Bracketology

[KeithK]

[q]Except when it applies to the Big Red like back in 2003. Wasn't that a 1 vs. 13 matchup? [/q]We should've gotten the 16 seed, which would've been the AH team.  But they gave us Mankato in order to avoid inter-conference matchups with two of the other #1 seeds - Minnesota and CC, IIRC.  I don't remember if Mankato was #13 or #14.

[jy3]

sucks is up 5-0 against onion halfway thru the game

[Al DeFlorio]

[Q]jy3 Wrote:

 sucks is up 5-0 against onion halfway thru the game[/q]
...as Union free-falls from 6-0 to 7-10.  Nice of 'em to beat Dartmouth in the midst of their collapse.  B-]

[atb9]

I've been switching between the game and horrendous auditions in Cleveland and I'm not sure which is more dreadful.

[Chris 02]

Looking at the Livestats, it appears there was a big fight at 18:15 of the 2nd period in which one Union guy got DQed for "ER".  Anyone know what that is besides a TV show on NBC?

EDIT:  The boxscore on collegehockeystats indicates "excessive roughness"....might just be fighting.

[Chris \'03]

[Q]jy3 Wrote:

 sucks is up 5-0 against onion halfway thru the game[/q]

Mrazek played 5 minutes in goal for UC, made one save and allowed three goals.

Noah Welch managed to not tally a single point in the 8-1 win. As usual, he took a bunch of goonish penalties- 10 minutes (including unsportsmanlike conduct on two separate occasions). A class act through and through that captain.

[atb9]

Final score was 8-1.  There was a nasty fight at the end of the 2nd with Noah Welch going bare fisted pummelling away on Union players.  The only DQ handed out was to Brian Kerr of Union, even though about five players deserved one.

http://www.collegehockeystats.com/0405/boxes/mharuni1.f01

[Steve M]

That's exactly my point.  We need to wait and see if the committee is really going to risk poor attendance just to preserve a natural 1-16 bracket.  Of course the seed "bands", host schools, and no intra-conf 1st round matchups are cast in stone.  The natural 1-16 bracket, however, is not.  Moy's articles practically assume it's a given and to hell with the attendance.  It makes his column a no brainer to write since it's all cookbook to set up the brackets.

[Greg Berge]

Maybe, but Moy's very conscientious in general,  I didn't read this particular column, but all the derogatory verbage about a guy who has been working his butt off for college (and ECAC) hockey for a decade is uninformed and unwarranted.

[Brian]

Dell must have been the ref!

[Ken \'70]

How many of you astute prognosticators and observers of the PWR noticed that Harvard's win over Union last night dropped Miami out of TUC and reduced MI's TUC comparison advantage over Cornell to .002, bringing Cornell a you-know-what hair from #5 overall and a spot in Denver's bracket in the east?

Observing minutia like this is much more germane to what will keep Cornell "home" in the regionals than vapid speculation about what violence the committee will/should do to the natural seedings to maximize attendance (news flash - not much!).

[jkahn]

[Q]Ken '70 Wrote:

 How many of you astute prognosticators and observers of the PWR noticed that Harvard's win over Union last night dropped Miami out of TUC and reduced MI's TUC comparison advantage over Cornell to .002, bringing Cornell a you-know-what hair from #5 overall and a spot in Denver's bracket in the east?

[/q]

Actually, according to USCHO, they were not a TUC before last night's game  - perhaps they were one sometime on Saturday before all the late results were in.  Regardless, the whole TUC/non-TUC issue is definitely a flaw in the system.  If you lose to a team with an RPI of .5 or better, that hurts you, but if that team falters and is deemed a weaker team, then that loss doesn't matter so much.  The last two games of the regular season, Michigan plays Bowling Green, who is just above the TUC line.  They're already 2-0 vs. Bowling Green and it might turn out that their PWR winds up higher if they go 1-1 in their last two games rather than 2-0, which might push Bowling Green out of TUC.  Of course, Michigan wouldn't know this until after the CCHA playoffs, so they wouldn't lose on purpose, but there should never be a system with possible results like this.   Does the committee understand this?

[Josh '99]

Welch is, was, and always will be a thug.

[Al DeFlorio]

[Q]jkahn Wrote:

 [Q2]Ken '70 Wrote:

 How many of you astute prognosticators and observers of the PWR noticed that Harvard's win over Union last night dropped Miami out of TUC and reduced MI's TUC comparison advantage over Cornell to .002, bringing Cornell a you-know-what hair from #5 overall and a spot in Denver's bracket in the east?

[/Q]
Actually, according to USCHO, they were not a TUC before last night's game  - perhaps they were one sometime on Saturday before all the late results were in.  Regardless, the whole TUC/non-TUC issue is definitely a flaw in the system.  If you lose to a team with an RPI of .5 or better, that hurts you, but if that team falters and is deemed a weaker team, then that loss doesn't matter so much.  The last two games of the regular season, Michigan plays Bowling Green, who is just above the TUC line.  They're already 2-0 vs. Bowling Green and it might turn out that their PWR winds up higher if they go 1-1 in their last two games rather than 2-0, which might push Bowling Green out of TUC.  Of course, Michigan wouldn't know this until after the CCHA playoffs, so they wouldn't lose on purpose, but there should never be a system with possible results like this.   Does the committee understand this?[/q]
Seems to me there was a quarterfinal series in the CCHA a few years ago where it would have been better for the higher-ranked team (Michigan?) to lose one game of the series rather than sweep it, because the losing team would remain a TUC with the single win.

[Steve M]

I've never said anything negative about Moy's other columns, I just think he's making a major assumption in his Bracketology columns.  Just because he has done a lot of good work doesn't mean it's "uninformed and unwarranted" to disagree with him or express dislike for some of his columns. ::rolleyes::