If the season ended today, 1998 March 10

© 1998, Joe Schlobotnik (archives)

URL for this frameset: http://www.elynah.com/tbrw/tbrw.cgi?1998/pairwise.980310.shtml

Want to play along at home, kids? Check out "You Are The Committee", an interactive script which lets you go through the decision-making process of tournament selection.

The regular season has come to an end, and only two weeks of conference playoffs separate us from the selection of the NCAA tournament field. We have our first four members of the field of twelve cast in stone: North Dakota, Michigan State, Yale and BU all automatically qualify for the tournament thanks to their regular season championships. We also know that Army, Air Force, Dartmouth, Union, UAF, Bowling Green, Western Michigan, and UMass-Amherst are done for the season. The other 32 teams have two weeks to move into position for the tournament on the basis of the NCAA Tournament selection procedure.

To get an idea of where teams stand at the moment, let's use the results through the end of the regular season, obtained from US College Hockey Online's Division I Composite Schedule, and carry out the selection procedure based on those games. First, we perform pairwise comparisons among the 20 teams with non-losing records, obtaining the following results (note that you can get the current pairwise rankings and Ratings Percentage Index from USCHO at any time):

    Team         PWR  RPI                  Comparisons Won
 1 North Dakota   19 .616   BUMSMiCkNHYaOSBCWiCCSCNEMDMmNMLSRPCgPn
 2 Boston Univ    18 .619 __  MSMiCkNHYaOSBCWiCCSCNEMDMmNMLSRPCgPn
 3 Mich State     17 .615 ____  MiCkNHYaOSBCWiCCSCNEMDMmNMLSRPCgPn
 4 Michigan       16 .590 ______  CkNHYaOSBCWiCCSCNEMDMmNMLSRPCgPn
 5 Clarkson       14 .570 ________  NH__OSBCWiCCSCNEMDMmNMLSRPCgPn
 6 New Hampshire  14 .576 __________  YaOSBCWiCCSCNEMDMmNMLSRPCgPn
 7 Yale           13 .565 ________Ck__  OS__WiCCSCNEMDMmNMLSRPCgPn
 8 Ohio State     12 .556 ______________  BCWiCCSCNEMDMmNMLSRPCgPn
 9 Boston Coll    12 .571 ____________Ya__  WiCCSCNEMDMmNMLSRPCgPn
10 Wisconsin      10 .546 __________________  CCSCNEMDMmNMLSRPCgPn
11 CO College      9 .548 ____________________  SCNEMDMmNMLSRPCgPn
12 St Cloud        8 .537 ______________________  NEMDMmNMLSRPCgPn
13 Northeastern    7 .531 ________________________  MDMmNMLSRPCgPn
14 Minn-Duluth     6 .521 __________________________  MmNMLSRPCgPn
15 Miami           5 .531 ____________________________  NMLSRPCgPn
16 Northern Mich   4 .519 ______________________________  LSRPCgPn
17 Lake Superior   3 .506 ________________________________  RPCgPn
18 RPI             2 .509 __________________________________  CgPn
19 Colgate         1 .496 ____________________________________  Pn
20 Princeton       0 .491 ______________________________________  
    

We've already given automatic bids to the four regular season champions. The tournament champions will also get automatic bids, but let's leave those aside for this exercise. It's absolutely clear in that case that we should fill out the tournament field with Michigan, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Colorado College, St. Cloud, Clarkson, New Hampshire and Boston College. (Note in fact that the only two "out of place" comparisons involve Yale, who are not competing for an at large bid anyway. Before we rank the teams within their regions, we need to move the seventh Western team, St. Cloud, temporarily to the East, giving:

      West                                  East
1 North Dakota   5 .616 MSMiOSWiCC | 1 Boston Univ    5 .619 CkNHBCYaSC
2 Mich State     4 .615   MiOSWiCC | 2 Clarkson       3 .570   NHBC__SC
3 Michigan       3 .590 __  OSWiCC | 3 New Hampshire  3 .576 __  BCYaSC
4 Ohio State     2 .556 ____  WiCC | 4 Boston Coll    2 .571 ____  YaSC
5 Wisconsin      1 .546 ______  CC | 5 Yale           2 .565 Ck____  SC
6 CO College     0 .548 ________   | 6 St Cloud       0 .537 ________  
    

North Dakota and Michigan State get the byes in the West, and BU gets the top Eastern bye. The second Eastern bye is a little trickier, but the comparisons tell us it's down to Clarkson and New Hampshire, and Clarkson wins the pairwise comparison with UNH to claim the last bye. If Yale, the one regular season champion without a bye, also wins their tournament title, however, they would snatch the bye away from Clarkson. That would make a big difference, since the comparisons tell us to send Yale and St. Cloud out West in exchange for Wisconsin and Colorado College. This gives regional makeups of:

      West                                  East
1 North Dakota (W)   1 .616 MS     | 1 Boston Univ (H)    1 .619 Ck
2 Mich State (C)     0 .615        | 2 Clarkson (E)       0 .570

3 Michigan (C)       3 .590 YaOSSC | 3 New Hampshire (H)  3 .576 BCWiCC
4 Yale (E)           2 .565   OSSC | 4 Boston Coll (H)    2 .571   WiCC
5 Ohio State (C)     1 .556 __  SC | 5 Wisconsin (W)      1 .546 __  CC
6 St Cloud (W)       0 .537 ____   | 6 CO College (W)     0 .548 ____
    

We've got some problems with second-round games between teams in the same conference. With seven Western teams, one such matchup is inevitable, but we can get rid of the matchup in the East by switching BC with Yale, while in the West we should swap Ohio State for one of the WCHA teams, say Wisconsin, to bring us down to only one intraconference possibility:

      West                                  East
1 North Dakota (W)   1 .616 MS     | 1 Boston Univ (H)    1 .619 Ck
2 Mich State (C)     0 .615        | 2 Clarkson (E)       0 .570

3 Michigan (C)       3 .590 BCWiSC | 3 New Hampshire (H)  3 .576 YaOSCC
4 Boston Coll (H)    2 .571   WiSC | 4 Yale (E)           2 .565   OSCC
5 Wisconsin (W)      1 .546 __  SC | 5 Ohio State (C)     1 .556 __  CC
6 St Cloud (W)       0 .537 ____   | 6 CO College (W)     0 .548 ____
    

The one change we have to make within the regions is to switch Michigan and BC to avert a Michigan/Michigan State game in the regionals. To preserve the first-round pairings, we should also swap Wisconsin and St. Cloud, which makes the tournament brackets:

5W St Cloud (W)                   6E CO College (W)
4W Michigan (C)                   3E New Hampshire (H)
     1W North Dakota (W)--+--2E Clarkson (E)
                          |
     2W Mich State (C)  --+--1E Boston Univ (H)
3W Boston Coll (H)                4E Yale (E)
6W Wisconsin (W)                  5E Ohio State (C)
    

The Gory Details

If you want to see the reasons why each of the pairwise comparisons turned out the way it did, here they are.


Last Modified: 2019 July 24

Joe Schlobotnik / joe@amurgsval.org

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