We've fielded more than one question in the last two weeks from Engineer fans about the Pairwise Rankings. The response was thusly: it's November, don't worry about the Pairwise. Win hockey games.
Here's the chart we used a few years back to describe the Pairwise Rankings across each month of the college hockey season:
October: Worthless.
November: Farcical.
December: Quirky.
January: Interesting.
February: Important.
March: Essential.
So we've moved from farcical to quirky just recently. October is worthless because the PWR is completely unstable pretty much all the time. November is farcical because there's far too much hockey left to be played, not to mention that the Ivy League - a full 10% of the teams in the PWR - have barely started to play. There's also a solid number of inter-conference games to be played, which can swing things significantly if trends change.
December's review of the Pairwise can at least show us what teams are early contenders for at-large bids, and can reveal what teams are already dependent upon the automatic bid as their route to the tournament. But at this point, tracking game-to-game changes in the Pairwise remains a fruitless and futile exercise - and breaking down tournament fields can be even more tedious. So, let's not.
January is when the PWR at least becomes interesting, because the movement of teams becomes a touch easier to predict and there's a far more clear perception of contenders vs. pretenders, but even then it's still too early to take a lot of it to heart, at least toward the beginning of the month. Later in January, the number of inter-conference games dwindles rapidly, and the PWR becomes far more stable. By February, it can be a valuable resource from game-to-game in order to discern what teams need to see happen elsewhere for them to make the tournament - and by March, of course, the decisions are about to be made.
And what decisions are those? Well, unlike in other NCAA sports where the tournament participants are often decided in those "smoke filled rooms," the PWR makes things pretty clear who is in the tournament, and who isn't. For the sake of the chart below, Atlantic Hockey is expected - as usual - to only be able to send its conference champion to the tournament, and a conference tournament upset consists of a team that would not be in the tournament without the automatic bid winning that bid.
1-10: Always in the tournament, no matter what. 1-4 are #1 seeds, 5-8 are #2 seeds, 9 and 10 are #3 seeds.
11: Almost certainly in the tournament as a #3 seed. There would have to be upset champions in every conference for this team to be out.
12: Also likely in the tournament as a #3 seed. Four upset champions put this team out.
13: The good side of the bubble. Good odds of being in the tournament, but three upset champions put them out.
14: Firmly on top of the bubble. Two upset champions put them out.
15: The bad side of the bubble. Just one upset champion would put this team out.
16: Out of the tournament, unless the Atlantic Hockey champion is in the Top 15 AND there are no upset champions in other conferences.
17-60: Always out of the tournament without an automatic bid.
It's possible that this chart may have to have the bubble shifted upwards, to 12-13-14, or even 11-12-13, if the Big Ten and the WCHA continues to have as miserable a season as they have collectively been having, as they too could find themselves only able to send a conference champion.
So anyway, that's the long-winded reason why we don't care about the PWR right now. Besides - caring about the PWR right now makes one look downright silly when February arrives and you're one of the also-rans hoping for an automatic bid to make the tournament. We warned more than a few Clarkson fans last year who couldn't help but squeeeeeee! over their PWR position in November about this. They did look silly by February.
But human nature being what it is, we've been asked about the Engineers so many times that we broke down and took a peek at where they are in this currently-quirky ranking. They're tied for 13th with Denver and sitting in 14th after losing the tiebreaker (the head-to-head comparison) with the Pioneers. They'd be on the tournament bubble if the season ended today. It doesn't, not even close. Don't get too excited.
According to PWR, the presumed field would currently consist of 6 ECAC teams (including the Engineers), 4 NCHC teams, 3 Hockey East teams, and 1 each from the Big Ten, WCHA, and Atlantic Hockey. In other words, don't hold your breath on any of this being remotely real just yet.
What is it telling us? Well, it's telling us the same thing KRACH is telling us, now that Quinnipiac has tied two games and Colorado College finally won one - the ECAC is certainly well positioned as one of the strongest leagues in the country this year. At least, they are right now. Whether that will continue to ring true depends largely on what happens in December and January.
Now, have no fear, Puckman Nation. Should Rensselaer (as we are really forced to call the school during sessions like this because of the prevalence in PWR of RPI the ranking, the Ratings Percentage Index) still be in the discussion when the discussion actually starts to become interesting after the New Year, we'll debut Engineer Bracketology at that point and continue it until such time as it becomes pointless, if it does. (The good news is that, if it does happen, it's easy to slot the Engineers - they will play in Albany as hosts, should they make the tournament.)
Until then, consider this a quick primer on exactly how the PWR operates. Things have changed since 2011 and 2013, the last times we felt the need to run Engineer Bracketology. The dreaded and annoying TUC cliff has gone, and every team regardless of their RPI is now ranked in the PWR. That means that every possible comparison between the 60 teams - that's 1,770 comparisons for you math majors - is factored into the PWR. Essentially, every team is now a Team Under Consideration.
The PWR now only consists of three factors: RPI, record against common opponents (COp), and head-to-head results (H2H). The team with the better RPI gets 1 point, the team with the better COp record gets 1 point, and both teams get a point for every win they have in H2H. It makes things much easier.
RPI is a percentage equivalent to computed by including a 25% weight to your own winning percentage, a 21% weight to your opponents' winning percentage, and a 54% weight to your opponents' opponents' winning percentage.
But there's a wrinkle to RPI. A team can receive RPI bonuses for "quality" wins against teams in the Top 20 of RPI - from .0500 for a win against the top team in RPI, decreasing in increments until you get to the #20 RPI team, worth .0025.
All games not played on neutral ice are weighted differently, too. When you win on the road or lose at home, that game is weighted by a factor of 1.2 over a game on neutral ice. When you lose on the road or win at home, that game is weighted by a factor of 0.8 over a game on neutral ice. And finally, in a situation where a win actually leads to a decrease in total RPI - which can happen when very good teams beat very bad teams - that game is not counted. A win will always leave a team at least with the same RPI they had coming in if not better.
And that's basically all for now. More to come later, if it becomes necessary. Here's where the Engineers currently stand in terms of "quality wins." It's pretty solid - only Quinnipiac and Boston University have accrued a higher quality win bonus total than Rensselaer.
