Author: Jim Dahl

It’s likely to be another quiet weekend for the Sioux in the PairWise Rankings, so this article will take a quick tour of some other WCHA teams in more interesting situations.

Though Duluth and Wisconsin seem in free-fall, they can still recover. St. Cloud’s upward momentum should slow a little.

If there’s one thing almost everyone in the WCHA can agree on, it’s that Bemidji State should sweep the Gophers and stay a TUC.

The analysis below focuses just on this week’s possible outcomes. There is some good discussion on the season outlook and what could happen to UND in the Bracketology 2011 thread.

North Dakota

PWR Rank #2
Comparisons: 30 won, 1 lost

What UND wants this weekend:

• UNH over BC. Shouldn’t matter much this weekend, but if UND were to falter, BC is a little closer on UND’s heels because it’s closer in both TUC and RPI.

Denver

PWR Rank #5
Comparisons: 27 won, 4 lost

What Denver wants this weekend:

• At least one BC over New Hampshire win (or UNH could take RPI and the comparison)
• At least one win Bemidji St over Minnesota (so Bemidji St. stays a TUC; otherwise, even if Denver sweep the comparison w/Michigan could flip; if Denver does worse, comparisons w/Merrimack, Miami, and Union could be in play)
• At least one AA over Mankato win (so AA stays a TUC, same reasons as above)
  UMD over UNO. Both teams are chomping at the Pioneers’ heels, but UNO is actually slightly closer due to its better TUC record than UMD.

UNO

PWR Rank #8
Comparisons: 23 won, 8 lost

What UNO wants this weekend:

• Wants BC to sweep New Hampshire. UNO is losing both comparisons, but New Hampshire can be flipped by grabbing RPI this weekend.
• Wants UMN to sweep Bemidji St. UNO is a pretty exclusive club, with Minnesota, hoping for this outcome. The Mavericks are currently losing the comparison with Bemidji State because of their 0-3 head-to-head record. A sweep by the Gophers would be enough to overcome that damage.
• Providence over Merrimack. UNO can take RPI and TUC in the comparison with Merrimack with a sweep.

UMD

PWR Rank #11
Comparisons: 21 won, 10 lost

What UMD wants this weekend:

• BC to sweep New Hampshire. UMD already loses the comparison to BC, so gaining some distance on New Hampshire (a mere .0006 behind in RPI) maximizes UMD’s PWR this weekend. However, this is a rare example of this weekend’s best outcome perhaps not being best in the long run. If UMD plans on winning a lot, they might prefer to see BC lose because they’re going to separate themselves from UNH anyway, and would like to be able to more easily pass BC in the conference tournaments.
• Providence to sweep Merrimack. Merrimack has a mere .001 lead in RPI.

SCSU

PWR Rank #20
Comparisons: 13 won, 18 lost

What SCSU wants this weekend:

• Bemidji St. over Minnesota. This series is huge for St. Cloud. SCSU wants Bemidji State to stay a TUC so it can keep its 3-1-0 record vs. them, or at least 4 currently won TUC comparisons could flip. Also, SCSU could take the comparison with Minnesota if the Gophers lose.
• Lake Superior over Ohio St. SCSU doesn’t want OSU to become a TUC, or they would give 3-1-0 to Alaska, 2-2 to Ferris St, and 1-1 OSU (against all of whom SCSU has a razor thin TUC lead).
• Western Michigan sweeps Ferris St. This one is a little more complicated and seems to be another short-term play, but it matters a lot (I think it may mostly come into play defensively if SCSU loses one). Edit — see the comments at the bottom, this series is actually next weekend.

UW

PWR Rank #21
Comparisons: 11 won, 20 lost

What Wisconsin wants this weekend:

• Bemidji St. over Minnesota. Yep, TUC-cliff and a 2-0 record vs the Beavers. Plus, with the right outcomes in its own games, the Badgers can take the comparison with Minnesota.
• Michigan St. over Alaska. The Badgers want Michigan St. to become a TUC, which a single win will probably do. UW’s TUC record is so miserable (.375) that there’s significant upside potential.
• Mass. sweeps Maine. Hard to believe the Badgers can take the comparison with Maine this weekend, but it seems they could. This sweep could give UW the COP criterion, and either TUC or RPI could be within reach.

