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SB Nation Survey + Chance to donate $500 to a charity of this community's choice

2010-03-20T00:48:05Z

>> Take SB Nation Survey

Hello sports fans! We're always striving to provide you with the best experience possible and it's been quite some time since we checked in with you.

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We really appreciate your time and this is also going to help make a donation to a good cause.

By next Thursday (3/25) at 11:59pm PST the site that has the highest percentage of their community filling out the attached survey about their sports interests and consumption will win $500 to donate to a charity of their choice. We will leave it up to the discretion of the community manager(s) of the winning blog to decide how to choose the particular charity.

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Nontraditional Contest Updates: Through First Round

2010-03-18T22:40:27Z

I'll plan on updating scores daily. Meanwhile, some interesting stats:

Most picked teams: Kansas 25 of 27, West Virginia 22, Baylor 21, MSU 18, Wisconsin 17, BYU and Siena 16 each.
Teams above 14 not picked at all: UNLV (8 seed), New Mexico State (12 seed). Two 14+ seeds got a single pick each; they'll be listed below.
Solo picks: Houston (Con-T), Vermont (Seer), Vanderbilt (vanman), Florida (mikehead), Wake Forest (vanman), Wofford (wbrianr), Montana (SpartanDan), Clemson (ChicagoDan), Cal (wbrianr)
Most popular low seeds (8+): Siena 16, UTEP 13, Utah St 13, Murray St 12, San Diego St 12, Minnesota 11, Gonzaga 10, Old Dominion 10
Rooting for chaos (highest total of seeds picked): Richard Coletta (136 total), Con-T and SpartanDan (127)
All chalk: let's hope (61), vanman (63), GBBound (66)
Hedging your bets (picking both teams in the same game): msufan23 (Xavier and Minnesota, Temple and Cornell), steinfi2 (Siena and Purdue)

Standings through the first round:

Rank	Name	Points	Surviving Teams
1	RobbingGormanThomas	80	13
2	Con-T	74	11
3	SpartyForPrez	71	11
4	SpartanDan	70	11
5	Seer	69	11
6	Richard Coletta	68	9
7	rook34	65	13
8	TMadison25	63	11
9	KJ	62	11
t-10	MSUBeefman1	58	11
t-10	kroif04	58	11
t-12	wifeofaspartan	56	12
t-12	vert_et_blanc	56	10
t-14	RewertsSpartan	54	13
t-14	steinfi2	54	10
t-14	Chris in Kzoo	54	9
17	TheCrestedHelm	53	13
t-18	ChicagoDan	52	10
t-18	mikehead	52	9
20	wbrianr	51	9
21	msufan23	50	10
t-22	umhoops	45	10
t-22	zbscubbies	45	9
24	GBBound	38	12
25	my2fish	37	12
26	vanman	36	12
27	let's hope	28	11

Bracket Breakdown, Bradley-Terry Style

2010-03-17T06:00:31Z

[Bumped. Another tool for anyone who, like me, hasn't filled out their bracket yet. Dan, can you provide a little more technical information on how you calculate these ratings? Looks like a ton of work. -KJ]

(Alternate title: This Is Your Bracket on KRACH.)

Undoubtedly you have seen the log5 breakdowns of the bracket over at Basketball Prospectus, based on Ken Pomeroy's rankings. (If you haven't, what's stopping you? The link is to the Midwest preview, but the others are available as well.) You may also recall that back in December, I posted a short article on the Bradley-Terry ranking method (familiar to college hockey fans as KRACH) and applying it to college basketball as a potential RPI substitute. The main point in its favor is that exceptionally strong or weak opponents cannot have such a significant effect on strength of schedule that a loss raises your rating or a win lowers it; this is a significant flaw in the RPI (and some other record-only rating systems; it can happen in points-based rankings like Pomeroy's but that's because you won by less than his model predicted, so it's not really a flaw there). In fact, if you were to play the world's most awful team, a team that would never beat anyone, your rating would remain exactly unchanged (assuming you won). Likewise if you lost to a theoretically perfect team who had an infinite rating.

Another useful point about the Bradley-Terry method is that it, like Pomeroy's rankings, provides an easy method to calculate the odds of one team beating another: simply divide Team A's rating by the sum of (Team A's rating) and (Team B's rating), and you have Team A's probability of defeating Team B. (The formula for Pomeroy's rankings is only slightly more complex.) So I decided to do a similar bracket breakdown, giving odds of each and every team reaching each round.

