If the season ended today, 2002 March 12

© 2000-2002, Joe Schlobotnik (archives)

URL for this frameset: http://www.slack.net/~whelan/tbrw/tbrw.cgi?2002/pairwise.020312.shtml

Game results taken from US College Hockey Online's Division I composite schedule

This analysis is based on the pairwise comparisons at the time it was written. You can also go through this process interactively with the up-to-date results using the "You Are The Committee" script, or you can fill in hypothetical results for the remaining games using the conference tournament bracket or non-table hypothetical interface, and use the resulting pairwise comparisons. You can also use the self-service hypothetical interface to add, remove, or change any results you like from this season and go from there.

Only one weekend remains before NCAA Men's Division I Ice Hockey Selection Committee choose and seed the national tournament field. Twenty-five teams have ended their seasons with losing records, and thus been mathematically eliminated from consideration. Two more (Alabama-Huntsville and Bemidji State) are guaranteed to finish with losing records and have no shot at an automatic bid. The remaining 32 can at least in principle end up being considered. To get a sense of where everyone stands now, let's do a run through the NCAA selection procedures using the results as they stand now.

There are currently 27 teams with records of .500 or better against tournament-eligible competition (not including the five still alive in conference tournaments who have a shot at either a non-losing final record or an automatic berth). The pairwise comparisons among those 27 are as follows:

Pairwise Comparisons (including games of 2002 March 10)

Pairwise Comparisons
Rk Team PWR RPI Comparisons Won
1 New Hampshire (H) 26 .6168 Mn DU BU MS Me SC Cr CC Mi Ak NM ML Mh WM NO NE OS Ck RP BC Nt WS Qn Da SH HC
2 Minnesota  (W) 25 .6243 DU BU MS Me SC Cr CC Mi Ak NM ML Mh WM NO NE OS Ck RP BC Nt WS Qn Da SH HC
3 Denver U  (W) 24 .6170   BU MS Me SC Cr CC Mi Ak NM ML Mh WM NO NE OS Ck RP BC Nt WS Qn Da SH HC
4 Boston Univ  (H) 23 .6054     MS Me SC Cr CC Mi Ak NM ML Mh WM NO NE OS Ck RP BC Nt WS Qn Da SH HC
5 Mich State  (C) 22 .5935       Me SC Cr CC Mi Ak NM ML Mh WM NO NE OS Ck RP BC Nt WS Qn Da SH HC
6 Maine  (H) 21 .5865         SC Cr CC Mi Ak NM ML Mh WM NO NE OS Ck RP BC Nt WS Qn Da SH HC
7 SCloud  (W) 20 .6053           Cr CC Mi Ak NM ML Mh WM NO NE OS Ck RP BC Nt WS Qn Da SH HC
8 Cornell  (E) 19 .5837             CC Mi Ak NM ML Mh WM NO NE OS Ck RP BC Nt WS Qn Da SH HC
9 CCollege  (W) 18 .5783               Mi Ak NM ML Mh WM NO NE OS Ck RP BC Nt WS Qn Da SH HC
10 Michigan  (C) 17 .5742                 Ak NM ML Mh WM NO NE OS Ck RP BC Nt WS Qn Da SH HC
11 AK-Fairbanks  (C) 16 .5667                   NM ML Mh WM NO NE OS Ck RP BC Nt WS Qn Da SH HC
12 Northern Mich (C) 15 .5572                     ML Mh WM NO NE OS Ck RP BC Nt WS Qn Da SH HC
13 Mass-Lowell  (H) 13 .5645                       Mh   NO NE OS Ck RP BC Nt WS Qn Da SH HC
14 Mercyhurst  (M) 13 .5454                         WM NO NE OS Ck RP BC Nt WS Qn Da SH HC
15 Western Mich  (C) 13 .5432                       ML   NO NE OS Ck RP BC Nt WS Qn Da SH HC
16 NE-Omaha  (C) 11 .5382                             NE OS Ck RP BC Nt WS Qn Da SH HC
17 NorthEastern  (H) 10 .5381                               OS Ck RP BC Nt WS Qn Da SH HC
18 Ohio State  (C) 9 .5348                                 Ck RP BC Nt WS Qn Da SH HC
19 Clarkson  (E) 8 .5152                                   RP BC Nt WS Qn Da SH HC
20 RPI  (E) 7 .5083                                     BC Nt WS Qn Da SH HC
21 Boston Coll  (H) 6 .5182                                       Nt WS Qn Da SH HC
22 Notre Dame  (C) 5 .5026                                         WS Qn Da SH HC
23 Wayne State  (A) 4 .4978                                           Qn Da SH HC
24 Quinnipiac  (M) 3 .4899                                             Da SH HC
25 Dartmouth  (E) 2 .4866                                               SH HC
26 Sacred Heart  (M) 1 .4849                                                 HC
27 Holy Cross  (M) 0 .4768                                                  

