First
I'm starting to get into hockey since I live right by the border and I get a lot of Canadian channels. But it's hard to get excited about UM hockey since I can never watch them. Now, if the B10 network will get it together, I can then enjoy articles like this more. Until then, I want football.
j leman has the perfect hair for hockey.
Me wants feetball too.
Sheperd to LSU via Rivals. Oh well newton step on down
It turns out that there seems to be a new rule this year that a team must be at least .500 to get an at large bid. It's in the NCAA Hockey Championship Handbook, at least, although nobody seems to know how it got in there.
This will keep the number of WCHA teams down to 6 or 7. Still ridiculous, but that's what you get when the tournament has too many teams--you have to invite teams that have no business playing for a championship.
fuuuuuuuuuuudge. / A Christmas Story
i don't think any of Packers points over at YostBuilt were anecdotal. anecdotal would be 'i saw Wisc play at Yost and they sucked schwetty balls.' wost PP ever.
Packer breaks down the OOC schedules (all 8-9 games for each team) and says, look: they are good but not dominant. certainly not dominant enough to argue that ONE HALF of the ncaa tourney should be Wcha teams.
if the wcha were that great/dominant then the ncaa should look to eliminate about half the 60-some teams from D-I and rebalance the conferences.
i know the ECAC is a complete joke, but the 2nd & 3rd place teams in that conf deserve a shot more than the 7th & 8th place teams in the WCHA.
good god, please let RPI or union win the ECAC tourney. that should kick Wisc out and another conf tourney upset should kick Minn out too.
is the site transmitting the sweet sounds of some sort of athletic practice for others as well?
yes, where is the sound coming from?
Alton,
i like the 16 team format.... but i'd prefer campus regionals (or at least 1st round regionals). that would help with attendance and remove the attendance issue from the seeding process. plus, the regionals don't do much to grow the sport, imo. the FF does, as it gets national media coverage.
Yeah, its the MySpace video way down at the bottom of the page. It's the fat piece of blubber being pounded by Mike Martin.
oh, the video that inspired the debate on whether mike martin was black or not.
Hi guys, I am considering your school to play my collegiate ball. Could you give me an overview of your academic programs, and how the professors are over there? Much thanks
KN
Hi Newsome,
Please direct your inquiries to Jim Carty at the AA News. He has the scoop.
And Josh Moore.
As a former student athlete, he'll have the insider scoop for you.
josh moore is ripping the Mich ADept.
RR is doing jack squat while the Sweatervest is getting terrific players
and even Dantonio just recruited 3 TOP RECRUITS in Michigan.
Edwin Baker 4/5 star recruit
Larry Caper 4 star recruit
Chris Norman 4 star
WHAT IS THE WIZARD DOING
PANIC
DanK:
If we have to stick with 16 teams, I would agree with a college baseball style regional setup, with the top teams who want to and are able to host playing at home.
I think the tournament would be greatly improved by leaving out the last 4, which right now would mean that Providence (14-13-5), Wisconsin (15-14-7), Minnesota (14-13-9) and Minnesota State (17-13-4) would be left at home. It's hard to argue that those 4 teams really "deserve" a shot at the national championship, except that if there is a 16-team tournament, you pretty much have to take them, because the alternatives are even worse.
A 12-team tournament could have two weeks of best-of-3 playoffs (like the CCHA tournament has) followed by the frozen four.
I'm just saying the wizard needs to realize this is the Big Ten, and Big East where WV stands atop.
I'm pretty sure he realizes what conference the team plays in. A lack of commitments doesn't equate to him sitting in his office with his thumb up his ass.
But I DO realize this is the Big Ten, and Big East where WV stands atop.
Yes, this is definitely the Big Ten, and Big East where WV stands atop.
I mean after all, who WOULDN'T realize that this is the Big Ten, and Big East where WV stands atop.
I think everybody knows that this is the Big Ten, and Big East where WV stands atop.
alton,
more anecdotal evidence to support your argument is:
'MSU hockey, 2007 National Champs.' weren't they the 13th overall seed?
i just think that, given the recent expansion (~15 teams and 2 additional confs since the mid 90s), 16 is about right.
the problem is that the western schools have 2 inherent recruiting advantages over the eastern schools.
1) USNDT in A2, MI
2) the USHL rising to become an NCAA eligible development league on par w/ the canadian jrs.
this has clearly led to an unbalance E-W. not even BC, BU, Maine are consistently as good as they were 10 years ago. too much expansion (especially in the east) and these recruiting advantages are the real issue.
committments are meaningless when you're 11 months away from the signing date. this is not an abstruse concept.
The Wizards post has my head spinning.
The last point Brian makes is the best one. Since the tournament winner can come from pretty much everyone but the crap conference autobids, the vetting process needs to include a "deserves to win national championship" metric.
But really, the tournament itself is busted if it produces results that would be unexpected compared to the previous data collected on a regular basis.
