UConn Hockey 2012-13

Well, they are technically "under consideration" because the PWR process does use comparisons against even the lowest of them to determine who's in and out, but they could probably swap in a different title and it'd still mean roughly the same. As it is, in the past it's been "Record against Top 25 in RPI", so that could have been how they classified the TUC criterion as well as the group of compared teams.

As far as the TUC cliff, I'm indifferent mostly because I reckon the week-to-week PWR published by USCHO and others to be only reflective of the process that happens once the last game finishes, and not a serious week to week tracking mechanism. Also, there does have to be some arbitrary cut off at some point, and unless they plan to run the PWR based on all eligible teams rather than just a selection of them, there's always going to be a cliff.

That being said, it's actually nice to see the workings of a wholly objective system in play, where most people are used to the subjectively determined BCS and NCAA basketball tournaments.

I don't love the selection process, but that's just me, I guess. I think when you get down to differentiating teams based on some complex calculation and somebody's in and somebody's out based on the 4th decimal place and the teams have never played each other, have few or no common opponents...well I'm not sure it really is much better than the more subjective process other sports use to select teams for their championships. It sort of looks more objective, but the deeper you drill down, I'm not sure it is much better. I've always felt strenght of schedule, for example, is really given too much weight since it assumes Team A can somehow control the quality of its opponents. And while over th long term, that might be true, in any given season it isn't. See for example Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, all of whom are having bad seasons. If you were trying to set up a tough non-conference schedule and added them in October, people would have said , "Wow, you've really put together a great non-conferece test." In March, not so much. I think you could absolutely make a case for taking at-large the last at-large teams on "subjective" factors and not do any dis-service to the final product. By the way I recognize that I'm in the minority on this.

Some good points here, and PWR certainly is not a perfect system by any means. If you haven't before, take a look at the KRACH system, it's posted on USCHO.com and collegehockeynews.com, something that a lot of people have been advocating for for a long time. Sort of a similar concept, but executed differently, and many think more effectively.

The thing I like about PWR (and this applies to KRACH as well), is that it's 100% based on results and what happened on the ice, there's no arbitrary voting or secret computer formulas that you can't predict a la BCS. Team A basically knows exactly what they need to do to get in as the season progresses. Of course, the flipside of that is, you get these statistical oddities and things like a TUC cliff, or SOS questions. Comparing it against the other two major sport's selection process, I think it's the best for the sport. Certainly the BCS is a complete sham and no one should ever use it. I'm not sure a committee would work for hockey as it does in basketball, mostly because far fewer hockey games are televised and they're generally all at the same time throughout the season, so it's not really feasible for a committee to get their eyes on teams enough to make a good decision. Teams from the AHA and ECAC are almost never on TV so it wouldn't be possible for the committee to see them play. As far as I know, only three of the five conference tournaments are even televised, and none of them except for now Hockey East on NBCSN are televised on a national network.

Perhaps a PWR type system with some wiggle room allowed for the committee to take into account things like injuries, if a team played the first half of the year with a guy injured and did poorly but now he's back and their record is improved, or something like that, would be good, but with the lack of exposure of the sport, you run the risk of them making a complete judgment on a team by reading box scores and not seeing teams with their own two eyes. While the basketball committee certainly doesn't watch every team's every game, they at the very least have the ability to see any team they want during championship on TV somewhere.

The term college hockey fans love to throw out in response to PWR complaints.....simple math. In the end, at least the champion is decided on the ice and not by a computer. And generally, from what I've seen, team 17 usually doesn't have much of a gripe.

I certainly don't advocate anything like the BCS system, and you raise good points about differences between hockey and basketball in terms of the ability of committee members to see teams play. Though I suspect that is changing a little with the advent of online content. I think for example that all the AHA games are available online. None the less you have a good point. I think overall, though, the basketball system is pretty good. Can you make an argument that a few teams get in who don't belong and a couple get left out who do? Absolutley. But in some ways that adds to the mystique if you will. Between Selection Sunday and the first round, everyone talks about why a Utah was selected over Iowa and St Marys over a Florida State. And the relative merits of mid-majors vs lower ranked power conference teams. While hockey doesn't have the same level of appeal, it wouldn't hurt to have some controversy to get it onto the radar. The "clinical" simple math approach pretty much precludes that, and when it doesn't it is an argument you'd hear at a convention for math majors rather than sports fans. Seems to me like a missed opportunity too. Again, I get that I'm in the minority and most people like the system as it is more or less.

You'd be surprised, there's a contingent of fans who don't like the PWR, but most of those just want KRACH. Hockey fans are very whiny, though and don't like change, so moving to a "smoke-filled back room" as they call it, would infuriate many. Lots tend to think there's bias against the western teams, and vice versa. I think the setup of the NCAA, with it essentially being an East vs. West makes it tough, few writers and people involved in the sport cover both eastern leagues and the two western leagues. I agree some subjectivity could do some good, though. But it still makes for a wicked fun tournament, just better if your team's in it.