Odds table after the jump.

Team	Seed	B-T Rating	2nd Round	Sweet 16	Elite 8	Final 4	Title Game	Champ
Kansas	M1	95.3024	99.24%	87.98%	78.51%	67.24%	52.22%	38.24%
Kentucky	E1	59.9940	98.36%	82.45%	63.84%	44.67%	32.60%	17.42%
Syracuse	W1	43.7536	96.85%	77.40%	59.79%	42.18%	19.15%	10.84%
West Virginia	E2	35.4880	95.98%	75.83%	50.67%	24.29%	15.01%	6.30%
Duke	S1	29.6715	98.71%	76.44%	48.07%	29.81%	13.36%	5.11%
Villanova	S2	24.3322	96.00%	66.38%	41.52%	21.70%	8.74%	2.99%
Kansas St	W2	24.8326	93.90%	61.30%	40.01%	19.26%	6.59%	2.86%
New Mexico	E3	23.2448	91.93%	64.65%	30.60%	11.80%	6.10%	2.03%
Purdue	S4	23.8606	77.48%	50.70%	26.05%	14.83%	5.91%	2.00%
Temple	E5	24.3970	71.62%	49.37%	17.60%	8.74%	4.62%	1.59%
Georgetown	M3	20.1088	91.46%	54.82%	33.83%	9.15%	4.07%	1.57%
Baylor	S3	19.3236	90.74%	62.27%	31.76%	14.84%	5.23%	1.56%
PIttsburgh	W3	17.2214	82.78%	52.88%	24.71%	9.87%	2.74%	0.96%
Ohio St	M2	16.2168	88.81%	57.34%	28.18%	6.68%	2.64%	0.89%
Butler	W5	16.7066	65.70%	40.92%	14.37%	6.96%	1.89%	0.65%
BYU	W7	16.4780	68.24%	29.35%	16.39%	6.39%	1.73%	0.59%
Tennessee	M6	16.4854	64.64%	31.59%	18.03%	4.32%	1.72%	0.59%
Texas A&M	S5	15.8677	70.84%	33.02%	13.84%	6.52%	2.03%	0.54%
Maryland	M4	12.9482	86.71%	50.72%	8.46%	3.86%	1.34%	0.39%
Vanderbilt	W4	12.8231	71.64%	35.07%	10.46%	4.40%	1.01%	0.29%
Wisconsin	E4	13.6242	79.52%	33.61%	8.30%	3.01%	1.17%	0.28%
Xavier	W6	12.1174	67.33%	31.97%	12.29%	4.01%	0.89%	0.25%
Michigan St	M5	11.7461	76.19%	40.09%	6.22%	2.69%	0.88%	0.24%
N Iowa	M9	14.0160	59.14%	7.95%	4.43%	2.10%	0.76%	0.24%
Texas	E8	13.6891	62.03%	12.28%	5.56%	2.02%	0.79%	0.19%
Gonzaga	W8	11.8179	54.00%	12.64%	6.14%	2.47%	0.54%	0.15%
St Mary's	S10	11.2242	51.73%	17.58%	7.79%	2.67%	0.66%	0.14%
Marquette	E6	11.5208	60.63%	22.63%	7.25%	1.81%	0.64%	0.14%
Notre Dame	S6	10.3006	59.91%	23.56%	8.54%	2.77%	0.64%	0.13%
Richmond	S7	10.4714	48.27%	15.70%	6.71%	2.20%	0.52%	0.10%
Oklahoma St	M7	9.7051	54.87%	23.32%	8.61%	1.45%	0.42%	0.10%
Florida St	W9	10.0687	46.00%	9.60%	4.29%	1.57%	0.31%	0.08%