Quality wins
Boston College (#6, at home)
St. Lawrence (#10, on the road)
Yale (#11, at home)
Missed opportunities
UMass-Lowell (#8, on the road)
Michigan (#12, at home)
Harvard (#2, neutral ice)
Upcoming opportunities in the next 10 games
Harvard (#2, at home) - Saturday
Miami (#20, on the road) - Jan 2/3
Cornell (#9, at home) - Jan 15
Quinnipiac (#1, on the road) - Jan 21
And finally... KRACH is, most of the season long, the best way to compare two teams. Theoretically, taking the two teams' seasons to date into consideration, comparing two teams using KRACH would suggest that the team ranked higher overall would be favored to win a theoretical matchup on neutral ice. It doesn't take into effect anything like home-ice advantage, injuries, momentum, or anything like that, intangibles that have real effects on how games play out, but it's a very decent comparison of teams against each other (now that every team is neither perfect nor perfectly futile).
A good way of gauging conference strength is to look at where conference members are in terms of overall schedule strength according to KRACH. 10 of 12 ECAC teams have schedule strengths that are in the Top 20 in the nation (all but Clarkson at 27th and Colgate at 47th). In fact, 13 of the top 15 are in the ECAC and the NCHC, speaking to the dominance thus far of those leagues in inter-conference play (.648 and .605 respectively).
Here's where the Engineers and their opponents this season currently sit in terms of KRACH. Overall records are included along with Rensselaer's record against them, where applicable.
KRACH
1. Quinnipiac (13-0-2)
2. Harvard (6-1-1, 0-1-0)
4. Boston College (12-1-0, 1-0-0)
7. Cornell (6-1-2)
8. Yale (5-2-2, 1-0-0)
10. St. Lawrence (8-3-2, 1-0-0)
11. UMass-Lowell (10-1-4, 0-1-0)
13. Rensselaer (8-5-2)
14. Michigan (7-2-2, 0-1-0)
15. Miami (5-7-2)
18. Clarkson (7-4-2, 0-0-1)
21. Dartmouth (2-5-1)
25. Western Michigan (4-8-1, 1-0-0)
28. Union (4-6-3, 2-0-0)
29. New Hampshire (4-6-3, 1-0-0)
30. Alaska-Anchorage (6-6-2, 0-1-0)
32. Brown (2-4-3, 0-0-1)
43. Alaska (4-8-2, 0-1-0)
45. Bentley (6-6-1, 1-0-0)
47. Princeton (2-8-0)
49. Colgate (4-10-1)
52. Arizona State (3-8-0)
Showing posts with label krach. Show all posts
Showing posts with label krach. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 2, 2015
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Where'd Our Tough Schedule Go?
Before the season started, the conventional wisdom on RPI's schedule was that it was heavy with tough games. Outside of four games against Sacred Heart and Mercyhurst - and at the very least, Mercyhurst was at least considered to be among the tougher teams from Atlantic Hockey - the RPI non-conference haul is indeed chock full of traditional power teams.
Unfortunately, a schedule is only as strong as how those teams play in subsequent games, and from the way some of those opponents have started off the season... it hasn't been an awful lot of help. New Hampshire and Boston University have sub-.500 records, as does Denver. In fact, only two known non-conference opponents right now have winning records, and that's Boston College and Ferris State (RPI may or may not face Minnesota in January).
The short version? Unless some of the teams the Engineers are playing this year up their game a little bit, it's going to make for tough sailing later in the season when we're hoping that RPI is shooting for an NCAA spot - and hopefully aiming for a higher one rather than just making the tournament.
Don't bother looking for the Engineers' current position in the Pairwise Rankings for a number of reasons: 1) It's November and the Pairwise doesn't tell you a thing in November, and 2) The Pairwise method has changed significantly over last year, and there isn't a reliable calculator up and running yet on any of the major sites.
Fortunately, there's always KRACH. Here's where KRACH ranks the 19 different teams that are on the Engineers' schedule this season (and RPI themselves, for comparison), along with their current records (and RPI's record against them second, if they've played).
1. Minnesota (6-1-1)
2. Boston College (6-2-1, 0-1-0)
6. Quinnipiac (9-1-1)
9. St. Lawrence (6-2-2)
11. Ferris State (7-2-0)
13. Yale (3-1-2)
16. RPI (6-2-2)
18. New Hampshire (4-5-1, 1-0-0)
19. Boston University (4-5-0, 1-0-0)
22. Union (4-3-2)
23. Clarkson (9-2-1)
24. Cornell (3-2-1, 0-0-1)
25. Colgate (4-6-1, 1-0-0)
28. Brown (3-3-1)
33. Harvard (2-3-1, 0-1-1)
43. Mercyhurst (3-6-1)
44. Denver (4-5-1)
55. Sacred Heart (2-7-0, 2-0-0)
57. Princeton (1-6-0)
58. Dartmouth (0-6-0, 1-0-0)
So as it turns out, UNH and BU are probably a little better than they've been given credit for thus far - KRACH says they've had the 4th and 6th most difficult schedule in the nation thus far.
By comparison, RPI has the 28th most difficult schedule according to KRACH. Don't forget, fully half of RPI's victories this year to date are against Sacred Heart and Dartmouth, both in the bottom five in KRACH, and they've lost to the only team they've played that's currently ahead of them in KRACH (although that's not uncommon this early, given the index's retrodictive nature), which pegs the Engineers as only the 16th best team in the nation, six places below the USCHO poll's voters. That Harvard has generally done rather poorly when not playing RPI doesn't help things either, considering the issues the Engineers had against the Crimson.
KRACH also suggests that Clarkson is being highly overrated, while their arch-rivals from Canton and RPI's first opponent of 2014, Ferris State, are actually being pretty severely underrated by the human voters in the polls. At the end of the day, neither the polls nor KRACH really matter, but this does show us one thing that will be important down the road - not only are we hoping for the Engineers to do well in every game they play, so too would we like to see their non-conference opponents do well, and so far... the jury's certainly out on that.
Unfortunately, a schedule is only as strong as how those teams play in subsequent games, and from the way some of those opponents have started off the season... it hasn't been an awful lot of help. New Hampshire and Boston University have sub-.500 records, as does Denver. In fact, only two known non-conference opponents right now have winning records, and that's Boston College and Ferris State (RPI may or may not face Minnesota in January).
The short version? Unless some of the teams the Engineers are playing this year up their game a little bit, it's going to make for tough sailing later in the season when we're hoping that RPI is shooting for an NCAA spot - and hopefully aiming for a higher one rather than just making the tournament.
