Posted by Teddy Panos, Sun Staff
OK...I admit to being a bit of a homer, so let's leave the names out of this for a minute. I'll just give you the facts:
2 teams...only one gets chosen for the tournament.
Both ended the regular season with 20-wins.
Team A had one more conference victory than Team B.
Team A played Team B in a best-of-three conference playoff series, all gamesplayed on Team A's home turf. Team B won the series two games to none.
(Let's ignore for a moment, that Team B eventually went on to the conference championship game, losing to the #1 team in the country in a 1-0 game that could have gone either way)
Which team makes the NCAA tournament?
If you answered Team A, congratulations!!!! You're as nonsensical as the NCAA Men's Ice Hockey Tournament Selection Committee.
NO WAY ON "GOD'S GREEN MOUNTAIN STATE EARTH" VERMONT SHOULD GET A TOURNAMENT BID OVER UMASS-LOWELL.
Comments (2)
Agreed. Makes no sense why UVM gets in over UML. Then again, I'm not sure UNH deserves it over UML either since UML outplayed them head-to-head and UNH also got bounced in Round 1 on the HE playoffs by an even lower-seeded team. I don't know enough about Ohio State this year but my understanding is that they would have been bounced had UML won the HE championship so you'd think UML was closest to Ohio State and UVM was safely in. All of the formulas for calculating the pairwise rankings, though, are very public and available on uscho.com. I think each team is aware of how each game they win/lose affects their ability to make the final 16. I also think that tourney should be expanded to at least 20 teams. Why have a top-20 ranking if they don't all play for the whole ball of wax at the end.
On another point, UMLs disputed goal was ABSOLUTELY a goal. Even the 4 talking heads on NESN all agreed it should have been called a goal. Why does UML always seem to lose out on these things EVERY time there is a questionable call? Still they should have scored on the 5 on 3 at the end of the 3rd period...
Posted by dboisver | March 23, 2009 9:18 AM
Posted on March 23, 2009 09:18
I can't understand what Vermont did this season that was so much better than Lowell. Lowell went 1-1-1 against UVM in the regular season then Lowell swept them in the playoffs. But look at the rankings UML is ranked 19th while BC is ranked 15th???? UML finished ahead of BC in the regular season standings,went 2-0-1 against them and reached the Hockey East Championship. Maybe I'm also a homer but this whole thing does not make any sense to me.
Posted by Jay White | March 23, 2009 4:23 PM
Posted on March 23, 2009 16:23