Missouri	E10	9.6902	51.40%	12.37%	4.57%	1.01%	0.32%	0.06%
Louisville	S9	8.9170	51.61%	12.41%	4.34%	1.47%	0.31%	0.05%
San Diego St	M11	9.0186	35.36%	12.51%	5.33%	0.85%	0.23%	0.05%
UNLV	M8	9.6847	40.86%	4.03%	1.88%	0.73%	0.21%	0.05%
UTEP	W12	8.7206	34.30%	16.09%	3.70%	1.23%	0.22%	0.05%
Clemson	E7	9.1622	48.60%	11.25%	4.02%	0.85%	0.26%	0.05%
Cornell	E12	9.6673	28.38%	13.63%	2.64%	0.77%	0.24%	0.05%
Georgia Tech	M10	7.9837	45.13%	17.25%	5.63%	0.82%	0.21%	0.04%
California	S8	8.3612	48.39%	11.10%	3.72%	1.21%	0.24%	0.04%
Florida	W10	7.6704	31.76%	8.64%	3.27%	0.79%	0.13%	0.03%
Wake Forest	E9	8.3804	37.97%	5.13%	1.75%	0.46%	0.13%	0.02%
Old Dominion	S11	6.8942	40.09%	12.45%	3.47%	0.86%	0.15%	0.02%
Washington	E11	7.4802	39.37%	11.31%	2.73%	0.50%	0.13%	0.02%
Siena	S13	6.9356	22.52%	8.23%	2.06%	0.59%	0.10%	0.01%
Utah St	S12	6.5318	29.16%	8.04%	1.93%	0.53%	0.09%	0.01%
Minnesota	W11	5.8808	32.67%	10.38%	2.47%	0.49%	0.06%	0.01%
Murray St	W13	5.0753	28.36%	7.92%	1.21%	0.28%	0.03%	0.005%
New Mexico St	M12	3.6712	23.81%	6.62%	0.40%	0.08%	0.01%	0.001%
Oakland	W14	3.5825	17.22%	4.78%	0.77%	0.10%	0.009%	0.001%
Wofford	E13	3.5096	20.48%	3.39%	0.29%	0.04%	0.006%	0.0005%
Santa Barbara	M15	2.0441	11.19%	2.10%	0.24%	0.01%	0.001%	0.00006%
Houston	M13	1.9848	13.29%	2.57%	0.09%	0.01%	0.0009%	0.00005%
Sam Houston St	S14	1.9723	9.26%	1.72%	0.18%	0.02%	0.0009%	0.00005%
Montana	E14	2.0411	8.07%	1.42%	0.12%	0.008%	0.0007%	0.00004%
Ohio	M14	1.8769	8.54%	1.08%	0.15%	0.007%	0.0005%	0.00003%
North Texas	W15	1.6135	6.10%	0.71%	0.09%	0.006%	0.0003%	0.00001%
Morgan St	E15	1.4848	4.02%	0.55%	0.05%	0.002%	0.0002%	0.000006%
Vermont	W16	1.4211	3.15%	0.36%	0.04%	0.003%	0.0001%	0.000006%
Robert Morris	S15	1.0140	4.00%	0.34%	0.03%	0.001%	0.00004%	0.000001%
East Tenn St	E16	1.0015	1.64%	0.14%	0.009%	0.0004%	0.00002%	0.0000005%
Lehigh	M16	0.7255	0.76%	0.04%	0.003%	0.0001%	0.000004%	0.0000001%
Ark Pine Bluf	S16	0.3863	1.29%	0.06%	0.001%	0.00003%	0.0000004%	0.000000004%