Don't bother looking for the Engineers' current position in the Pairwise Rankings for a number of reasons: 1) It's November and the Pairwise doesn't tell you a thing in November, and 2) The Pairwise method has changed significantly over last year, and there isn't a reliable calculator up and running yet on any of the major sites.
Fortunately, there's always KRACH. Here's where KRACH ranks the 19 different teams that are on the Engineers' schedule this season (and RPI themselves, for comparison), along with their current records (and RPI's record against them second, if they've played).
1. Minnesota (6-1-1)
2. Boston College (6-2-1, 0-1-0)
6. Quinnipiac (9-1-1)
9. St. Lawrence (6-2-2)
11. Ferris State (7-2-0)
13. Yale (3-1-2)
16. RPI (6-2-2)
18. New Hampshire (4-5-1, 1-0-0)
19. Boston University (4-5-0, 1-0-0)
22. Union (4-3-2)
23. Clarkson (9-2-1)
24. Cornell (3-2-1, 0-0-1)
25. Colgate (4-6-1, 1-0-0)
28. Brown (3-3-1)
33. Harvard (2-3-1, 0-1-1)
43. Mercyhurst (3-6-1)
44. Denver (4-5-1)
55. Sacred Heart (2-7-0, 2-0-0)
57. Princeton (1-6-0)
58. Dartmouth (0-6-0, 1-0-0)
So as it turns out, UNH and BU are probably a little better than they've been given credit for thus far - KRACH says they've had the 4th and 6th most difficult schedule in the nation thus far.
By comparison, RPI has the 28th most difficult schedule according to KRACH. Don't forget, fully half of RPI's victories this year to date are against Sacred Heart and Dartmouth, both in the bottom five in KRACH, and they've lost to the only team they've played that's currently ahead of them in KRACH (although that's not uncommon this early, given the index's retrodictive nature), which pegs the Engineers as only the 16th best team in the nation, six places below the USCHO poll's voters. That Harvard has generally done rather poorly when not playing RPI doesn't help things either, considering the issues the Engineers had against the Crimson.
KRACH also suggests that Clarkson is being highly overrated, while their arch-rivals from Canton and RPI's first opponent of 2014, Ferris State, are actually being pretty severely underrated by the human voters in the polls. At the end of the day, neither the polls nor KRACH really matter, but this does show us one thing that will be important down the road - not only are we hoping for the Engineers to do well in every game they play, so too would we like to see their non-conference opponents do well, and so far... the jury's certainly out on that.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
New World Order
We are in the final season of the fourth iteration of the conference system in college hockey. Next year, things are going to look mighty different.
Fourth, you ask? What were the other three? Well, here they are, roughly.
1961 - 1981: The ECAC and the WCHA rule the roost, though the latter is generally stronger. Every national championship during this time period was won by a team from one of these conferences, through to 1983. The CCHA begins as a relatively minor conference midway through this period.
1981 - 1985: Still largely a period of dominance between the ECAC and the WCHA, but the CCHA's addition of Michigan and Michigan State shifts the balance a bit away from the WCHA.
1985 - 2000: The Hockey East split leads to a shift of power between the new conference, the WCHA, and the CCHA, with the ECAC in slow decline, especially after the early 1990s.
2000 - 2013: The era of the "Big Three," as the ECAC moves out of a position of power to become the lone mid-major, while the MAAC/AHA comes to being as the lone minor conference.
2013 - ???: The Big Ten tsunami rearranges the college hockey landscape as never before.
What could we be looking at in this fifth iteration of conference paradigm in college hockey?
Well, now that every team has lost a game this season, let's look at the current KRACH ratings to see where the new conference structure would stand if it were theoretically in place today - not a perfect comparison, since conference schedules will shift, but this is what it looks like.
Hockey East - 1, 2, 6, 7, 14, 19, 26, 34, 43, 44, 45, 52
NCHC - 3, 9, 10, 11, 15, 18, 20, 39
ECAC - 4, 5, 8, 13, 16, 17, 21, 23, 31, 32, 33, 46
Big Ten - 12, 27, 37, 42, 49, 54
WCHA - 24, 25, 28, 29, 30, 35, 36, 38, 50
Atlantic Hockey - 22, 40, 41, 47, 48, 51, 53, 55, 56, 57, 59
Independents - 58
Look at the NCHC - that's a holy cow stat right there. Seven of its eight teams are currently among the 20 best in the nation, and the eighth (Minnesota-Duluth) won a national championship two years ago. Think that might be a power conference?
The Big Ten is having a shockingly bad season in it's year before birth (to wit - independent Penn State is ranked ahead of 1-7-2 Wisconsin, and Michigan ain't that far ahead of them), but this season is likely the exception and not the rule, considering that four of the six teams in the conference are regulars in the national tournament under the current structure.
Also, no one can deny Hockey East's excellent standing, especially with Notre Dame about to join the fold. Three of its usual "Big Four" are off to a great start (Maine... not so much), although the biggest problem Hockey East faces is its gap between haves and have nots. Providence's decent start has them somewhere in the middle (26th), but besides the Friars there's a big gap between UMass-Lowell (19th) and Merrimack (34th). Still, in recent seasons we've seen the Warriors competitive and the River Hawks not so competitive. They'll be a strong conference.
Atlantic Hockey, with all but two of its teams outside the top 2/3 of the nation, will continue their current role of providing their tournament winner an automatic bid and nothing more. They are still a cost-containment league and until that changes, they are where they are.
That leaves the fate of the original two up for ponderance... the ECAC and the WCHA.
First, the ECAC. The only changes our league needs to worry about is how the shifting paradigms affect recruiting. The last shift certainly affected things for the worse, but with five teams offering a full complement of scholarships and the league as a whole attractive for the educational side, there's only so far the ECAC will slide. It's probably already reached the bottom, really.
But the new WCHA could be in an almost worse situation than the ECAC, and quickly. A mashup of the leftovers between the CCHA and current WCHA after the Big Ten and NCHC tore away basically all of their top programs, it's hard to peg an absolute best program from this new group of nine. By KRACH, right now, it's Alaska followed by Ferris State. You'd almost have to call the Bulldogs early favorites.
The currently comprised ECAC has won only five national championships, among only three of its members, and none since 1989 (Harvard). The new WCHA will have eight, among four members, but none since 1994 (Lake Superior State). That's not overly dissimilar.
There's one other way to look at which conference has the most power teams - NCAA bids. The conferences have averaged the following total bids per season in the last 10 years (since the tournament was expanded).
