If the season ended today, 1999 March 15

© 1999, Joe Schlobotnik (archives)

URL for this frameset: http://www.elynah.com/tbrw/tbrw.cgi?1999/pairwise.990315.shtml

To see how the final pairwise numbers might look, try the conference tournament bracket or non-tables "what if" interface to the interactive "You Are The Committee" script.

In just six days, the NCAA selection committee will seed the men's division I hockey tournament. With only 19 games left to be played, let's see how the Tournament selection procedure plays itself out pending those results. First of all, we know for certain four of the teams who will be in the tournament: New Hampshire, Clarkson, Michigan State and North Dakota each receive an automatic bid for winning the regular season titles in their respective conferences. Up to four more teams will receive automatic bids for winning their conference tournaments, and the remaining four to eight at large bids will be given out on the basis of pairwise comparisons among teams that finish with Division I records at or above .500. As of now, those comparisons look like this (with US College Hockey Online down at the moment, I have supplemented their Division I Composite Schedule by adding this past weekend's results by hand):

    Team         PWR  RPI                  Comparisons Won
 1 North Dakota   21 .647   NHMeMSCCCkDUQnBCSLOSMiNMPnNtRPCgMkCtNiPvHC
 2 New Hampshire  20 .633 __  MeMSCCCkDUQnBCSLOSMiNMPnNtRPCgMkCtNiPvHC
 3 Maine          19 .616 ____  MSCCCkDUQnBCSLOSMiNMPnNtRPCgMkCtNiPvHC
 4 Mich State     18 .603 ______  CCCkDUQnBCSLOSMiNMPnNtRPCgMkCtNiPvHC
 5 CO College     17 .586 ________  CkDUQnBCSLOSMiNMPnNtRPCgMkCtNiPvHC
 6 Clarkson       16 .584 __________  DUQnBCSLOSMiNMPnNtRPCgMkCtNiPvHC
 7 Denver U       15 .558 ____________  QnBCSLOSMiNMPnNtRPCgMkCtNiPvHC
 8 Quinnipiac     13 .548 ______________  BC__OSMiNMPnNtRPCgMkCtNiPvHC
 9 Boston Coll    13 .581 ________________  SLOSMiNMPnNtRPCgMkCtNiPvHC
10 St Lawrence    12 .555 ______________Qn__  OS__NMPnNtRPCgMkCtNiPvHC
11 Ohio State     11 .534 ____________________  MiNMPnNtRPCgMkCtNiPvHC
12 Michigan        9 .557 __________________SL__  NM__NtRPCgMkCt__PvHC
13 Northern Mich   9 .539 ________________________  PnNtRPCgMkCtNiPvHC
14 Princeton       8 .534 ______________________Mi__  __RPCgMkCtNiPvHC
15 Notre Dame      6 .537 __________________________Pn  RPCgMkCt__Pv__
16 RPI             6 .533 ______________________________  CgMkCtNiPvHC
17 Colgate         5 .530 ________________________________  MkCtNiPvHC
18 MSU-Mankato     4 .528 __________________________________  CtNiPvHC
19 Connecticut     3 .527 ____________________________________  NiPvHC
20 Niagara         3 .480 ______________________Mi____Nt________  __HC
21 Providence      2 .513 ______________________________________Ni  HC
22 Holy Cross      1 .493 ____________________________Nt____________  
    

(In addition, Minnesota or St. Cloud State could also qualify for the NCAAs by winning the WCHA Final Five.) Before charging ahead into the awarding of at-large bids, we must note that the ratings percentage index upon which the pairwise comparisons are largely based, has a weakness which is very significant this year: it does not judge a teams' strength of schedule accurately when that team's opponents have themselves played weak schedules. Since the six division I members of the new MAAC conference play 20 games each against each other, plus a few non-conference games against Division I independents, a team like Quinnipiac can rack up a high winning percentage against weak competition without the weakness of their schedule being reflected in the RPI. Anticipating this, the selection committee, as reported in the NCAA News, "noted that it reserves the right to evaluate each team based on the relative strength of their respective conference." The best way to gauge that relative strength is via the conferences' performance against the four Division I independents:

                vs Indies    vs Army    vs Niagara   vs AFA     vs Mankato
      Avg RPI   PF-PA  Pct  PF-PA  Pct  PF-PA  Pct  PF-PA  Pct  PF-PA   Pct
 HE    .525     14- 2 .875  12-0 1.000   0- 2 .000   2-0 1.000   0- 0  .---
 WCHA  .504     32-10 .762   0-0  .---   0- 0 .---  10-0 1.000  22-10  .688
 CCHA  .504      5- 5 .500   0-0  .---   2- 4 .333   0-0  .---   3- 1  .750
 ECAC  .496     28-10 .737  10-0 1.000  10-10 .500   2-0 1.000   6- 0 1.000
 MAAC  .453      8-22 .267   5-5  .500   0- 4 .000   3-5  .350   0- 8  .000

MSU-Mankato's surprise victory over North Dakota in game one of the WCHA quintafinal series makes the Mavericks look a bit stronger, but since no MAAC team actually beat them, it does little to change the conclusion that the MAAC has not reached competitive equity and it is reasonable to assume that the committee will exclude Quinnipiac, UConn and Holy Cross from consideration for at-large bids.