Blue indicates a team that the Bradley-Terry method rates more highly than Pomeroy's (in terms of probability of beating an "average" team), red indicates the reverse. The darker the shade, the more significant the difference. The most extreme positive difference: New Mexico is expected to win 95.88% of the time against an average team by the Bradley-Terry method but just 88.21% by Pomeroy. Utah State, on the other extreme, is expected to win 86.72% by the Bradley-Terry method but 93.01% by Pomeroy. (Minnesota and Wisconsin, interestingly, are the two next most extreme in B-T pessimism. Oakland and Kentucky are second and third in B-T optimism.)

Some notable differences, bullet-style:

Kansas is #1 by a mile in the Bradley-Terry rankings; only Kentucky and Syracuse even have a 30% chance of pulling the upset. This and the models' disagreement on Ohio State and Maryland (Pomeroy likes both considerably better) leads to a big jump in Kansas's title chances.
Bradley-Terry gives Duke just over a 5% chance to win it all, compared to 24% by Pomeroy. Part of this is that Duke is more lightly regarded here, but the fact that all of the next six teams by seed in their region are rated at least as high here as by Pomeroy plays a role as well. West Virginia, despite having to get past Kentucky just to get to the Final Four, is considered to be more likely to win it all.
Kentucky also sees a big jump in their chances of winning it all here, in large part due to difference of opinion on Wisconsin (who's actually the favorite, by a narrow margin, to escape the East according to Pomeroy's numbers).
Both systems rate us about equally (24th Pomeroy, 26th Bradley-Terry). The main differences in our percentages are due to our opponents: New Mexico State is considered a much tougher opponent by this system (79th) than it is by Pomeroy's (115th), reporting a 23.8% chance of upset compared to 14.2%. But Maryland is not so highly regarded (10th Pomeroy, 22nd Bradley-Terry), so this model gives us a slightly better chance of reaching the Sweet 16. Then we meet the buzzsaw named Kansas, and Bradley-Terry considers them a much bigger busszaw, so our chances thereafter drop accordingly.
Pomeroy's formula has Wisconsin tied for 3rd most likely to win it all (with Syracuse, behind Duke and Kansas). This one has them 21st.
Just two 10 seeds (and no one lower) are favored in the first round by this method: St. Mary's and Missouri. Pomeroy favors Old Dominion, Utah State, Georgia Tech, and St. Mary's.
Poor Arkansas-Pine Bluff. Pomeroy's model gives them a 1 in 2.5 billion chance of winning it all; this method isn't even that generous, at 1 in 25 billion. (That may be an artifact of their calculations simply being for the "play-in winner", which could have been Winthrop, who is rated slightly higher.)

I don't mean this to supplant Pomeroy's rankings and the analysis by the group over at Basketball Prospectus, of course; their data factors in scores and not just win-loss records. But by ignoring record entirely, their analysis also loses some information. Losing (or winning) close games isn't all luck, and a team that consistently failed in the clutch is more likely to do so again. Ideally some hybrid of the two could be used, perhaps by averaging the two rankings in some way before applying log5.

Finally, some major differences among the RPI and Bradley-Terry rankings:

Teams the RPI overrates: San Diego State (19th vs. 38th), Cal (20th vs. 42nd), Siena (27th vs. 48th), Old Dominion (28th vs. 50th), Utah State (32nd vs. 54th), UAB (42nd vs. 58th), Wichita State (45th vs. 60th), Kent St. (47th vs. 74th), Oakland (51st vs. 80th), New Mexico State (52nd vs. 79th). Common thread, for most: Lots of games against the 100-200 range and/or low 200s, very few against the high 200s and 300s. Oakland seems to be the exception; theirs may be due to the opposite effect of playing teams way over their ranking and getting a huge SOS boost to offset the effect the loss has on RPI.
Teams the RPI underrates: Gonzaga (37th vs. 25th), Missouri (46th vs. 33rd), Notre Dame (48th vs. 30th), Cornell (49th vs. 35th), Marquette (50th vs. 27th), Virginia Tech (58th vs. 36th), Ole Miss (62nd vs. 47th), Seton Hall (68th vs. 43rd). Again, there's a common theme: Tons of games against "RPI anchors" which aren't (for good teams) functionally that much different from playing teams in the 150-200 range but are punished far more severely in the RPI.

This seems to confirm what conventional wisdom has always said: RPI puts a big emphasis on choosing your cupcakes carefully. Choose poorly, and your RPI will suffer even if you win. Choose wisely, and you can get a bunch of near-guaranteed wins without making your strength of schedule look too embarrassing. This year, Virginia Tech chose ... poorly. And it is the reason they didn't make the tournament.

History Says Spartans to Sweet 16, No Further

2010-03-15T20:59:03Z

Tom Izzo laughs at those who get caught by the 5/12 upset. He's been a 5-seed twice before, going to the Final Four as one in 2005 and the Sweet 16 as one in 2008. In fact, he's never lost in the first weekend when seeded as a five or better.

However, Kansas is likely to bring the train to a halt in the regional semifinals. Bill Self is three-for-three at getting at least to the Elite Eight when he's a 1-seed (2001, 2007, 2008), and he's also three-for-three at getting at least to the Elite Eight when his regular season winning percentage is greater than .800. This season Kansas is a 1-seed and his team went 32-2 (.941).

Hockey Preview: CCHA Quarterfinals

2010-03-11T04:59:10Z

[Bumped. Fantastic stuff. Beat Michigan. -KJ]

Michigan State vs. Michigan
Best-of-3 series
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (if necessary) at Munn Ice Arena

No upsets in the CCHA first round (in fact, the home team swept all four series), so Michigan comes to town. This preview is going to be a bit light on personal observations; I've seen very few games this year (one of the hazards of living over 1000 miles away) and thus have to rely on the boxscores and team stats. Pairwise update will follow the series preview.