WCHA - 4.4 mean, 4/5 median, 5 mode (High 6 - 2008; Low 3 - 2007 and 2009)
CCHA - 3.9 mean, 4 median, 4 mode (High 5 - 2004 and 2012, Low 3 - 2003)
Hockey East - 3.6 mean, 4 median, 4 mode (High 5 - 2007; Low 2 - 2008)
ECAC - 2.2 mean, 2 median, 2 mode (High 3 - 2005, 2009, 2011; Low 1 - 2004)
Now apply the total bids per season to the new conferences.
NCHC - 4.2 mean, 4 median, 4 mode (High 7 - 2011; Low 3 - 2003 and 2005)
Hockey East - 4.1 mean (High 6 - 2007; Low 3 - 2008 and 2010)
Big Ten - 3.1 mean, 3 median, 3/4 mode (High 5 - 2004; Low 1 - 2011)
ECAC - 2.2 mean, 2 median, 2 mode (High 3 - 2005, 2009, 2011; Low 1 - 2004)
WCHA - 0.9 mean, 1 median, 0/1 mode (High 3 - 2010; Low 0 - 2004, 2007, 2008, 2011)
That's astounding to see. In the new WCHA, there were four different years in the last ten that none of the teams made the tournament. In fact, between 2004 and 2009 (six consecutive years), there wasn't a single team that will play in the WCHA next year that earned an at-large bid - Bemidji State, on three occasions in that span, won the CHA's automatic bid.
What does that mean? Well, for starters, it means the WCHA is dropping off a long ways prestige-wise. But a cursory look at the numbers tells us that, at least at first, hockey's new world order is still going to consist of the "Big Three," but two of those will be brand new conferences. The ECAC will still be a mid-major, in all likelihood.
The WCHA, however, looks like it's going to have to fight - and hard - to be mid-major level. It essentially ended up as the Island of Misfit Toys after realignment, and although its autobid now represents a big chance for teams that frequently don't get to compete for either the WCHA or CCHA autobid most years in the past, the new league may be hard-pressed to pick up an at-large bid even with the regularity of the ECAC, which almost always gets one and not unfrequently snags a second.
The NCHC, once it gets assembled, will almost certainly never get 7 bids as it did in 2011 (that would be almost the entire league, and someone has to finish in last), but the mean totals could average out about right. That would likely mean, more often than not, the WCHA will probably have to settle for its autobid, but at least they'll probably grab an extra bid every once in a while, which pegs them above Atlantic Hockey. But it looks like a quick drop from the top for college hockey's oldest conference, almost certainly quicker than the ECAC's fall from grace. Their motto is "just got tougher," put in place after Bemidji State and Nebraska-Omaha joined the fold. They can keep it next year, but it'll have a different meaning.
Fourth, you ask? What were the other three? Well, here they are, roughly.
1961 - 1981: The ECAC and the WCHA rule the roost, though the latter is generally stronger. Every national championship during this time period was won by a team from one of these conferences, through to 1983. The CCHA begins as a relatively minor conference midway through this period.
1981 - 1985: Still largely a period of dominance between the ECAC and the WCHA, but the CCHA's addition of Michigan and Michigan State shifts the balance a bit away from the WCHA.
1985 - 2000: The Hockey East split leads to a shift of power between the new conference, the WCHA, and the CCHA, with the ECAC in slow decline, especially after the early 1990s.
2000 - 2013: The era of the "Big Three," as the ECAC moves out of a position of power to become the lone mid-major, while the MAAC/AHA comes to being as the lone minor conference.
2013 - ???: The Big Ten tsunami rearranges the college hockey landscape as never before.
What could we be looking at in this fifth iteration of conference paradigm in college hockey?
Well, now that every team has lost a game this season, let's look at the current KRACH ratings to see where the new conference structure would stand if it were theoretically in place today - not a perfect comparison, since conference schedules will shift, but this is what it looks like.
Hockey East - 1, 2, 6, 7, 14, 19, 26, 34, 43, 44, 45, 52
NCHC - 3, 9, 10, 11, 15, 18, 20, 39
ECAC - 4, 5, 8, 13, 16, 17, 21, 23, 31, 32, 33, 46
Big Ten - 12, 27, 37, 42, 49, 54
WCHA - 24, 25, 28, 29, 30, 35, 36, 38, 50
Atlantic Hockey - 22, 40, 41, 47, 48, 51, 53, 55, 56, 57, 59
Independents - 58
Look at the NCHC - that's a holy cow stat right there. Seven of its eight teams are currently among the 20 best in the nation, and the eighth (Minnesota-Duluth) won a national championship two years ago. Think that might be a power conference?
The Big Ten is having a shockingly bad season in it's year before birth (to wit - independent Penn State is ranked ahead of 1-7-2 Wisconsin, and Michigan ain't that far ahead of them), but this season is likely the exception and not the rule, considering that four of the six teams in the conference are regulars in the national tournament under the current structure.
Also, no one can deny Hockey East's excellent standing, especially with Notre Dame about to join the fold. Three of its usual "Big Four" are off to a great start (Maine... not so much), although the biggest problem Hockey East faces is its gap between haves and have nots. Providence's decent start has them somewhere in the middle (26th), but besides the Friars there's a big gap between UMass-Lowell (19th) and Merrimack (34th). Still, in recent seasons we've seen the Warriors competitive and the River Hawks not so competitive. They'll be a strong conference.
Atlantic Hockey, with all but two of its teams outside the top 2/3 of the nation, will continue their current role of providing their tournament winner an automatic bid and nothing more. They are still a cost-containment league and until that changes, they are where they are.
That leaves the fate of the original two up for ponderance... the ECAC and the WCHA.
First, the ECAC. The only changes our league needs to worry about is how the shifting paradigms affect recruiting. The last shift certainly affected things for the worse, but with five teams offering a full complement of scholarships and the league as a whole attractive for the educational side, there's only so far the ECAC will slide. It's probably already reached the bottom, really.
But the new WCHA could be in an almost worse situation than the ECAC, and quickly. A mashup of the leftovers between the CCHA and current WCHA after the Big Ten and NCHC tore away basically all of their top programs, it's hard to peg an absolute best program from this new group of nine. By KRACH, right now, it's Alaska followed by Ferris State. You'd almost have to call the Bulldogs early favorites.
The currently comprised ECAC has won only five national championships, among only three of its members, and none since 1989 (Harvard). The new WCHA will have eight, among four members, but none since 1994 (Lake Superior State). That's not overly dissimilar.
