you can calculate Cornell's expected win percentage in the NCAA quarterfinals over the years. That will show you how lucky or unlucky we've gotten (hint: extremely unlucky).

Because it's a day off, I have no interest in doing the math, but that percentage is going to be pretty low. We have a tendency to remember the upsets, but they don't happen very often. And when they happen, they're usually hockey factories putting it together at the end of a season rather than true, happy-to-be-here upsets--like RIT in 2010, that then gets squashed like a bug.

For example, in only one tournament that we've been in since the beginning of Schafer's tenure has a team other than one of the top 4 seeds won: 2018, when UMD showed up a year early.

Maybe there's something to this seeding thing? Last change?

I meant less our literal win% and more our expected number of frozen four appearances, given the number of quarterfinals appearances and our matchups (by seed) in the quarterfinals. So, we are now 1-11 in the quarters. I think it is definitely the case that we should be at least 4-8, and probably better than that.

[Scersk '97]

Providence too

Providence showed up a year early, and Yale showed up two years late. I don't want to bring up the specter of 2020, but that would've probably been our Yale-like echo of 2018 but playing a dominant hand.

2 in 27 years of tournaments. Not exactly counter examples; more exceptions that prove the rule.

[Scersk '97]

I meant less our literal win% and more our expected number of frozen four appearances, given the number of quarterfinals appearances and our matchups (by seed) in the quarterfinals. So, we are now 1-11 in the quarters. I think it is definitely the case that we should be at least 4-8, and probably better than that.

Oh, we're a little snakebit, but not as much as some people like to portray. I'll go with your 4-8. I definitely "feel your pain," but not as intensely as the irrationals.

[Scersk '97]

Quinnipiac last year?

QU was a #1 seed, dude.

[Dafatone]

I guess I'm just kind of tired of it. "The future is bright." "This freshman class is gonna be really special." "Cornell will be the favorite in the ECAC next season." That's all well and good but at some point you actually have to win. It took a crazy series of events for us to end up in the NCAA quarterfinals with a great chance to win, but we DID end up there, and we DIDN'T win. Feels like we've been "excited for the future" for a long time now. I'm just venting—it was a really good season.

Edit: this was posted before I saw BigDingus's useless post and is not in any way a reply to that

I think it's particularly frustrating that we keep losing in exactly the same round. Which is its own bummer.

And yeah, there's a lot of optimism and talk about the future. But for a year after we lost a lot of big pieces, I'll take this year. It's less frustrating than last year for me. Partially cause we won the conference, and partially cause we really did look good.

It's a mixed bag of emotions for me. The ECAC crown was exhilarating and does take a bit of the sting away. But unlike last year, when I didn't think we were quite there talent wise against BU, yesterday we had every chance to win that game and to come up again short in the quarters is painful.

The ECAC championship was awesome and made this a great year no matter the ending. But I still think that when you look at yesterday's NCAA quarterfinals game as an isolated event rather than in the context of the broader season, it is one of the most crushing losses of the Schafer era.

I think it's one of those things that's different for each person. For me, having a young team and ending strong, losing in an even game against a really good team, hurts less than a game where we shouldn't be in it on paper but manage to hang in there anyway.

But that's me. Valid to have this sort of loss hurt more.

[chimpfood]

Quinnipiac last year?

QU was a #1 seed, dude.

Whoops. It's confusing looking at the bracket even because they seed the 1 seeds 1 through 4 and nobody else.

[ugarte]

"Can't we pull one damn upset" just doesn't rock my world the way "Clemsoning" became a synonym for choking until they finally won one. Yes, I want to win a championship but there have been two teams in my life that I thought were actually reasonably capable of it. One lost in the semifinals and one was taken away BY THE GLOBALISTS.

[Beeeej]

"Can't we pull one damn upset" just doesn't rock my world the way "Clemsoning" became a synonym for choking until they finally won one. Yes, I want to win a championship but there have been two teams in my life that I thought were actually reasonably capable of it. One lost in the semifinals and one was taken away BY THE GLOBALISTS.

This is pretty much where I land too - with the exception that, maybe just because of how exactly it fell out, 2006 feels to me like the third great lost opportunity. Could we actually have beaten Maine and BC in Milwaukee?

[Scersk '97]

"Can't we pull one damn upset" just doesn't rock my world the way "Clemsoning" became a synonym for choking until they finally won one. Yes, I want to win a championship but there have been two teams in my life that I thought were actually reasonably capable of it. One lost in the semifinals and one was taken away BY THE GLOBALISTS.

This is pretty much where I land too - with the exception that, maybe just because of how exactly it fell out, 2006 feels to me like the third great lost opportunity. Could we actually have beaten Maine and BC in Milwaukee?

All the Wisconsin fans to RichH and me in Milwaukee: "That was the real championship. Here, let me buy you a beer."