Exhibit A regarding why I don't love these formula systems
From Chris lerch's blog:
EDIT: About an hour after I posted this on Sunday night, the Penn State-Wisconsin game went final. Penn’s State’s loss dropped Holy Cross’ RPI below .500, removing it from the list of TUCs (ah, the acronyms). Since you need ten games against TUCs for them to figure in the PWR (you with me?) Holy Cross was a double whammy for Robert Morris, because now that Crusaders are for at least the moment no longer a TUC, Robert Morris doesn’t have the ten games it needs against TUCs and so the whole criteria is thrown out.
As a result, the Colonials fell from an on-the-doorstep No. 17 ranking to not-a-chance-in-heck 25th. Because of one game! (Possibly two if Merrimack-Boston College though a six-degrees of hockey separation, also had some influence.)
I’ll wager that never before has a pair of Monday night hockey games that didn’t involve Robert Morris have such an effect on coach Derek Schooley’s squad. Penn State will again challenge Wisconsin, and Holy Cross is traveling to Sacred Heart. If things go the right way, RMU is back in business.

Read more: http://www.uscho.com/atlantic-hockey-blog/#ixzz2M7leFAJ4

Teams ought to be rewarded or not based on what they do. Not on what somebody else did to some third team and they did to a 4th team. fundamentally, my problem with the selection system is that it is nothing more than a fancy way of saying Team X beat Team Y and Team Y beat Team Z therefore Team X is better then Team Z. Dress it up in all the formulas and all the fancy calculations you want. that is what you're doing at the end of the day.

Agree though that the tourney is great. Playoff hockey is one of the more intense sports there is.

Well, of course, freescooter, things like this only really happen as a result of the fact that the rankings are tracked by fans and the hockey news websites on basically a game by game basis, even though they're only really ever applied when the last conference tournament ends. I remember the discussion in some PWR analysis of teams occasionally having the perverse incentive according to the math to deliberately lose games to aid their tournament chances (UAA-Wisconsin a few years ago, and the Holy Cross-Bentley "controversy" discovered in '06 which led to the ending of a longstanding rule which made any conference tourney winner an automatic TUC), but I kind of feel like even though the perverse incentives exist, coaches would be reluctant to actually exercise them (if not outright hostile to the suggestion on its face) .

That being said, "strength of schedule" is a component that is inescapably driven by the results of other teams having an effect on an individual team's ranking, so I'm not exactly sure how we'd remove that aspect of it; I think the best we can do is find a least-disruptive way of mitigating that. I like KRACH as a more elegant replacement for RPI, but I also like the simplicity of the calculation of RPI, so here we are.

College Hockey News (@chnews)
3/2/13, 9:49 PM
Atlantic byes ...Niagara, Air Force, Holy Cross, Connecticut -- good job UConn under interim coach David Berard

UConn was a bit sloppy, to say the least, Friday night. And it was a little worrisome that Grogan played poorly at home. He wasn't great the last itme they were home against Holy Cross. Good to know he and the whole team pulled it together and locked up a bye on Saturday. I have to say Beranrd has done a real nice job with this team. They haven't lost a weekend since December.

Grogan sure plays well on the road.

For a guy who saw minimal action, mostly in mop up duty in routes over the past 3 years, I have to say he has done a pretty commendable job. Bartus who was really the face of the program for the past 3 years hasn't gotten off the bench.

When is the tournament for Atlantic Hockey??? Where is it being held?

http://www.atlantichockeyonline.com/13tounamentcentral

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Atlantic_Hockey_Tournament - (seedings and bracket here)

UConn bye to quarterfinals - best of three to be played @ UConn 3/15-3/17

The tournament starts this weekend. Teams 5-12 are playing in the first round, hosted at the home rinks of teams 5-8 (Sacred Heart @ Robert Morris, AIC @ RIT, Bentley @ Canisius, and Army @ Mercyhurst) for a best of three series.

Then the winners are reseeded to play @ Niagara, Air Force, Holy Cross and UConn the weekend of the 15th in another best of three. UConn will play the highest available seed (meaning it can be Robert Morris, RIT, Mercyhurst, Canisius, or Bentley) in another best of three.

Then, the weekend of the 22nd, the four series winners will go to Rochester for the semifinals and finals, played at Blue Cross Arena.

They absolutely need to keep Grogan in. Seems our new coach is a good one. We went 12-6-2 since the start of 2013. The Quinnipiac game was winnable. Grogan kept us in it.

Don't disagree. Grogan has played very solidly this year. Only issue I have are that he was sloppy in the first Holy Cross game, and he gave up a really soft goal (#3)to Sacred Heart in what at the time seemed that it might be a really critical game. But both times he seemed to bounce back really well the following night.

Art, if you haven't seen a game you ought to try and make one of the playoff games in Storrs. The rink is a little less than ideal, but ,playoff hockey is very intense. And I have to say that the quality of AHA hockey has really taken big steps over the forward over the twelve or so years since UConn moved up to D-1. The days of being blown out by mid-level ECAC teams are certainly over.

I am trying to decide whether to go to Yale or UConn on the 15th. Anyone else going to UConn on the 15th? Already have a ticket for Quinnipiac's game 2 in their series on the 16th. There were only 14 singular seats left as of last night for that game. Not too many chances to get to see a #1 team in hockey so I am going!