There's one other way to look at which conference has the most power teams - NCAA bids. The conferences have averaged the following total bids per season in the last 10 years (since the tournament was expanded).
WCHA - 4.4 mean, 4/5 median, 5 mode (High 6 - 2008; Low 3 - 2007 and 2009)
CCHA - 3.9 mean, 4 median, 4 mode (High 5 - 2004 and 2012, Low 3 - 2003)
Hockey East - 3.6 mean, 4 median, 4 mode (High 5 - 2007; Low 2 - 2008)
ECAC - 2.2 mean, 2 median, 2 mode (High 3 - 2005, 2009, 2011; Low 1 - 2004)
Now apply the total bids per season to the new conferences.
NCHC - 4.2 mean, 4 median, 4 mode (High 7 - 2011; Low 3 - 2003 and 2005)
Hockey East - 4.1 mean (High 6 - 2007; Low 3 - 2008 and 2010)
Big Ten - 3.1 mean, 3 median, 3/4 mode (High 5 - 2004; Low 1 - 2011)
ECAC - 2.2 mean, 2 median, 2 mode (High 3 - 2005, 2009, 2011; Low 1 - 2004)
WCHA - 0.9 mean, 1 median, 0/1 mode (High 3 - 2010; Low 0 - 2004, 2007, 2008, 2011)
That's astounding to see. In the new WCHA, there were four different years in the last ten that none of the teams made the tournament. In fact, between 2004 and 2009 (six consecutive years), there wasn't a single team that will play in the WCHA next year that earned an at-large bid - Bemidji State, on three occasions in that span, won the CHA's automatic bid.
What does that mean? Well, for starters, it means the WCHA is dropping off a long ways prestige-wise. But a cursory look at the numbers tells us that, at least at first, hockey's new world order is still going to consist of the "Big Three," but two of those will be brand new conferences. The ECAC will still be a mid-major, in all likelihood.
The WCHA, however, looks like it's going to have to fight - and hard - to be mid-major level. It essentially ended up as the Island of Misfit Toys after realignment, and although its autobid now represents a big chance for teams that frequently don't get to compete for either the WCHA or CCHA autobid most years in the past, the new league may be hard-pressed to pick up an at-large bid even with the regularity of the ECAC, which almost always gets one and not unfrequently snags a second.
The NCHC, once it gets assembled, will almost certainly never get 7 bids as it did in 2011 (that would be almost the entire league, and someone has to finish in last), but the mean totals could average out about right. That would likely mean, more often than not, the WCHA will probably have to settle for its autobid, but at least they'll probably grab an extra bid every once in a while, which pegs them above Atlantic Hockey. But it looks like a quick drop from the top for college hockey's oldest conference, almost certainly quicker than the ECAC's fall from grace. Their motto is "just got tougher," put in place after Bemidji State and Nebraska-Omaha joined the fold. They can keep it next year, but it'll have a different meaning.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Lost in the Desert
The Army "juggernaut" rolls on. That's two losses in a row for RPI against the Black Knights.
2011 can't end soon enough. The Engineers' total record this calendar year is 12-24-2, with fully half of those wins coming in January. Yeah.
Only three teams in the nation register worse in KRACH right now than RPI - American International, Alabama-Huntsville, and Sacred Heart. That means the Engineers, as of right now, are the underdog in every game they will play for the rest of the year, except for the AIC game in which they are slight favorites (at the moment).
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| Leet. |
2011 can't end soon enough. The Engineers' total record this calendar year is 12-24-2, with fully half of those wins coming in January. Yeah.
Only three teams in the nation register worse in KRACH right now than RPI - American International, Alabama-Huntsville, and Sacred Heart. That means the Engineers, as of right now, are the underdog in every game they will play for the rest of the year, except for the AIC game in which they are slight favorites (at the moment).
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Hacking the PairWise
What happens when you combine a mathematically defined system for selecting the NCAA field, the oldest technological university in the English-speaking world, and two weeks of waiting around to see if said university (or Institute, if you prefer) is going to get a bid to the tournament?
Well, you get this: a program that runs all of the permutations heading into the final three days of games before the field is chosen.
Reilly Hamilton, an enterprising CompSci/Economics major from RPI's Class of 2012 (and a key component of RPI TV's broadcasts as president), took it upon himself to write a program that essentially played the remaining 19 games to each potential overall result, then weighted those results using KRACH, the best statistic available for determining the likelihood of one team beating another (which we've discussed here before).
Those results can be found here. They include numbers for every team that is either still playing or can still potentially make the tournament. If your team isn't listed here... sorry. Your season's definitively over.
Now, this isn't perfect for a couple of reasons. First, in these calculations, KRACH doesn't change as the games are played. To do that would require a whole new set of calculations taking up a heck of a lot more time... and the games start tonight, so time is something we don't have a lot of. The second is that KRACH really doesn't have a good way of predicting the likelihood of a tie, and there are two games this weekend - the ECAC and CCHA consolation games - that could potentially end in a tie. But they are at the very least a rough estimate of the likelihood of teams making the tournament, and what seed they're likely to be.
The unweighted listings are very simple: they are a list of the total number of scenarios that could result after the 19 games this weekend are played.
Since we're an RPI-centric site, here are the Engineers' results. They are in the tournament in permutations listed in green, out in the ones listed in red.
As you can see, RPI could finish as high as 10th in the PWR, but that's not only highly unlikely (68 possible scenarios out of 1,179,648 overall scenarios), the situation is also fairly fanciful, because the weighted percentage is less than the unweighted percentage.
A simple way to explain this is to look at Colgate's tournament chances. Given that they will only be in the tournament if they win the ECAC title, their unweighted chances of making the tournament are 25%, because in 25% of the possible scenarios, they win the ECAC tournament. However, not all teams are created equal, and in the scope of the entirety of the season, their chances of actually winning the tournament isn't really great.
With that said, the Engineers, according to this model have an 81.3656% chance of playing next weekend. Slightly better than 4 in 5? What's not to be excited about there? It's not a given, which would be better, but beggars can't be choosers. Their unweighted chances are 74.3808%, which means that even if you treated every scenario as being equally likely, they're still in almost 3 times out of 4.
This analysis proves what we already knew about teams that are already in the tournament: Yale, North Dakota, Boston College, Miami, Michigan, Denver, Union, Merrimack, and Minnesota-Duluth can't miss the tournament.