UMN

PWR Rank #19
Comparisons: 13 won, 18 lost

What Minnesota wants this weekend:

• Mass. sweeps Maine. Same as UW, Mass. is a common opponent with Maine. Unlike UW, the Gophers already have the RPI comparison over Maine, so this would give UMN the comparison.
• Colgate over RPI. This must be a defensive play to keep Rennselaer from passing the Gophers in RPI if the Gophers slip.

Colorado College

PWR Rank: #14
Comparisons: 17 won, 14 lost

What CC wants this weekend:

• Denver over St. Cloud. This is another useful in the short run, giving up in the long run situations. Denver has the comparison with CC right now, so hoping for this is kind of throwing in the towel on ever catching Denver. BUT, it would prevent SCSU from overtaking the Tigers if CC loses.
• Bemidji St. over Minnesota. But not for the usual TUC cliff reason; in fact, CC is actually 0-2 vs. Bemidji St. This is another defensive play. If CC loses at all, Minnesota could easily overtake them on RPI.
• Colgate over RPI. CC could take the comparison with Rensselaer by taking RPI.
• Quinnipiac over Brown. CC wants Quinnipiac to stay a TUC.

If the season ended today, Wisconsin (#14 PWR) would be right on the cusp of making the NCAA tournament and Minnesota (#18 PWR) would miss it.

Each would have to get up into the #12-#13 range to feel good about making the tournament at-large, or plan on winning the WCHA tournament.

Here are the outlooks for each for this weekend.

Minnesota

If the Gophers sweep, they’re most likely to land in the 17-18 range, with 19 also a distinct possibility.

Here are the other games that help them increase their PWR the most this weekend:

• UMD over CC (one win)
• Merrimack over Maine (one win)
• Vermont over BU (sweep)
• SCSU over UW (sweep)
• Notre Dame over W. Michigan (sweep)

Wisconsin

If the Badgers sweep, 13-14 is most likely with 12-15 somewhat probable.

Here are the other games that help them increase their PWR the most this weekend:

• Lake Superior over Miami (one helps, sweep is best)
• Northeastern over New Hampshire (sweep)
• AA over Alaska (one helps, two is better)
• UMD over CC (sweep)

Updated to better contribute to a conversation going on in Bracketology 2011, here’s UW’s outlook for it’s final four regular season games.

Look back at the last week

PWR Rankings

UND is currently sitting at #3 in the PWR, behind BC and Yale. The Sioux win 25 of 28 comparisons, losing the comparisons to BC, Merrimack, and Yale.

UND PWR Details

Merrimack took the comparison with UND by sweeping UNH. That gave Merrimack over 10 games vs. TUCs and improved Merrimack’s record vs. TUCs to slightly better than UND’s.

This weekend

Getting swept or splitting will most likely result in UND staying put at #3 (though getting swept would open up the realistic possibility of a decline). A sweep for the Sioux would make a climb to #2 reasonably likely.

Games to watch

One biggie, no surprise:

Northeastern over Boston College — a single win by Northeastern would help UND overtake B.C. (BC’s lead is a mere .0001 in RPI)

Others with a more minor impact:

Massachusetts over Merrimack — a pure defensive play. I don’t see an obvious way for UND to take back the comparison with Merrimack this weekend. However, if UND faltered, Merrimack could overtake UND in comparisons won and PWR.
New Hampshire over Vermont — I honestly can’t figure out in which scenarios this matters, but it does.
MTech over Denver — prevent Denver from overtaking UND if the Sioux falter.
Princeton over Yale — for Yale to lose the top spot this weekend, they have to lose to Princeton.

Yale Watch

If Yale loses to both Quinnipiac and Princton, they stand less than a 25% chance of holding onto the #1 spot.

If Yale sweeps, they’re guaranteed to hold onto the #1 spot.

All scenarios in which Yale loses the #1 spot this weekend include a loss to Princeton, though it’s technically possible for Yale to beat Quinnipiac and still fall.

For UND to take the comparison with Yale would require taking both RPI and TUC. Princeton is a TUC.

BC needs to take 2 of RPI, TUC, and COP. The only remaining opportunity to take COP would be if Yale lost to Colgate next weekend.

TUC Cliff Watch

The five teams near the TUC cliff, against whom UND has winning records, are all currently at or over .500 in RPI.