Maine, Colorado College, Denver, and Boston College all win comparisons with all of the remaining teams, and are thus easy choices for at-large bids. The awarding of the remaining bids is very tricky, and could be done in different ways with at least two different results. Here are the teams still in contention for those bids:

 1 St Lawrence     9 .555   OS__NMPnNtRPCgMkNiPv
 2 Ohio State      9 .534 __  MiNMPnNtRPCgMkNiPv
 3 Michigan        7 .557 SL__  NM__NtRPCgMk__Pv
 4 Northern Mich   7 .539 ______  PnNtRPCgMkNiPv
    
 5 Princeton       6 .534 ____Mi__  __RPCgMkNiPv
 6 Notre Dame      5 .537 ________Pn  RPCgMk__Pv
 7 RPI             4 .533 ____________  CgMkNiPv
 8 Colgate         3 .530 ______________  MkNiPv
 9 MSU-Mankato     2 .528 ________________  NiPv
10 Niagara         2 .480 ____Mi____Nt______  __
11 Providence      1 .513 __________________Ni

The committee is supposed to compare teams which are "on the bubble" but the question is how to define that set of teams. However you slice it, Princeton will be a bubble team, which means that SLU and OSU will enter the tournament ahead of Michigan. Using the algorithm of the "automatic" button on my "You Are The Committee" script, which removes teams from the top and/or bottom of the table and then recalculates the number of comparisons won, we would remove Providence, Mankato, Colgate, and RPI from contention. At each turn, the bottom team has won a comparison only with Niagara, while the Purple Eagles have won comparisons with both Notre Dame and Michigan. This leaves us with

 1 Northern Mich   3 .539   PnNi__Nt
 2 Princeton       2 .534 __  NiMi__

 3 Niagara         2 .480 ____  MiNt
 4 Michigan        2 .557 NM____  Nt
 5 Notre Dame      1 .537 __Pn____

Notre Dame is dropped off the bottom of this bubble, and NMU and Princeton have won two comparisons (out of three) each with the remaining teams.

If, on the other hand, the committee leaves out Niagara, who lose comparisons to four teams directly below our ultimate bubble, we find ourselves deciding among the following:

 1 Michigan (C)       2 .557   NMNt__
 2 Northern Mich (C)  2 .539 __  NtPn

 3 Notre Dame (C)     1 .537 ____  Pn
 4 Princeton (E)      1 .534 Mi____

which would put Michigan in the tournament instead of Princeton. We can't tell for sure what the committee would actually do, but if I had to guess I'd say that they would not think of Niagara, who win comparisons only with two teams (albeit obvious bubble teams) as themselves on the bubble. So let's proceed assuming that Michigan is in the tournament. That leaves us with seven Western teams and only five from the East, so we declare Northern Michigan, the lowest-rated Western team, to be honorary Easterners:

      West                                  East
1 North Dakota    5 .647 MSCCDUOSMi | 1 New Hampshire   5 .633 MeCkBCSLNM
2 Mich State      4 .603   CCDUOSMi | 2 Maine           4 .616   CkBCSLNM
3 CO College      3 .586 __  DUOSMi | 3 Clarkson        3 .584 __  BCSLNM
4 Denver U        2 .558 ____  OSMi | 4 Boston Coll     2 .581 ____  SLNM
5 Ohio State      1 .534 ______  Mi | 5 St Lawrence     1 .555 ______  NM
6 Michigan        0 .557 ________   | 6 Northern Mich   0 .539 ________

Both regions are nicely ranked by the pairwise comparisons. North Dakota and Michigan State are in line for the two Western byes, with New Hampshire and Maine in the East, although if Clarkson wins the ECAC tournament, they will receive an automatic bye. We need to swap the bottom two teams from each region, but in each case three of the top four teams come from the same conference, which leads to potential intraconference matchups in the second round. With the East Regionals being held in Worcester, Massachusetts, it seems pretty safe that attendance considerations will lead the NCAA to keep BC there anyway, and a possible intra-conference matchup in the West is inevitable with seven Western teams in the tourney. Going strictly by the numbers, we get the following teams in the regionals:

      West                                  East
1 North Dakota (W)   1 .647 MS     | 1 New Hampshire (H)  1 .633 Me
2 Mich State (C)     0 .603        | 2 Maine (H)          0 .616
 
3 CO College (W)     3 .586 DUSLNM | 3 Clarkson (E)       3 .584 BCOSMi
4 Denver U (W)       2 .558   SLNM | 4 Boston Coll (H)    2 .581   OSMi
5 St Lawrence (E)    1 .555 __  NM | 5 Ohio State (C)     1 .534 __  Mi
6 Northern Mich (C)  0 .539 ____   | 6 Michigan (C)       0 .557 ____

The question here is whether attendance considerations would lead to NMU or DU trading places with Michigan or OSU. DU is in the WCHA along with host school Wisconsin, but NMU was recently in that league as well, and of course the other two CCHA schools in question are in the Big Ten. Very tentatively, though, let's leave the regions as they are. There is one avoidable second-round CCHA matchup between MSU and NMU, so we swap Northern Michigan and SLU, also swapping the two Colorado teams to preserve first-round pairings, and obtain

5W Northern Mich (C)               6E Michigan (C)
4W CO College (W)                  3E Clarkson (E)
     1W North Dakota (W) --+--2E Maine (H)
                           |
     2W Mich State (C)   --+--1E New Hampshire (H)
3W Denver U (W)                    4E Boston Coll (H)
6W St Lawrence (E)                 5E Ohio State (C)

The Gory Details

You can also see a detailed accounting of all the pairwise comparisons.


Last Modified: 2019 July 24

Joe Schlobotnik / joe@amurgsval.org

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