The top eleven teams win all of their comparisons with all the teams below them, and included in those 11 are the top seeds in four of the five conference tournaments with automatic bids on the line (CCHA, WCHA, ECAC, and Hockey East). If we assume that those four automatic bids would come from that group, and that the fifth to MAAC #1 seed Mercyhurst, we get a tournament field consisting of:

TeamlPWRRPI Comparisons Won
New Hampshire (H) 11 .6168 Mn DU BU MS Me SC Cr CC Mi Ak Mh
Minnesota (W) 10 .6243 DU BU MS Me SC Cr CC Mi Ak Mh
Denver U (W) 9 .6170   BU MS Me SC Cr CC Mi Ak Mh
Boston Univ (H) 8 .6054     MS Me SC Cr CC Mi Ak Mh
Mich State (C) 7 .5935       Me SC Cr CC Mi Ak Mh
Maine (H) 6 .5865         SC Cr CC Mi Ak Mh
SCloud (W) 5 .6053           Cr CC Mi Ak Mh
Cornell (E) 4 .5837             CC Mi Ak Mh
CCollege (W) 3 .5783               Mi Ak Mh
Michigan (C) 2 .5742                 Ak Mh
AK-Fairbanks (C) 1 .5667                   Mh
Mercyhurst (M) 0 .5454                    

The comparisons are entirely transitive, so we can use them to assign a unique 1-12 ranking. The top four teams get first-round byes, and should be seeded so that #1 UNH is bracketed to play #4 BU in the semis. Since BU hosts the East Regional, that means they must stay East, and New Hampshire would be the top seed in the West. The placement of Minnesota and Denver is somewhat arbitrary, but let's suppose the Gophers are kept West (as the #2 seed) to give them the shorter trip to Ann Arbor and Denver go East as the top seed in that regional.

The remaining eight teams include five from the West and three from the East, so one of the Westerners has to be sent to the East Regional, and the obvious choice is Alaska-Fairbanks, since they are the lowest-rated team, they have to fly to the regionals anyway, and one of the three CCHA teams has to be swapped out to avoid a first-round intraconference game. The regionals would thus be as follows:

Western Regional
(Ann Arbor, MI)

Eastern Regional
(Worcester, MA)

TeamlPWRRPI Comps Won
Denver U (W) 1 .6170 BU
Boston Univ (H) 0 .6054
Mich State (C) 3 .5935 SC CC Mi
SCloud (W) 2 .6053 CC Mi
CCollege (W) 1 .5783   Mi
Michigan (C) 0 .5742    
TeamlPWRRPI Comps Won
New Hampshire (H) 1 .6168 Mn
Minnesota (W) 0 .6243
Maine (H) 3 .5865 Cr Ak Mh
Cornell (E) 2 .5837 Ak Mh
AK-Fairbanks (C) 1 .5667   Mh
Mercyhurst (M) 0 .5454    

The seeds for the East Regional can be assigned according to the pairwise comparisons, but in the West we need to exchange CC and Michigan to avoid a couple of first-round intraconference games. This gives tournament brackets of:

5W Michigan (C)                    6E Mercyhurst (M)    
4W St Cloud (W)                    3E Maine (H)         
     1W New Hampshire (H)--+--2E Boston Univ (H)        
                           |                             
     2W Minnesota (W)    --+--1E Denver U (W)           
3W Mich State (C)                  4E Cornell (E)       
6W CO College (W)                  5E AK-Fairbanks (C) 

The Gory Details

If you want to have a look at why each pairwise comparison turned out the way it did, you can click on the individual comparisons in the table at the top of this article for a breakdown of criteria. You can also go though the process yourself using today's pairwise comparisons with the "You Are The Committee" script, or by filling in the conference tournament brackets on our table-based text-based hypothetical interface.


Last Modified: 2012 March 25

Joe Schlobotnik / joe@amurgsval.org

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