Team	RPI	UND record
Alaska	.5090	1-0
St Cloud St	.5084	2-0 (2 remain)
Robert Morris	.5046	2-0
Alaska-Anchorage	.5032	2-0-1
Bemidji St	.5000	2-0 (2 remain)

While it’s true that UND has nowhere to go but down in TUC, a significant negative impact on UND remains unlikely.

Season Outlook

If UND keeps winning (e.g. 4 or more of the remaining 6 games), the Sioux stand a great chance of finishing the regular season in the top 4. The Sioux can do a lot to push themselves toward #2 overall, but to reach #1 overall is going to require some outside help.

Resources
Current PWR rankings (SiouxSports.com)
Explanation of how PWR mimics NCAA tournament selection (CollegeHockeyNews.com)
USCHO Bracketology Blog (USCHO.com)

UND is currently ranked #5 in the PWR, though the Sioux are definitely looking up the ladder, not down.

Current PWR Rankings

Predicting UND’s PWR as of Feb. 15

Predicting for Tuesday, to include Monday night’s Beanpot games, UND is well-positioned to improve on its current ranking.

A sweep this weekend would almost guarantee a nice climb for UND (leaving only a about a 7% chance of ending the weekend #5 or lower). In that scenario, there would be about an 74% likelihood of UND being ranked #2-#3.

A split would really put UND’s fate in other team’s hands, with anything between #3 and #6 being moderately likely, but leaning toward #5-#6.

Games to watch this weekend

• SCSU over UMD By far the most important series (other than its own) for UND this weekend. A Duluth loss could give UND the PWR comparison with Duluth (based on RPI and perhaps even TUC). However, SCSU could also become a TUC, giving UND 2 valuable TUC wins. That would be enough to possibly take the TUC comparisons from BC, UMD, and UNH (at least for one week, see “TUC Cliff Revisited” below).
• UMN over Denver This is important from a defensive perspective, to keep Denver from overtaking UND. Denver wins could help the Pioneers surpass UND in both RPI and COP, depending on UND’s results this weekend.
• Robert Morris over Mercyhurst This seems to be a pure TUC-cliff play, Robert Morris winning keeps their RPI over .500 and keeps them a TUC.
• Bemidji State over MTech Another TUC-cliff play. The Beavers aren’t currently a TUC, but with a couple wins they could be, giving UND 2 more wins vs. TUCs.

TUC cliff revisited
The “TUC cliff” is a phenomenon in PWR where a team’s PWR ranking can be quite different depending which teams are “under consideration” (an RPI over .500).

Current RPI rankings

As I noted in this message board post, UND has a winning record vs. the following teams near the TUC cliff:

• Alaska (1-0)
• Robert Morris (2-0)

The more of those that become TUCs, the better for UND.

Far more significantly, UND could end with a winning record vs. the following teams near the TUC cliff:

• Alaska-Anchorage (currently 0-0-1, 2 remaining)
• St. Cloud (currently 2-0-0, 2 remaining)
• Bemidji St. (currently 2-0-0, 2 remaining)

UND wants to beat those teams to get the maximum numbers of wins against them, but those losses will make it much harder for those teams to become TUCs. It’s like rain on your wedding day.

End of regular season outlook

With only 8 games left in the regular season, this is starting to shape up.

Edit… the above chart is the percentage share of possible outcomes. If you read those as probabilities, you’re essentially assuming that each team has a 50-50 chance of winning each game. More realistic, if you want to know what outcomes are actually likely, is guessing the winner of each game based on past results. The below chart does that (using KRACH).

The below notes refer to the probabilities of outcomes.

• Win 4 — Minimum required to stay reasonably safe for an at-large bid.
• Win 6 — Puts UND about where it is now, likely PWR ranking of #5-#6.
• Win 8 — Very likely to be top 4 (82% chance).

Resources
Current PWR rankings (SiouxSports.com)
Explanation of how PWR mimics NCAA tournament selection (CollegeHockeyNews.com)
USCHO Bracketology Blog (USCHO.com)

…but could also fall to #7.

I predicted back in December that I would next revisit the Pairwise Ratings (PWR) in February, and felt particularly compelled this week to follow through with that promise.

Predicting UND’s PWR as of Feb. 8

Bye week is always an interesting week to do a 1-week prediction, because it reveals how much our PWR can change without even playing. UND will have the same set of wins and losses a week from now as today, only PWR’s interpretation of the strength of those wins and losses will change.

UND is currently #3 in the PWR (actually, tied for #2 with Denver, who wins the RPI tie-breaker).

