Hockey pairwise update (through 3/9)
We are now just over a week away from hockey's Selection Sunday, and Michigan sits tied for third place in the pairwise rankings. So Michigan beat Notre Dame last night and...dropped? Here's what happened yesterday that is of any importance:
Michigan beat Notre Dame in 2OT. BC beat UMass 2-1. BU lost to UNH in OT. Duluth beat Minnesota State. Ferris lost to BG in OT. Yale beat Harvard. Niagara beat Robert Morris.
Two of those don't look like the others. Why do those last two games matter to Michigan? With their wins, Yale and Niagara are now the last two teams above the "TUC cliff," meaning their RPI scores are just above 0.500 and so they count as Teams Under Consideration for the tournament. With record against TUCs counting as a major factor in the pairwise rankings, which teams are actually part of this record can have a big impact.
It turns out that Cornell is 2-0 against Yale, so they now (for the time being) have two wins against TUCs that they didn't have yesterday. Also, UMass (whom Cornell lost to earlier in the season) dropped below the TUC cliff, with an RPI of 0.4999. This puts Cornell's TUC record at 8-3-3 for a winning percentage of 0.679. Yesterday, it was 6-4-3, for a winning percentage of 0.577. That improvement in TUC record gives Cornell the overall comparison over Michigan, as they also had a better record against common opponents. The only ways this can change are by Cornell losing to some TUCs or by changing who the TUCs are. So in order to win the comparison with Cornell, we are rooting for the following:
1. Harvard to beat Yale tonight. This would probably drop Yale below the TUC cliff, or at least make it so that if Yale does advance in the ECAC tournament, they could more easily get knocked below the cliff. If Yale drops below the TUC cliff, their TUC record drops to 0.625, which Michigan would surpass with a win over ND tonight.
2. UMass to beat BC tonight. Umass has a win over Cornell, and currently have an RPI of 0.4999. A win tonight would ensure that they would be a TUC, and that alone would drop Cornell's TUC record to the point where they would be tied with Michigan, and below us should we beat Notre Dame tonight. That would give Michigan the overall comparison.
3. We should also be aware of how Niagara does in their tournament. Both Michigan and Cornell have a win over Niagara, so a Niagara loss would hurt both (though it hurts Cornell more). EDIT: However, we want Niagara to stay as a TUC. If we beat ND tonight, we pull ahead of Duluth thanks to overtaking them in TUC record. If we can't count that win over Niagara, we'd fall back below Duluth. Since our comparison with Duluth is going to come down to TUC record, we need every win we can get.
4. We want Duluth to lose next weekend. Their games this weekend don't matter too much, but if both Michigan and Duluth win out, Duluth wins could win the comparison if they play TUCs both times next weekend.
We'll know a lot more about the pairwise landscape after tonight. Happy scoreboard watching, and Go Blue!
convoluted
mfan, what is our rooting interest w/r/t BG-Ferris? If Ferris loses, presumably it makes our path to a CCHA playoff title easier, but what does it do to our PWR status?
I think I'm rooting for Ferris.
The benefit of a BG win is that it probably locks us into a #1 seed if we win tonight. Ferris would be unable to pass us, and we can only lose to one more TUC after that, so we are pretty much inoculated from dropping to a #2 seed.
However, looking at it the other way, a BG win means we could only WIN more game against a TUC (the final or 3rd-place game), so it would be a little harder to overtake Duluth for the second #1 seed. That is an important spot, because, as things stand now, it looks like the best team out of the CCHA and WCHA is going to Green Bay, and the second one is going to go to St. Paul along with Minnesota, and I don't want that. I'm willing to risk dropping to be the best #2 seed if it gives Michigan a better shot at the second #1 seed. Also, BG is playing pretty well over the last month or so, and Ferris hasn't, so BG might be a more dangerous team anyway.
I ran the projections to see what PWR would look like at the end of the season under those scenarios.
If the better seed wins every remaining game in every conference tournament, we end up with the top 4 being #1 Boston College, #2 Michigan, #3 Ferris State and #4 Minnesota. That's with Ferris State winning the rest of their games and beating Michigan in the CCHA final. If Michigan beats Ferris, Ferris drops to 5th and Union gets the last 1-seed.
If BG upsets Ferris, but all of the other games are won by the better seeds, we end up with a top 4 of #1 Boston College, #2 Michigan, #3 Minnesota, #4 Union. The BG-Ferris series won't have nearly as much effect on Michigan's regional placement as the WCHA championship will.