It also shows that the bandied about scenarios of Notre Dame or New Hampshire missing the tournament are extremely fanciful. Barring something extremely, extremely unlikely, both teams are in.
Nebraska-Omaha, for all of its problems, is also almost certainly in.
That leaves the teams that are firmly on the bubble, and that's RPI, Western Michigan, Colorado College, and Dartmouth. Depending on the number of upset champions, there will be between 0 and 3 at-large bids that will go to these teams, discounting the fact that BU, Alaska-Anchorage, and Maine are also alive in this group but with much worse chances of making it. Of that group, the Engineers stand the best chance of emerging in the tournament field. That's a wonderful place to be.
So special thanks to Reilly Hamilton for putting in the time and effort needed to create this program. He has promised some updates over the course of the weekend, and we'll be glad to bring them to you here.
Go Seawolves (tonight)!
Well, you get this: a program that runs all of the permutations heading into the final three days of games before the field is chosen.
Reilly Hamilton, an enterprising CompSci/Economics major from RPI's Class of 2012 (and a key component of RPI TV's broadcasts as president), took it upon himself to write a program that essentially played the remaining 19 games to each potential overall result, then weighted those results using KRACH, the best statistic available for determining the likelihood of one team beating another (which we've discussed here before).
Those results can be found here. They include numbers for every team that is either still playing or can still potentially make the tournament. If your team isn't listed here... sorry. Your season's definitively over.
Now, this isn't perfect for a couple of reasons. First, in these calculations, KRACH doesn't change as the games are played. To do that would require a whole new set of calculations taking up a heck of a lot more time... and the games start tonight, so time is something we don't have a lot of. The second is that KRACH really doesn't have a good way of predicting the likelihood of a tie, and there are two games this weekend - the ECAC and CCHA consolation games - that could potentially end in a tie. But they are at the very least a rough estimate of the likelihood of teams making the tournament, and what seed they're likely to be.
The unweighted listings are very simple: they are a list of the total number of scenarios that could result after the 19 games this weekend are played.
Since we're an RPI-centric site, here are the Engineers' results. They are in the tournament in permutations listed in green, out in the ones listed in red.
| Seed | Weighted | Unweighted | Permutations |
| 10 | 0.0005% | 0.0058% | 68 |
| 11 | 0.4574% | 1.5599% | 18401 |
| 12 | 7.8356% | 12.7865% | 150836 |
| 13 | 19.9679% | 24.7119% | 291514 |
| 14 | 28.6039% | 27.0253% | 318803 |
| 15 | 24.5002% | 8.2914% | 97809 |
| Seed | Weighted | Unweighted | Permutations |
| 13 | 0.0062% | 0.5383% | 6350 |
| 14 | 0.3022% | 4.4988% | 53070 |
| 15 | 5.2459% | 13.6443% | 160955 |
| 16 | 11.2954% | 6.4567% | 76166 |
| 17 | 1.7260% | 0.4508% | 5318 |
| 18 | 0.0583% | 0.0299% | 353 |
| 19 | 0.0005% | 0.0004% | 5 |
As you can see, RPI could finish as high as 10th in the PWR, but that's not only highly unlikely (68 possible scenarios out of 1,179,648 overall scenarios), the situation is also fairly fanciful, because the weighted percentage is less than the unweighted percentage.
A simple way to explain this is to look at Colgate's tournament chances. Given that they will only be in the tournament if they win the ECAC title, their unweighted chances of making the tournament are 25%, because in 25% of the possible scenarios, they win the ECAC tournament. However, not all teams are created equal, and in the scope of the entirety of the season, their chances of actually winning the tournament isn't really great.
With that said, the Engineers, according to this model have an 81.3656% chance of playing next weekend. Slightly better than 4 in 5? What's not to be excited about there? It's not a given, which would be better, but beggars can't be choosers. Their unweighted chances are 74.3808%, which means that even if you treated every scenario as being equally likely, they're still in almost 3 times out of 4.
This analysis proves what we already knew about teams that are already in the tournament: Yale, North Dakota, Boston College, Miami, Michigan, Denver, Union, Merrimack, and Minnesota-Duluth can't miss the tournament.
It also shows that the bandied about scenarios of Notre Dame or New Hampshire missing the tournament are extremely fanciful. Barring something extremely, extremely unlikely, both teams are in.
Nebraska-Omaha, for all of its problems, is also almost certainly in.
That leaves the teams that are firmly on the bubble, and that's RPI, Western Michigan, Colorado College, and Dartmouth. Depending on the number of upset champions, there will be between 0 and 3 at-large bids that will go to these teams, discounting the fact that BU, Alaska-Anchorage, and Maine are also alive in this group but with much worse chances of making it. Of that group, the Engineers stand the best chance of emerging in the tournament field. That's a wonderful place to be.
So special thanks to Reilly Hamilton for putting in the time and effort needed to create this program. He has promised some updates over the course of the weekend, and we'll be glad to bring them to you here.
Go Seawolves (tonight)!
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Another Holiday in the Trenches
We've been alluding to it over the past couple of days - this afternoon's game against BU is about as important as an out-of-conference game can be. Why, you ask?
The overriding goal for any team heading into the season? Win the national championship. That goal is only within reach for a select few teams, usually, but if you don't at least want to win it all, why even bother suiting up? To be in a position to achieve that goal, a team can do one of two things - win its conference's automatic bye by winning the conference tournament in March, or be in a position to be awarded one of 11 at-large bids.
The first route is dicey and fraught with pitfalls. Any team can come out flat, have a bad night, and be knocked out of a single-elimination tournament. The second path, however, has a fairly definable path, and it involves playing well throughout the season. There are two important elements to it - playing well inside the conference, and playing well outside the conference. Few teams will be able to vie for an at-large bit without both.
The conference schedule doesn't change from year to year, but the non-conference schedule absolutely does. And when you get a chance to play a highly ranked team, you need to grab the bull by the horns and go for the win.
We're rapidly approaching mid-December, and the Engineers are ranked 14th in KRACH and 12th in the more important PairWise Rankings. Right now, this means relatively nothing - but it does mean the Tute is in position to be fighting for an at-large bid in the New Year. If they want to stay that way, they need to be winning the big games - and this afternoon is a big game.
Since we're in the midst of the holidays, here's a little holiday pumpup for you. I've always found something somewhat sinister about "Carol of the Bells" anyway, but when Trans-Siberian Orchestra combined it with "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" and added rock with a metal flair, it really turned into an anthem for anyone ready to do battle during the holidays. Enjoy.