After next weekend (I projected out to next Tuesday to include the first round of the Beanpot), UND has over a 70% chance of being either #2 or #3.

#1 is actually possible (7%) as is #7 (.03%).

What to cheer for

You can follow along on the UND PWR Details table

The biggest games for UND are in the WCHA.

• Minnesota beating Minn.-Duluth. Even a split would be enough to give UND the TUC point and the overall comparison, letting UND climb one spot.
• CC beating Denver. This one is defensive — if Denver swept, they would get the TUC point from UND and the overall comparison, dropping UND a spot. A split should be enough to prevent that.
• BU winning. It’s difficult to decipher when a team plays two different opponents, and it’s hard to figure out why Lowell matters, but it seems to a little. BU beating BC is important as defensive measure — a BC win over BU would be enough for BC to take the RPI point from UND and the overall comparison, dropping UND a spot.

FAQ

No one has actually asked yet, but someone is probably wondering…

How can UND get the #1 spot, I thought UND couldn’t take comparison with Yale?
I don’t think UND can take the comparison with Yale this week, overcoming Yale’s advantage in both RPI and TUC seems far-fetched. However, if UND took the comparison with Minn.-Duluth this week (see above), it would only be losing one comparison. If Yale lost a comparison to someone else this week, the two would be tied. UND would then need to surpass Yale in RPI to take the tie-breaker. Since UND is playing, the only way for that happen is for Yale to lose (probably both).

I just stumbled on this, how is PWR being predicted?
I simulate the outcomes of the remaining games in the season a million or so times, using KRACH to predict the likelihood of each team winning in each iteration. That’s enough simulations to ensure that even the most unlikely possibilities occur at least once. For each simulated season I calculate what PWR would result from that set of outcomes. I then use the aggregate results of those simulations to assign a likelihood to a particular outcome, that is, if UND finishes #3 in PWR in 370,000 of 1,000,000 simulations, I say that UND has about a 37% chance of finishing #3.

Resources
Current PWR rankings (SiouxSports.com)
Explanation of how PWR mimics NCAA tournament selection (CollegeHockeyNews.com)
USCHO Bracketology Blog (USCHO.com)

When to look at PWR

Though January is the traditional time to start really looking at rankings, UND only has one meaningful game remaining before the new year, so now seems a fine time for a sneak preview.

First, I do want to draw attention to my essay from last year, When to start looking at PWR? Inspired by some humorously early bracketology discussions last Fall, it analyzes when the PWR rankings become useful by looking at two criteria:

• How stable is it week-to-week?  If a #1 ranked team is likely to become a #15 ranked team next weekend after a loss or two, then it’s a practically useless measure.
• How good a predictor is the current PWR of the final PWR?  The real PWR is only calculated once, once all the games have been played and it’s time to seed the tournament.  We’re really only interested in “if the season ended today” PWR calculations because we think they may have some predictive value of those final PWRs.

In short, PWR is wildly unstable until January and doesn’t become a very good predictor of end-of-season PWR until March.

PWR prediction

So, rather than look at PWR itself (what the tournament seeds would be if the season ended today), I’m going to fire up the PWR Predictor and show you what PWR could be at the end of the regular season, based on UND’s performance between now and then.

We knew it intuitively based on the record, but wow is UND in a different place from previous years (potential outcomes as of Feb. 10, 2010 and as of Jan. 29, 2009).

UND seems to already have a pretty solid lock on being a TUC — winning 7 of the remaining 17 almost guarantees it.

Winning just 7 would likely leave UND on the precipice of an at-large bid, while winning 8 would slide the Sioux more comfortably into the tweens.

Do keep in mind how flat some of those curves are, so it’s much more likely for UND to fall into a “tail”  — e.g. while the “win 7” curve is centered around #10, it’s only half as likely to be #14 or a quarter as likely to be #16.

Bonus coverage — what’s up with Yale?

There’s been a lot of chatter about whether Yale’s #1 ranking and poll spot is deserved, given the quality of competition they’ve played.  One of the questions being asked is how good a job the rankings do at incorporating strength-of-schedule for teams with exceptional win-loss records.  The PWR Predictor can help with a question like this by measuring the stability of Yale’s lofty perch atop the rankings.  If Yale loses a handful of games and plummets to a more mortal win-loss record, what will happen to their PWR?

