Minnesota-Duluth coach Shannon Miller left the WCHA championships certain that her team had nailed down the No. 2 seed and Wisconsin would be hosting, but we with USCHO are not so sure.
One reason for the confusion is that the USCHO Pairwise Rankings (PWR) have yet to take into account the 2004 change in the NCAA criteria that drops certain games against weak opponents from the RPI calculation. Once that criteria is taken into account, the top five would be Minnesota, Dartmouth, UMD, Harvard, Wisconsin if the season ended today, instead of the PWR’s current ordering of Minnesota, UMD, Dartmouth, Wisconsin, Harvard. See the end of this column for a complete list of the top 10 under the adjusted RPI and the adjusted rankings.
Another point of confusion is what it means for top seeds to be protected. Some have suggested that a No. 1 or No. 2 seed being protected guarantees that it will face a team ranked seventh or eighth. In any other NCAA tournament, teams being seeded only guarantees that those teams won’t play each other until the latest possible round, so we’ll continue to assume the women’s hockey tournament will be like every other NCAA tournament in that respect.
So the good news for UMD? Our analysis suggests that UMD will still be the No. 2 seed as long as Dartmouth doesn’t win the ECACHL championship. The not-so-good news for UMD? The No. 2 seed might not matter much if the NCAA can’t afford to fly three teams for the tournament quarterfinals and the Bulldogs will end up hosting Wisconsin.
This column will attempt to predict brackets based on two variables, the outcome of the ECACHL tournament and how many teams the NCAA is willing to fly for the tournament. Neither is something we can certainly predict. The flight budget is an issue because the NCAA will have to fly three teams to avoid interconference play in the quarterfinals, since none of the WCHA teams are within driving distance of nonconference opponents. See the previous bracketology column for more on why we’re uncertain about the NCAA’s travel considerations.
Because St. Lawrence has wrapped up the comparison over Mercyhurst,1 and Mercyhurst has wrapped up the comparison over all other opponents, we believe the outcome of the CHA tournament is irrelevant to our discussion, and the outcome of the Hockey East tournament is relevant only in terms of which team qualifies.
Scenario One: Harvard wins the ECACHL tournament
If No. 1 seed Harvard defeats Dartmouth in the finals of the ECACHL tournament, the Crimson will jump the Big Green in the Pairwise Rankings on the basis of three head-to-head wins and a better close to the season. If Harvard beats St. Lawrence instead, the comparison between the Crimson and Big Green would remain even as it is now. Typically RPI is used to break such ties, but we predict Harvard would win the comparison. Harvard would also remain above Wisconsin in the adjusted rankings.
The bracket pairing with the minimal number of flights, assuming opponents in the same conference or within 300 miles of each other drive:
Mercyhurst at No. 1 Minnesota
St. Lawrence at Dartmouth
Hockey East champion at Harvard
Wisconsin at No. 2 Minnesota-Duluth
The bracket pairing where the NCAA pays for three flights and maximizes bracket integrity while avoiding intraconference matchups:
Mercyhurst at No. 1 Minnesota
Wisconsin at Dartmouth
Hockey East champion at Harvard
St. Lawrence at No. 2 Minnesota-Duluth
The bracket pairing where the NCAA minimizes flights, assuming everyone more than 300 miles away from their opponent flies:
Wisconsin at No. 1 Minnesota
St. Lawrence at Dartmouth
Hockey East champion at Harvard
Mercyhurst at No. 2 Minnesota-Duluth
Scenario Two: Dartmouth wins the ECACHL tournament
In this scenario, Dartmouth will be the No. 2 seed over Minnesota-Duluth. Harvard, with a defeat, falls behind Wisconsin in the rankings.
The bracket pairing with the minimal number of flights, assuming opponents in the same conference or within 300 miles of each other drive:
Mercyhurst at No. 1 Minnesota
St. Lawrence at Harvard
Wisconsin at Minnesota-Duluth
Hockey East Champion at No. 2 Dartmouth
The bracket pairing where the NCAA pays for three flights and maximizes bracket integrity while avoiding intraconference matchups:
Mercyhurst at No. 1 Minnesota
Harvard at Wisconsin
St. Lawrence at Minnesota-Duluth
Hockey East Champion at No. 2 Dartmouth
The bracket pairing where the NCAA minimizes flights, assuming everyone more than 300 miles away from their opponent drives, is the same as in Scenario One.
Scenario Three: St. Lawrence beats Harvard in the ECACHL tournament final
Under this scenario, Wisconsin jumps Harvard in the rankings. St. Lawrence jumps Harvard by beating out the Crimson in RPI and evening up the head-to-head race.
The bracket pairing with the minimal number of flights, assuming opponents in the same conference or within 300 miles drive:
Mercyhurst at No. 1 Minnesota
Harvard at St. Lawrence
Hockey East Champion at Dartmouth
Wisconsin at No. 2 Minnesota-Duluth
The bracket pairing where the NCAA pays for three flights and maximizes bracket integrity while avoiding intraconference matchups:
Mercyhurst at No. 1 Minnesota
St. Lawrence at Wisconsin
Hockey East Champion at Dartmouth
Harvard at No. 2 Minnesota-Duluth
The bracket pairing where the NCAA minimizes flights, assuming everyone more than 300 miles away from their opponent drives is the same as in Scenario One.