Running several different scenarios (I won't bore you with the specifics), it looks like Michigan pretty much wraps up a #1 seed with a win tonight. If your goal is to avoid a Michigan v Minnesota game in the regional in St Paul, you are rooting hard for Minnesota to win the WCHA tournament. Right now, I would say the most likely event is that the winner of the WCHA, if it is Minnesota or Duluth, will get a #1 seed. Of course, if Minnesota and Michigan are both #1 seeds, they will be in different regionals.
March 10th, 2012 at 12:23 PM ^
at least if the higher seeds win, but my concern was what would happen if Michigan drops one or both games at the Joe, or if they lose tonight. If BG beats Ferris, I don't think anyone else can catch us in RPI if we win tonight, even if we are swept at the Joe, so BG winning locks us into a #1 seed in that respect. However, if Duluth loses to Minnesota, we would only need a win tonight and split among two TUCs at the Joe to pull ahead of Duluth. Putting Ferris at the Joe basically gives us two shots at a win, whereas a BG win means that we might have to win the Saturday game at the Joe to get the second #1 seed.
If the season ended today, we would have something like this for our regional brackets--
Worcester: #1 Boston College v #4 Western Michigan; #2 Boston University v #3 Union
Bridgeport: #1 Ferris State v #4 Denver; #2 Mass-Lowell v #3 Cornell
Green Bay: #1 Minnesota-Duluth v #4 Michigan State; #2 Miami v #3 North Dakota
St Paul: #1 Michigan v #4 Air Force; #2 Minnesota v #3 Maine
My first thought was that the Michigan-AFA game would be in Green Bay and the UMD-MSU game in St Paul, but there are a few factors pushing the bracket the way it is. Most important is the fact that the committee has shown a strong preference for preserving the 1-8, 2-7, 3-6 and 4-5 matchups in the second round, and right now Michigan is #3 in the pairwise and Minnesota is #6.
Weird that Michigan, as the third #1 seed, gets Air Force, but with two #1 and two #4 seeds from the CCHA, and the committee's desire to avoid intraconference matchups in the first round, this is what has to happen. The committee would love this bracket, as it gets Duluth and North Dakota in Green Bay for maximum attendance at a difficult regional, has both Boston teams in Worcester, and even gets Cornell and another Eastern team to Bridgeport.
It's "Selection Sunday" in college hockey and the team that brought you the beloved pairwise seeding has the big board up and ready to go!
March 10th, 2012 at 10:07 AM ^
It makes me regret my English degree more and more.
March 10th, 2012 at 11:15 AM ^
English degree?
March 10th, 2012 at 12:04 PM ^
/s
has to be included at all times
March 10th, 2012 at 12:25 PM ^
My sarcasm meter is on the fritz.
March 10th, 2012 at 10:30 AM ^
DOES ANYONE KNOW IF THE GAME IS BEING SHOWN ON THE INTERNET??
March 10th, 2012 at 10:51 AM ^
MSU is sitting right on the bubble right now at #14 in the PWR. Another loss tonight and a WMU win might put them out of the tourney which would be double-awesome because I want Western in and I want MSU to suffer
March 10th, 2012 at 11:31 AM ^
Thanks, mfan and alton; very helpful. I think we're all agreed that the nightmare for us is to end up in Minneapolis. If we and UMD are both 1s, would the committee really send them to Green Bay ahead of us? I realize Minny is problematic for them for the same reason it is for us, but at least they have more of their fan base there as well. Regardless, it seems like the easiest thing for us is to root for Minnesota to win the WCHA and get the #1 seed there. Makes it the most unlikely for us to end up in that regional.
(Oh, and I can't believe Union even has a shot at a #1. When I was a kid in Upstate NY, they were D-III.)
March 10th, 2012 at 11:47 AM ^
Putting Minnesota in St. Paul and UMD in Green Bay assures each regional of having big attendance draws within fairly easy driving distance. Green Bay might be close to the Michigan border, but it's not exactly close to Ann Arbor, and it would be tough to fill that arena even with the closest other teams that are possible (for example, Michigan, Ferris, North Dakota, and maybe an Eastern team). I think they'll split those teams up if they can, since Minnesota can fill St. Paul by itself.
CBS Sports and NBC Sports should be given exclusive rights to the NCAA Tournament, with the Frozen Four rotating between the networks every year. Keep it out of the grubby hands of ESPN who knows nothing or cares nothing about college hockey.