So a few things need to happen it looks like. The 12 team tournament is a good idea because then we get 3 games per matchup. Totally reasonable. In addition, the governing body needs to do its part to encourage more OOC games, perhaps things along the lines of the ACC-Big Ten challenge. Getting HE, CCHA and WCHA to play in cross conference matchups would go a long way toward establishing SOS. Likewise, the lesser conferences should match up against each other. We know that there are more or less two tiers in college hockey. What we don't know and need to is the extent to which those individual tiers are competitive.
Lastly, it really does look like college hockey needs some top-down conference revamping.
Why the hell are you guys talking about hockey? Don't you realize that at the University of Michigan, we don't TRULY give a damn unless it's football. So stop wasting time talking about CCHA or baseball nonsense.
Spin it any way you want, in the end, only Big House Football matters and you know it.
The system needs to be tweaked but these seems to be an awful lot of whining, considering:
A. The ranking system *was* agreed upon before the season started. "You chose fruit, you live with fruit."
B. The season is not over, and applying a mid-season version of it does nothing but fuel the talk-radio quality kvetching that is going on now. Let's wait until it is actually applied before claiming that it is going to put the eighth-place WCHA team into the tournament.
@ colin:
Unfortunately, the NCAA doesn't work like that. They don't break up conferences, and they don't mandate numbers of in-conference and non-conference games.
Also unfortunately, as long as conference games get about 20 percent higher attendance on average than non-conference games (at least this is true in the CCHA and the WCHA), we won't see anybody arguing for more non-conference games. We are stuck with the regular season pretty much the way that it is.
Of course, mel, we play by this year's rules this year--but just this year. They tweak the system every year, even though all the while it becomes more and more clear that the system needs an overhaul, not a tweak.
I know that we are 11 months away, but RR has to get on it already. Ok, I know that he has to get settled in but this is a competition. Even Mark Dantonio is out-recruiting RR so far this year.
Not only that, but Michigan isn't on that many recruits' lists.
Good work Mary Sue. I'm seriously concerned for your health at the first 3 and out.
@ Tim: You should have stopped at the first comma. Recruiting classes are not won with commitments in March.
Dantonio is simply doing what MSU should always do: pick up instate players that either won't fit at M (we're backed up at RB and LB) or are second tier. It's hard to remember, but State used to get decent instate talent. Nevertheless, I wouldn't trade Will Campbell for all of Sparty's commits.
I'm not that concerned about playing Wisconsin in Madison. At least we'd be playing on a bigger sheet of ice (almost olympic sized).
In other news, after today's performance, Todd Jones' ERA sits at a robust 31.50.
i don't think *more* OOC games are necessary.... what we need are more E-W OOC games. college hockey needs more M-BU series and Minn-BC series.
MSU needs to make a trip east. same w/ Wisc, Minn, M, Denver, NoDak. Maine, BC, Clarkson need to play a series out west. with the recent expansion, we only see the new east teams playing in the east. the WCHA deal w/ bimedji hurts... but really, that's in the best interest of that league from both competition and economic viewpoints.
chi sf--
I am inclined to agree with you on that one. Right now, it looks like the Midwest Regional will look something like Michigan v Air Force and Michigan State v Wisconsin.
I might not want to play Wisconsin at home, but I certainly won't be rooting against them in their first round game if those are the pairings. Wisconsin didn't impress me at all back in November, and I think they would be just about the easiest second-round matchup that we could hope for--even on their home ice. Okay, Clarkson would be better, but after them, I would want Wisconsin.
Will someone please say something to start a comment war?
This morning went fast, now the afternoon is taking forever.
Michigan will lose (or loose as some say) to osu for the next ten years. Our recruiting has been horrible.
You Bastard, Get out of here..dont come back!
@RumpelForeskin
Good job. That dude made my morning.
Just for the record, I am not glensteel and do not share his opinions. I'm concerned because our only recruit for 09 is Campbell, who was recruited by Lloyd. What is taking RR so long? It doesn't seem like he is a bad recruiter, just that he has to get on it.
You can probably keep me calm by telling me that other successful recruiting classes have started late and that this is normal for a coach who is just settling in. Is it?
Also, your homepage gave you away.
new thread.
It wasnt worth changing the homepage thing.
KRACH is a superior system to the PWR if only on the methodology. Any system, however, will suffer due to a lack of OOC games.
Take Wisconsin, for example. They opened at the Lefty McFadden Tournament (2 games), hosted Robert Morris for a pair, played in the Showcase (2 games) and hosted their tournament against Bowling Green and Colgate. That's 8 OOC games.
Now, they've got a 28 game WCHA schedule, plus 2-3 more games in the first round, and potentially 1-3 more games at the WCHA Final Five. That's 8 OOC games and 30-34 conference games.
Of the OOC games, UW played 5 CCHA opponents (1 game each), 2 games against CHA, and 1 against the ECAC.
Yes, more E-W games are needed, but they're not possible usually because of a lack of spots. UW has a commitment to the showcase and their tournament. That's 4 games right there (and since everyone of note hosts a tournament, good luck getting a worthy opponent from the opposite coast). If UW doesn't travel to Alaska, they only have 2 more games to work with, which will almost certainly be 'buy' home games. In a year when they do travel to Alaska (and thus get 2 extra OOC games), you'll see a road series for OOC - this year it was the Lefty Tournament, next year UW will travel for a game each against BC and UNH.
