{"id":52,"date":"2007-02-09T11:59:10","date_gmt":"2007-02-09T16:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"\/blogs\/2007\/02\/09\/bracketology\/"},"modified":"2007-02-09T11:59:10","modified_gmt":"2007-02-09T16:59:10","slug":"bracketology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/2007\/02\/09\/bracketology\/","title":{"rendered":"Bracketology!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year I waited for the NCAA to release its first rankings of the season before attempting to sort out the great cluster-you-know-what that is the selection process. We at USCHO attempt to mimic the process via our Pairwise Rankings<\/a>. I’m going to use these for the initial attempt and then probably switch to the NCAA criteria once they are available, at least for in-region comparisons. A couple of caveats:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Our PWR does not include one criterion: record against teams ranked by the NCAA. This is of course coming on 2\/13.<\/li>\n
  2. The other criteria follow. Note that while USCHO applies them equally, the NCAA committee does not.\n

    \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u00a2\tWin Percentage<\/p>\n

    \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u00a2\tQuality of Wins<\/p>\n

    \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u00a2\tHead-to-Head Results<\/p>\n

    \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u00a2\tRecord Against Common Opponents Within Region<\/li>\n

  3. We’ll use the regional PWRs to seed teams within region, and the national PWR to compare teams from different regions. Note that the NCAA does not produce a single, national ranking. More on this below.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    That said, we can make some assumptions and pretend we are the committee and select and seed the NCAA field using the ranking and seeding process as if the season ended today. Here’s what we’ll do:<\/p>\n

    1. Assign automatic qualifiers to the league champions. The tournament winner of each of the six conferences eligible for an AQ (ECAC East, ECAC Northeast, MIAC, NCHA, NESCAC and SUNYAC) gets an automatic bid to the NCAAs. Our big assumption here is the team currently in first place will win the league title. In the event of a tie, league tiebreakers are used. If it still can’t be resolved, then the team with the highest PWR rating will be chosen.<\/p>\n

    2. The remaining four NCAA bids will be handed out using the PWR. Pool B, which consists of teams the ECAC West and MCHA, is guaranteed one of the four spots, so the highest team currently among those teams will get the nod here. The remaining three at-large teams (Pool C) will be the next two highest teams in the PWR. Using the PWR, we\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2ll first look at a team\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s overall ranking, and then at individual comparisons to teams that are near it.<\/p>\n

    3. We will be using USCHO\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s national PWR<\/a>. There are also regional PWRs, since that’s the way the NCAA will do their rankings. However, come Selection Sunday, the NCAA does compare teams from the East and West regions to select the Pool B and Pool C teams, so we’ll use a similar process here.<\/p>\n

    4. Once the ten teams are selected, we’ll seed them using the PWRs and then use the same guidelines the NCAA uses concerning travel restrictions, etc. to make the brackets.<\/p>\n

    5. The standings, PWR, etc. we’ll use include games played through Thursday, February 18.<\/p>\n

    Based on the current standings, AQs would be handed out to the following teams:<\/p>\n

    ECAC East \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Southern Maine (wins tiebreaker with Castleton)<\/p>\n

    ECAC Northeast \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009d UMass-Dartmouth (wins tiebreaker with Curry)<\/p>\n

    MIAC \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Gustavus Adolphus<\/p>\n

    NCHA \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Wisconsin-Stout<\/p>\n

    NESCAC \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Wesleyan<\/p>\n

    SUNYAC \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Oswego<\/p>\n

    Using the PWR:<\/p>\n

    The Pool B bid goes to Manhattanville, which is the top Pool B team in the PWR and is 3-0-1 in individual matchups over Neumann, the next closest at-large team.<\/p>\n

    The Pool C bids at the moment go to St. Norbert, Neumann and UW-River Falls, based on the assumption made above.<\/p>\n

    That leaves us a field of (ranked by PWR):<\/p>\n

    East:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Manhattanville<\/li>\n
    2. Oswego<\/li>\n
    3. Mass-Dartmouth<\/li>\n
    4. Neumann<\/li>\n
    5. Wesleyan<\/li>\n
    6. Southern Maine<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      West:<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. UW-Stout<\/li>\n
      2. St. Norbert<\/li>\n
      3. UW-River Falls<\/li>\n
      4. Gustavus Adolphus<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        This would mean the first round would be:<\/p>\n

          \n
        • Southern Maine at Mass-Dartmouth<\/li>\n
        • Wesleyan At Neumann<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

          Quaterfinals would be:<\/p>\n

            \n
          • S. Maine\/UMD at Manhattanville<\/li>\n
          • Wesleyan\/Neumann at Oswego<\/li>\n
          • Gustavus Adolphus at UW-Stout<\/li>\n
          • UW-River Falls at St. Norbert<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