It’s a little hard to read because it’s so dense over there near the #1 ranking.  Basically, Yale would have to win fewer than 7 of their remaining 17 games to be in likely danger of not being a TUC.  With as few as 10 wins they seem almost a lock for a top 4 seed.

Bottom-line: From a PWR perspective, Yale is for real.

Resources

I don’t expect to have anything new to say about PWR for at least a month or two, but data hounds may want to keep an eye on things themselves:

• SiouxSports.com PWR
• CollegeHockeyNews explanation of PWR
• USCHO Bracketology blog

Back in 2008, as the excitement over the impending release of the WCHA polls was building, I found myself wondering how meaningful the polls really were. We all get excited about the predictions, as if they will somehow influence the outcomes, but then forget about them by the end of the year when PWR is all that really matters. So, I decided to look back a few years and compare the coaches’ predictions to the actual outcomes, which I wrote up in the post, How good is the coaches’ poll.

That analysis determined that the coaches were actually pretty good at picking WCHA outcomes. They beat throwing darts at a dartboard by a huge margin, and even consistently beat recycling last year’s finish as a prediction for this year. Since a couple years have passed, I decided to take another look and wasn’t surprised to see that the coaches have done even better in the last two years (here’s the raw data).  In 2008-09, the coaches picked every team within one spot of their actual finish except CC (picked #1, finished T-3).  In 2009-10, the coaches picked every team within two spots of their actual finish except Minnesota (picked #3, finished #7).

However, the “previous year’s finish” predictions also did quite a bit better in the last couple years.  That means that the good teams are staying good and the bad teams staying bad, making things a lot easier to predict.  Here, fully updated, is how far off the predictions were from the outcomes (lower numbers are better):

Year	Coaches Poll*	Previous Year*
2009**	28	43
2008**	12	42
2007	65	84
2006	52	43
2005	21	48
2004	86	89
2003	62	146

* – calculated as the sum of the squares of the differences of each prediction with the actual outcome
** – new since original post

So, it seems that even in the easy years (the “previous years” outcomes of 42 and 43 were better than the coaches outcomes of the previous two years!), the coaches add significant insight beyond how good the teams were last year.

Once again, here are the coaches’ picks for 2010-11:

1. North Dakota (10), 120
2. St. Cloud State (2), 105
3. Minnesota Duluth, 100
4. Denver, 88
5. Minnesota, 82
6. Colorado College, 67
7. Wisconsin, 64
8. Nebraska Omaha, 55
9. Bemidji State 46
10. Minnesota State, 41
11. Alaska Anchorage, 19
12. Michigan Tech

Watching tonight’s game (or any others this season)?  Things may be a little different.  Hat tip to CHN for link, here are the:

2010 Rule Changes (pdf)

Big stuff:

• If the non-offending team scores during the delayed penalty, the penalty would still be enforced and that team would receive a power play.
• When a delay of game penalty is NOT called, the team that shoots the puck directly out of play would not be allowed to change its players. (This would provide some penalty for a defending team that shoots the puck out of play directly. If the puck is ruled to be deliberately shot out of play, a delay of game penalty still may be issued.)
• Require that a hand pass must be “deliberately directed to a teammate or create a gained advantage” for this rule to be in effect. (Too many hand passes are being called that are not truly hand passes. For example, a defenseman is trying to hold the line at the offensive blue line and the puck deflects off of the player’s glove and goes to a teammate in the neutral zone. This was not deliberately directed and therefore should not be a violation of the hand pass rule. This change will assist officials to properly administer this rule.)
• New rule that mirrors system used in some junior leagues where the linesmen judge which player would touch the puck first if an icing is in effect. (To add an element of touch-up icing used in professional levels and eliminate some whistles in the game without compromising safety.)
• In exhibition games ONLY, enforce icing at all times of the game. (This change would remove a contradiction in the rules that allows a team that has violated the rules in one area to violate another rule in order to compensate for being shorthanded. This would provide more scoring opportunities for the power play team and could encourage more skilled play from the defensive team.)

And… enhanced guidance about contact to head…

Alter the language to read: “A player shall not target and make contact with an opposing player’s head or neck area in any manner (including but not limited to the shoulder, stick, elbow, etc.) or force the head of an opposing player into the protective glass, boards or goal cage.
PENALTY—Major and a game misconduct or disqualification at the discretion of the referee.”
NOTE: See the additional guidance at the end of this document.