Scenario Four: St. Lawrence beats Yale in the ECACHL tournament final
In this case, Harvard still wins the comparison outright against St. Lawrence but falls behind Wisconsin.
The bracket pairing with the minimal number of flights, assuming opponents in the same conference or within 300 miles drive:
Mercyhurst at No. 1 Minnesota
St. Lawrence at Harvard
Hockey East Champion at Dartmouth
Wisconsin at No. 2 Minnesota-Duluth
The bracket pairing where the NCAA pays for three flights and maximizes bracket integrity while avoiding intraconference matchups:
Mercyhurst at No. 1 Minnesota
Harvard at Wisconsin
Hockey East Champion at Dartmouth
St. Lawrence at No. 2 Minnesota-Duluth
The bracket pairing where the NCAA minimizes flights, assuming everyone more than 300 miles away from their opponent drives, is the same as in Scenario One.
Scenario Five: Yale wins the ECACHL tournament
Under this scenario, Yale is in, Mercyhurst is out.
The bracket pairing with the minimal number of flights, assuming opponents in the same conference or within 300 miles drive:
Yale at No. 1 Minnesota
St. Lawrence at Harvard
Hockey East Champion at Dartmouth
Wisconsin at No. 2 Minnesota-Duluth
The bracket pairing where the NCAA pays for three flights and maximizes bracket integrity while avoiding intraconference matchups:
Yale at No. 1 Minnesota
Harvard at Wisconsin
Hockey East Champion at Dartmouth
St. Lawrence at No. 2 Minnesota-Duluth
The bracket pairing where the NCAA minimizes flights, assuming everyone more than 300 miles away from their opponent drives:
Wisconsin at No. 1 Minnesota
St. Lawrence at Dartmouth
Hockey East Champion at Harvard
Yale at No. 2 Minnesota-Duluth
Appendix
The following table lists the current adjusted RPI, which approximates the RPI used by the NCAA selection committee. For the sake of comparison, the table also lists the unadjusted rank — the rank using the RPI calculated by USCHO’s Pairwise Rankings.
Team Name Adj.RPI Unadj.Rank 1 Minnesota .693 1 2 Dartmouth .660 3 3 UMD .655 2 4 Harvard .623 5 5 Wisconsin .622 4 6 St. Lawrence .613 6 7 Mercyhurst .604 7 8 UNH .592 8 9 Providence .554 9 10 Princeton .547 10
The follow table ranks the teams using the NCAA’s criteria, which is the same as the Pairwise Rankings except it uses the adjusted RPI as one of five criteria instead of the RPI listed on USCHO. For the sake of comparison, each team’s Pairwise Ranking is also listed. This is how we assume teams would be seeded if the season ended prior to the ECACHL, CHA, and Hockey East tournaments.
Team Name PWR 1 Minnesota 1 2 Dartmouth 3 3 UMD 2 4 Harvard 5 5 Wisconsin 4 6 St. Lawrence 6 7 Mercyhurst 7 8 UNH 8 9 Providence 9 10 Princeton 10
Footnotes
1 (Addendum 3/9/05) It is true that Mercyhurst will pass St. Lawrence in the Pairwise Rankings if Mercyhurst wins the CHA tournament and St. Lawrence loses to Dartmouth in the ECACHL semifinals. However, it is still our judgment that the committee would rank St. Lawrence above Mercyhurst under this worst-case (yet very possible) scenario for St. Lawrence. In the comparison, St. Lawrence has the edge in adjusted RPI by about half a win (.610 vs. .606) and the head-to-head edge (1-0-1 vs. Mercyhurst). The Lakers have a decisive edge in Record in Last 16 games. Mercyhurst would have the slightly superior win percentage in Record vs. Teams Under Consideration (8-4-0 for Mercyhurst vs. 12-6-3 for St. Lawrence) and Record vs. Common Opponents. However, we believe the committee would judge that St. Lawrence has better results in both categories, and while record usually matches our evaluation of results, it doesn’t in this scenario. We observe that St. Lawrence was 12-5-2 against the same teams under consideration Mercyhurst went 8-4-0 against — St. Lawrence trailing Mercyhurst in the Record vs. TUC category is the result of the Saints going 0-1-1 against Harvard and Mercyhurst never playing the Crimson. We also note that the Saints had a superior record to Mercyhurst against four common opponents, while Mercyhurst had a superior record against three. We believe considering all the available data, the committee would rank St. Lawrence higher even though the Pairwise Rankings do not.
2 (Addendum 3/10/05) This column has framed the committee’s bracket pairing decision as a question of tradeoffs between flights and intraconference matchups, both of which the committee seeks to minimize. We originally suggested there are two choices: 1) 3 flights and 0 intraconference matchups and 2) 1 flight and 2 intraconference matchups. There is a third option that’s a happy medium between the two that this column originally neglected to consider: 2 flights and 1 intraconference matchup. This can be achieved using the following pairings:
No. 3 ECACHL team at (1) Minnesota
Mercyhurst at No. 2 ECACHL team
Hockey East champion at No. 1 ECACHL team
Wisconsin at Minnesota-Duluth
Note that this bracket pairing is not possible if Yale wins the ECACHL and displaces Mercyhurst from the tournament.
