At the polls.......

[buzzsaw]

2/6/06 polls are in and ...............

1 Minnesota (29) 18- 6-4 785 2

2 Miami ( 7) 20- 5-4 755 1

3 Cornell ( 1) 16- 4-3 687 5

4 Wisconsin ( 3) 19- 7-2 684 4

5 Boston College 17- 6-2 663 3

6 Boston University 15- 8-2 549 8

7 Michigan 16-10-3 533 6

8 Colorado College 18-11-1 494 7

9 Denver 16-10-2 439 10

10 Michigan State 16-10-7 391 14

11 North Dakota 18-13-1 347 11

12 Vermont 17- 8-3 339 13

13 Providence 14-10-2 301 9

14 Maine 18-10-0 276 12

15 St. Cloud State 16- 9-3 265 19

16 New Hampshire 14-10-4 196 16

17 Harvard 12- 8-2 159 20

18 Nebraska-Omaha 15-11-4 155 NR

19 Lake Superior 14- 8-6 97 15

20 Ferris State 14-10-6 84 NR

[NAPAFISH]

Hope their heads dont get to big. We might have to raise the roof of the Mooch.

[buzzsaw]

Feb 8th bracketology..... check out where our friends from North dakota are sitting..... hmmmmmmmmmmmm

TUCs Matter

RPI has always been the single most important factor in the PairWise. That's because not only is RPI one of the four comparison factors, it's the tiebreaker for deciding head-to-head comparisons between teams. That means that any decent analysis of the PWR starts with the RPI.

Looking at this season's accumulated RPI numbers, the doubt lies between .5300 and .5500. Teams above .5500 at the end of the season are nearly guaranteed a tournament berth, while those who end up below .5300 are longshots.

But after RPI (and despite the example of Colorado College above), the second-most important component of the PWR is record against TUCs. Why?

Well, among the remaining criteria, head-to-head record only affects a limited number of PWR comparisons (since every team doesn't play every other team in Division I), while record against common opponents tends to reflect the conference standings if two teams play in the same league, which is something that RPI also tends to do.

So common opponents often simply reinforces the RPI — and when it doesn't, it's because two teams play in different leagues and have very few common opponents, if any. In that case, common opponents can almost be a coin toss, based on a very small number of games. Yes, it affects the PWR, but not in a nice, predictable fashion since one game can swing that comparison criterion if it happens to be against the right team.

That's why that most of the time, we focus most on RPI, and then on TUCs. They're the key pieces of the puzzle.

That being the case, here are the poster children for the effect of TUC record on the PairWise:

No. 11 Harvard: Harvard has a 6-4-1 record (.5909) against TUCs, which is boosting the Crimson from No. 17 in the RPI alone to No. 11 in the overall PairWise Rankings. The Crimson have just three games left in the regular season against TUCs (Cornell, Colgate and St. Lawrence, with Colgate a possibility to fall out of that list if the Raiders lose a few more games). Unfortunately for Harvard, one of its remaining games is against Northeastern in the Beanpot consolation, and the Huskies' record is so poor that even a win will pull down Harvard's RPI. Yes, that's right. The Crimson's RPI will go down after the Northeastern game, win or lose (though a loss would be devastating in the RPI). That means wins will be needed elsewhere — probably at least two of the three TUC games — to stay in it.

No. 16 North Dakota: The Fighting Sioux are in the opposite situation from the Crimson. UND's record against TUCs is a poor 7-12-1 (.3750), which is costing it several comparisons. And the Sioux have just two regular-season games left against a TUC (Denver). That means UND doesn't have much chance to improve that record, which could leave UND on the outside looking in come tournament time despite having the nation's No. 11 RPI of .5443.

[buzzsaw]

Here's a link to the latest NCAA projections. Minnesota jumped past Wisconsin to an overall #1 seed and I still don't see North Dakota or SCSU in the NCAA's... http://www.uscho.com/pdf/general/2006bracket.pdf

Quote:

---

"We're just concentrating on the next game," said Lucia. "Obviously, we're in the NCAA tournament ... What you're playing for is a No. 1 seed."

That goal is well within Minnesota's reach. With the win, the Gophers took over the top spot in the PairWise Rankings, which mimic the selection process for the NCAA tournament.

---

One more sites poll:

http://www.insidecollegehockey.com/5Polls/0506/polls_0423.htm

[Wayne Sieber]

That really breaks my heart to not see the Nodak Susies in the national race!!

[buzzsaw]

The final pairwise is in:

http://www.uscho.com/rankings/pwr.php