The overriding goal for any team heading into the season? Win the national championship. That goal is only within reach for a select few teams, usually, but if you don't at least want to win it all, why even bother suiting up? To be in a position to achieve that goal, a team can do one of two things - win its conference's automatic bye by winning the conference tournament in March, or be in a position to be awarded one of 11 at-large bids.
The first route is dicey and fraught with pitfalls. Any team can come out flat, have a bad night, and be knocked out of a single-elimination tournament. The second path, however, has a fairly definable path, and it involves playing well throughout the season. There are two important elements to it - playing well inside the conference, and playing well outside the conference. Few teams will be able to vie for an at-large bit without both.
The conference schedule doesn't change from year to year, but the non-conference schedule absolutely does. And when you get a chance to play a highly ranked team, you need to grab the bull by the horns and go for the win.
We're rapidly approaching mid-December, and the Engineers are ranked 14th in KRACH and 12th in the more important PairWise Rankings. Right now, this means relatively nothing - but it does mean the Tute is in position to be fighting for an at-large bid in the New Year. If they want to stay that way, they need to be winning the big games - and this afternoon is a big game.
Since we're in the midst of the holidays, here's a little holiday pumpup for you. I've always found something somewhat sinister about "Carol of the Bells" anyway, but when Trans-Siberian Orchestra combined it with "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" and added rock with a metal flair, it really turned into an anthem for anyone ready to do battle during the holidays. Enjoy.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Is Yale a Legit #1?
As we discussed with Brian Sullivan on Tuesday's podcast, Yale is the consensus #1 team in the nation according to the two major polls released by USCHO and USA Today, but they are proving a fairly controversial #1 in some parts because of their weak schedule compared to some of the other top teams in the nation.
"If it were just another week with a Hockey East, CCHA, or WCHA team on top of the rankings, it would just be another week, but this is huge. It's the first time in years that an ECAC team has been on top of the polls," Sullivan said on Tuesday. We couldn't agree more - and it's yet another indicator that the ECAC kind of sits off on its own. As a league, it's not on the level of those three "major" conferences, but it's not down on the level of Atlantic Hockey either. Yale is the first #1 to come out of the league in almost eight years.
Here's the source of the largest cacophony - the strength of schedule compared to the other potential #1 teams in the country.
Strength of Schedule Rating
1. North Dakota
4. Minnesota-Duluth
6. Boston College
33. Yale
OK, so Yale's schedule strength is relatively pedestrian, it's true. There are 58 Division I hockey teams, so the 29th rated schedule (Union) is about the median average. Yale's a little bit less than average in their schedule, then. Understandable - the only two nationally ranked teams that they've faced this season are RPI and Union this past weekend, unless you count Dartmouth, unranked when they played the Bulldogs.
It's worth mentioning that, as an Ivy League school, they don't have as many games played. That's another source of contention, especially among people who don't understand the Ivy League's rules on season length. While UND, UMD, and BC have 18, 16, and 16 games played respectively, Yale's only at 12 - and they're going to be there until early January.
Is this the real problem? Well, consider #3 New Hampshire. No one's howling about their placement. They play in Hockey East. But their strength of schedule is only 23rd - also far below the teams around them. Heck, that's not too far off of RPI's SoS (25th) and it's below Brown's (20th).
Well, let's take a look-see.
Yale beat Vermont last night, 3-0. Just a few days after notching his first career shutout, Ryan Rondeau did it again. He hasn't allowed a goal in 135:23, dating back to Mike Bergin's goal in the third period on Friday night. That's pretty impressive, especially given that the first shutout was against #13 Union, a team that has proven itself capable offensively.
Yale's offense? Still best in the country. After failing to reach the five-goal mark against #15 RPI and last night against the Catamounts, they've slipped just below 5.00 GPG.
1. Yale - 4.92
2. Minnesota-Duluth - 3.94
They're no longer a full goal per game ahead of everyone else. No, now it's just 0.98 GPG. I don't care who you are or how easy your schedule is. You don't outscore the rest of the world by a goal per game unless you're extremely solid.
Remember when we said that Yale's defense was going to be something to overcome? How's a 2.08 GAA grab you? Third best in the nation now. They've given up two or fewer goals in five of six games since their ignoble loss to Air Force on November 14.
That, of course, leads to a pretty gaudy average scoring margin. There are only 11 teams in the nation averaging a margin of 1.00 GPG. But look at the Bulldogs:
1. Yale - 2.83
2. Boston College - 1.62
3. Miami - 1.56
4. Union - 1.43
5. Minnesota-Duluth - 1.38
Those numbers seem unreal. Are they partially a function of an easier schedule than the four teams directly beneath them? Yes, of course. When you play teams like Sacred Heart and play in the ECAC, strong teams are probably going to put up big numbers against those weaker teams. But we're not talking about numbers that are slightly better here. If we were, the BCs and UMDs of the world would have a better argument. But these numbers are out of this world.
If that's not enough for you, take a look at the computer rankings. Yes, much like college football, college hockey has a number of mathematical formulas that are used to rank the 58 Division I teams.
The most commonly used formula is KRACH - Ken's Ratings for American College Hockey. Developed by a statistician at the University of Toronto-Marlborough named Ken Butler, KRACH is widely considered to be the most objective system for rating college hockey teams. Yale is number one, as you can see at that link.
Not enough? Check out rpihockey.net's list of computer rankings. How about KASA, which adjusts KRACH for home-ice advantage? Yale's still number one. HEAL, developed at the University of Maine, takes into account how many games a team has won, and who they've beaten. Yale's number one. CCHP, developed by Eric Carlson at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, takes into account the actual score of each game as well as home-ice advantage using an additive model. Yale's number one. Then of course, you have the regular standbys - RPI (the Ratings Percentage Index) and the PairWise Rankings (of which RPI is a component). The PWR are still too early to be a true indicator, but if you like... Yale's number one in both of those as well.
They're not number one in every ranking, though. CHODR, a ranking system developed at St. Lawrence University, is similar to CCHP but it uses a multiplicative model instead. Yale's only 2nd in that ranking behind Boston College. E-ratings, a multi-system device devised by Russian statistician Eugene Potemkin, have them 2nd as well, behind Minnesota-Duluth.