The overall point is that the data is slim and the opportunities for more cross-pollination between E and W are similarly slim.
It's just a stupid system altogether. I like the idea that there's no human involvement in theory, but it has to be a system that makes sense, and doesn't do things like make the Golden Gophers a 3 seed when they're under .500 in their conference and have won a whole 7 of their last 25 games.
There's one comparison that Michigan wins (I think it's against UNH?) where we get a point in the Common Opponents category because we're 4-0-0 and UNH is like 8-0-1. How does that make ANY sense?
We put in a number of minimum games for the TUC comparison but they don't do it for Common Opponents?
It seems like they switch the weighting for the components of RPI every season, add bonus points for quality wins, take them away, change the number of teams in the RPI (really? How is 25 the perfect number?). That might be the "Agreed upon" method, but it still doesn't make a ton of sense. The results this season pretty much prove that with the Gophers being in (and a 3 seed to boot) and the Irish being out at the moment.
The WCHA's top six teams are a combined two games below .500 when playing the other major conferences (CCHA and WCHA). The CCHA's top 8 have a better winning % against the WCHA and Hockey East than the WCHA's top 8 have against the CCHA and Hockey East.
It's the best conference, and they've clearly got a few good teams, but there's no way that they should get 8 teams in (and I don't think that happens because some of those teams have to lose in the first round of the playoffs) while the CCHA will get 3 or MAYBE 4. There's not that much difference this year.
It seems like they're all really benefiting from the whole conference (for the most part) playing Bemidji. They all smoke them, then Bemidji does pretty well in their shitty conference, so it looks like all the WCHA teams beat a pretty damn good out of conference team. Whereas if you put the SAME BSU team in the WCHA, they'd be in over their heads, and guess what? The WCHA would have their version of this year's WMU team. Put Western in the CHA, let us all play them, and see what it does for the CCHA's RPI.
Jerry-rigged? Is that a midwest thing? I think you ment jerry-built.
http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/error...rors/
jerry.html
yes, the bimedji thing in the Wcha is the most fixable problem. it's good for the wcha and BSU, but bad for OOC scheduling and thus bad for college hockey. in general, the locked agreements are bad. unless it's a good matchup like the showcase....
the bigger programs (and conferences) have an obligation to the smaller schools to keep them afloat and make the game stronger/ more robust. but in the case of the BSU-wcha agreement, it severely restricts how those good western programs can schedule. has UW, Minn, CC, Denver ventured east of Michigan in the last 5 years? Mich & MSU are just as guilty, but the B10 schools at least have the showcase. again, the game needs more room for Clarkson- CC weekends, MSU- BU weekends, and NoDak-Maine weekends.
and stop w/ the recruiting DOOM. it's March for gawdsake. these early commits mean very little and are a recent trend. M has never had more than 1-2 commits before memorial day. which is 2.9 months from now, people.
There is no freakin' way that people are seriously start to bitch about RR's recruiting class for next year. You are all joking right? Mary Sue Coleman, Tim, I'm talking to you. You two conspired to try to make me rant and rave about how dumb you would be for talking about something like this. That's got to be it, it's all a conspiracy to get me. Okay, now I can take off my tinfoil hat.
Packer,
For one, the WCHA won't get 8 teams in. 3 of those 8 will lose their first round series, and I don't see the top three teams tanking. Even so, the middle pack of the WCHA is so close to one another in the PWR that once one or two separates themselves from the pack in the WCHA playoffs, the others will drop.
The problem, again, is small sample size. The ratio of conference games to OOC games is skewed too far in favor of the conferences. That's understandable, as everyone wants to be in a conference, and travel dictates playing Fri-Sat series, and fairness wants 2 series against each team (4 games total). In reality, a 7-8 team league would be best, where you can shave 4 games or so off that 28 game league schedule.
>> 'MSU hockey, 2007 National Champs.' weren't they the 13th overall seed?
10th, thank you very much. Were you complaining when Syracuse won the 2003 basketball title as a 3 seed (somewhere in the 9-12 range overall)? Or Florida two years ago (likewise)?
Actually, you missed the worst feature of the Pairwise: unlike the TUC-record cutoff (where you need 10 games by each team in order to count the category), common opponents count as long as there's even one. Is it really fair to give Mass-Lowell the comparison over MSU (as the system did earlier this season; it no longer does since MSU boosted its TUC record with the two series against Michigan) on the basis that Mass-Lowell played Providence three times, going 1-1-1, and MSU played them once and lost? (Or for an example you guys will appreciate more, there's a reasonable chance of CC taking the point against you guys because of a 6-1-1 common opponent record as opposed to 3-1-0.)
I will say this much for the Pairwise - it's completely objective (no polls involved) and open (everyone knows the criteria). That is a major improvement over both the BCS and the basketball tournament selection process (although the latter is pretty good, you still get bizarre things like Duke as a 6 seed last year - way too high - and you always get a few teams arguing that they got jobbed). But it's definitely a bizarre system.
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