            Winners meet in Superior. Speaking of Superior, they’re on the bubble, along with Norwich and Hobart. Lots of hockey left to be played – I’ll update this next week with the official NCAA rankings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

            Last year I waited for the NCAA to release its first rankings of the season before attempting to sort out the great cluster-you-know-what that is the selection process. We at USCHO attempt to mimic the process via our Pairwise Rankings. I’m going to use these for the initial attempt and then probably switch to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":140328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1425],"tags":[1469,1470],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBracketology! - College Hockey | USCHO.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Last year I waited for the NCAA to release its first rankings of the season before attempting to sort out the great cluster-you-know-what that is the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bracketology! - College Hockey | USCHO.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Last year I waited for the NCAA to release its first rankings of the season before attempting to sort out the great cluster-you-know-what that is the\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"College Hockey | USCHO.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/OfficialUSCHO\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-02-09T16:59:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/uscho_featured-1.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Chris Lerch\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@USCHO\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@USCHO\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Chris Lerch\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/2007\/02\/09\/bracketology\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/2007\/02\/09\/bracketology\/\",\"name\":\"Bracketology! - College Hockey | USCHO.com\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/2007\/02\/09\/bracketology\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/2007\/02\/09\/bracketology\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/uscho.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2007-02-09T16:59:10+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2007-02-09T16:59:10+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/#\/schema\/person\/45ff9109232e3717feb46d09119cc153\"},\"description\":\"Last year I waited for the NCAA to release its first rankings of the season before attempting to sort out the great cluster-you-know-what that is the\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/2007\/02\/09\/bracketology\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/2007\/02\/09\/bracketology\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/2007\/02\/09\/bracketology\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/uscho.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/uscho.jpg\",\"width\":1175,\"height\":763},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/2007\/02\/09\/bracketology\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Bracketology!\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/\",\"name\":\"College Hockey | USCHO.com\",\"description\":\"Men's and Women's D-I and D-III College Hockey News, Features, Scores, Statistics, Fan Forum, Blogs\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/#\/schema\/person\/45ff9109232e3717feb46d09119cc153\",\"name\":\"Chris Lerch\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/a08fa94f084ec8b4e0a930f882c8eedd\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/94c0063537647be940992be3e0a0e99b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/94c0063537647be940992be3e0a0e99b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Chris Lerch\"},\"description\":\"Atlantic Hockey Columnist\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.uscho.com\/\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/author\/clerch\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Bracketology! - College Hockey | USCHO.com","description":"Last year I waited for the NCAA to release its first rankings of the season before attempting to sort out the great cluster-you-know-what that is the","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Bracketology! - College Hockey | USCHO.com","og_description":"Last year I waited for the NCAA to release its first rankings of the season before attempting to sort out the great cluster-you-know-what that is the","og_url":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52","og_site_name":"College Hockey | USCHO.com","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/OfficialUSCHO\/","article_published_time":"2007-02-09T16:59:10+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1024,"height":1024,"url":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/uscho_featured-1.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Chris Lerch","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@USCHO","twitter_site":"@USCHO","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Chris Lerch","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/2007\/02\/09\/bracketology\/","url":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/2007\/02\/09\/bracketology\/","name":"Bracketology! - College Hockey | USCHO.com","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/2007\/02\/09\/bracketology\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/2007\/02\/09\/bracketology\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/uscho.jpg","datePublished":"2007-02-09T16:59:10+00:00","dateModified":"2007-02-09T16:59:10+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/#\/schema\/person\/45ff9109232e3717feb46d09119cc153"},"description":"Last year I waited for the NCAA to release its first rankings of the season before attempting to sort out the great cluster-you-know-what that is the","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/2007\/02\/09\/bracketology\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/2007\/02\/09\/bracketology\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/2007\/02\/09\/bracketology\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/uscho.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/uscho.jpg","width":1175,"height":763},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/2007\/02\/09\/bracketology\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Bracketology!"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/","name":"College Hockey | USCHO.com","description":"Men's and Women's D-I and D-III College Hockey News, Features, Scores, Statistics, Fan Forum, Blogs","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/#\/schema\/person\/45ff9109232e3717feb46d09119cc153","name":"Chris Lerch","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/a08fa94f084ec8b4e0a930f882c8eedd","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/94c0063537647be940992be3e0a0e99b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/94c0063537647be940992be3e0a0e99b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Chris Lerch"},"description":"Atlantic Hockey Columnist","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.uscho.com\/"],"url":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/author\/clerch\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=52"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}