There is a recursive version of HEAL (RHEAL) that pegs the Bulldogs 8th... but looking at pretty much every other scrap of data out there, it's pretty obvious that it's an outlier. If the only bits of raw data you can point to for making the claim that Yale isn't a deserving #1 is their RHEAL ranking and their strength of schedule, that's pretty thin.
Yale's record is 11-1-0. It would be 12-0-0 if not for a total collapse spanning 15 minutes of game time against Air Force - the Elis had a 3-0 lead about five minutes into the third period, and began taking penalties and falling out of their rhythm. If not for that 15 minute stretch, this probably isn't even a conversation.
But despite all of the evidence pointing to Yale as the best team in the nation at this point in time, the controversy is likely to continue, if only because the Bulldogs are not back in action until January 2nd, when they host another weak conference team, Holy Cross, for their final non-conference game. After that, it's all league games from there out. They're certainly going to be held to a higher standard than other teams - their losses will be magnified much more, just as the Air Force loss already has been.
But are they the best out there right now? You can't convince me they're not.
"If it were just another week with a Hockey East, CCHA, or WCHA team on top of the rankings, it would just be another week, but this is huge. It's the first time in years that an ECAC team has been on top of the polls," Sullivan said on Tuesday. We couldn't agree more - and it's yet another indicator that the ECAC kind of sits off on its own. As a league, it's not on the level of those three "major" conferences, but it's not down on the level of Atlantic Hockey either. Yale is the first #1 to come out of the league in almost eight years.
Here's the source of the largest cacophony - the strength of schedule compared to the other potential #1 teams in the country.
Strength of Schedule Rating
1. North Dakota
4. Minnesota-Duluth
6. Boston College
33. Yale
OK, so Yale's schedule strength is relatively pedestrian, it's true. There are 58 Division I hockey teams, so the 29th rated schedule (Union) is about the median average. Yale's a little bit less than average in their schedule, then. Understandable - the only two nationally ranked teams that they've faced this season are RPI and Union this past weekend, unless you count Dartmouth, unranked when they played the Bulldogs.
It's worth mentioning that, as an Ivy League school, they don't have as many games played. That's another source of contention, especially among people who don't understand the Ivy League's rules on season length. While UND, UMD, and BC have 18, 16, and 16 games played respectively, Yale's only at 12 - and they're going to be there until early January.
Is this the real problem? Well, consider #3 New Hampshire. No one's howling about their placement. They play in Hockey East. But their strength of schedule is only 23rd - also far below the teams around them. Heck, that's not too far off of RPI's SoS (25th) and it's below Brown's (20th).
Well, let's take a look-see.
Yale beat Vermont last night, 3-0. Just a few days after notching his first career shutout, Ryan Rondeau did it again. He hasn't allowed a goal in 135:23, dating back to Mike Bergin's goal in the third period on Friday night. That's pretty impressive, especially given that the first shutout was against #13 Union, a team that has proven itself capable offensively.
Yale's offense? Still best in the country. After failing to reach the five-goal mark against #15 RPI and last night against the Catamounts, they've slipped just below 5.00 GPG.
1. Yale - 4.92
2. Minnesota-Duluth - 3.94
They're no longer a full goal per game ahead of everyone else. No, now it's just 0.98 GPG. I don't care who you are or how easy your schedule is. You don't outscore the rest of the world by a goal per game unless you're extremely solid.
Remember when we said that Yale's defense was going to be something to overcome? How's a 2.08 GAA grab you? Third best in the nation now. They've given up two or fewer goals in five of six games since their ignoble loss to Air Force on November 14.
That, of course, leads to a pretty gaudy average scoring margin. There are only 11 teams in the nation averaging a margin of 1.00 GPG. But look at the Bulldogs:
1. Yale - 2.83
2. Boston College - 1.62
3. Miami - 1.56
4. Union - 1.43
5. Minnesota-Duluth - 1.38
Those numbers seem unreal. Are they partially a function of an easier schedule than the four teams directly beneath them? Yes, of course. When you play teams like Sacred Heart and play in the ECAC, strong teams are probably going to put up big numbers against those weaker teams. But we're not talking about numbers that are slightly better here. If we were, the BCs and UMDs of the world would have a better argument. But these numbers are out of this world.
If that's not enough for you, take a look at the computer rankings. Yes, much like college football, college hockey has a number of mathematical formulas that are used to rank the 58 Division I teams.
The most commonly used formula is KRACH - Ken's Ratings for American College Hockey. Developed by a statistician at the University of Toronto-Marlborough named Ken Butler, KRACH is widely considered to be the most objective system for rating college hockey teams. Yale is number one, as you can see at that link.
Not enough? Check out rpihockey.net's list of computer rankings. How about KASA, which adjusts KRACH for home-ice advantage? Yale's still number one. HEAL, developed at the University of Maine, takes into account how many games a team has won, and who they've beaten. Yale's number one. CCHP, developed by Eric Carlson at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, takes into account the actual score of each game as well as home-ice advantage using an additive model. Yale's number one. Then of course, you have the regular standbys - RPI (the Ratings Percentage Index) and the PairWise Rankings (of which RPI is a component). The PWR are still too early to be a true indicator, but if you like... Yale's number one in both of those as well.
They're not number one in every ranking, though. CHODR, a ranking system developed at St. Lawrence University, is similar to CCHP but it uses a multiplicative model instead. Yale's only 2nd in that ranking behind Boston College. E-ratings, a multi-system device devised by Russian statistician Eugene Potemkin, have them 2nd as well, behind Minnesota-Duluth.
There is a recursive version of HEAL (RHEAL) that pegs the Bulldogs 8th... but looking at pretty much every other scrap of data out there, it's pretty obvious that it's an outlier. If the only bits of raw data you can point to for making the claim that Yale isn't a deserving #1 is their RHEAL ranking and their strength of schedule, that's pretty thin.
Yale's record is 11-1-0. It would be 12-0-0 if not for a total collapse spanning 15 minutes of game time against Air Force - the Elis had a 3-0 lead about five minutes into the third period, and began taking penalties and falling out of their rhythm. If not for that 15 minute stretch, this probably isn't even a conversation.
But despite all of the evidence pointing to Yale as the best team in the nation at this point in time, the controversy is likely to continue, if only because the Bulldogs are not back in action until January 2nd, when they host another weak conference team, Holy Cross, for their final non-conference game. After that, it's all league games from there out. They're certainly going to be held to a higher standard than other teams - their losses will be magnified much more, just as the Air Force loss already has been.
But are they the best out there right now? You can't convince me they're not.
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