Tale of the Tape

	Overall				Conference
	Record	GF/gm	GA/gm	GD/gm	Record	GF/gm	GA/gm	GD/gm
MSU	19-11-6	3.08	2.42	0.67	14-8-6 (2nd)	2.61	2.29	0.32
Mich	21-17-1	3.18	2.33	0.85	14-13-1 (7th)	2.96	2.46	0.5

Season series: MSU won 3-1 (3-2 at Yost, 2-0 at Munn, 3-2 at Munn, 4-5 at Joe Louis)

Despite a better record, we're both scoring fewer goals and allowing more overall. In conference play, our goals against was slightly better but net goal difference was still worse. If we define difference between the record you would expect based on goal difference and the actual record as "luck", then Michigan has been spectacularly unlucky this year: one game over .500 in conference despite a +14 GD in 28 games is pretty hard to do. My minimal observations, combined with reading some previews and recaps from Brian and looking at the boxscores, have led me to a possible alternate explanation for this phenomenon. (Be sure to check there, as his preview will almost assuredly be more thorough than mine. That's the advantage of actually being able to see games.)

One observation Brian had early in the season is that Michigan has had a tendency to put up insane shot totals but lose as most of the shots are stopped and the few shots the opponents get trickle through. In losses this season, they have outshot opponents by 10, 13, 15, 12 (the 2-0 loss at Munn), 10, 25, 18, 33 (a 4-3 GLI semifinal loss), 15 (their only tie of the season), 9, and 18. Their 33 shots on goal per game is probably near the top nationally (I can't find a list of teams ranked by shots per game), but they rank just 20th nationally in goals. This leads me to suspect that Michigan tends to just throw the puck at the net at every opportunity and hope something good happens - not a bad strategy in general. Against bad teams, these chances typically result in a lot of goals as they get many good scoring opportunities or pick apart a weak goalie. But against stronger opposition, this often leads to frustrating games where you're outshooting the opponents by a wide margin but they're all poor-quality shots and easy saves. (Red Wings fans will probably recognize that description all too well.)

Game-by-game goal totals seem to bear this theory out a bit:

(We have one game scoring more than 6 - a 10-1 win over Michigan Tech. Rather than stretching the axis, I just lumped that into the "6+" category.)

Michigan's per-game totals against all opposition have a surprisingly flat distribution. Break it out into games against the RPI top 25 and the bottom 31, and there's a clear pattern: they scored 3 or more goals 80% of the time against the lower tier, but just 37% against the top. We, on the other hand, scored 3+ 67% against the lower tier and 56% against the upper. Michigan does have four 5+-goal games against teams under consideration (Alaska, Minnesota, Northern, and us) to our one, but they've been shut out twice by TUCs and held to one goal four more times. We've been held to one goal or none six times against TUCs as well, but we put up 3+ ten times to Michigan's seven.

What does it all mean? Our defensemen and goalie Drew Palmisano are going to have their work cut out for them. An off night in our own zone is probably going to be an ugly loss. If we can limit Michigan to taking mostly low-quality shots, we may well get outshot but we'll likely come out ahead in the only category that matters. Palmisano is certainly capable of stealing a game or two if we get outplayed; he ranks ninth nationally with a .922 save percentage. Michigan's goalie situation is not so bright: Bryan Hogan ranks 55th at .901. (Hogan has been out for the last few games due to injury; backup Shawn Hunwick is .915 in five appearances, which would be good for 18th if he had the minutes to qualify. He has two shutouts - one of which was the game in which Hogan was injured midway through the first - but gave up five to Notre Dame on just 25 shots in another game. I haven't been able to find any confirmation on Hogan's status for this weekend.)

Pairwise Update

A fair amount of movement around us over the weekend. New Hampshire's 0-1-1 weekend against Boston College has us stealing the point thanks to a tiny TUC lead (9-9 to 11-12). Unfortunately, UMass sweeping Maine turned out to be far more significant than I expected: it gave them an insurmountable common opponents lead and a lead in TUC (11-9 to 9-9). End result: Still 12th, still with 12 out of a possible 24 points. Assuming Bemidji State wins the CHA tournament and the four major conferences (WCHA, CCHA, ECAC, Hockey East) do not have a surprise auto-bid winner, we need to remain at least 15th to get in.

Doesn't look likely that there will be much movement around the TUC cliff. There's a .006 gap (which works out to about the equivalent of a win for the trailing team and a loss for the leading team, give or take) between RPI #25 BU and #26 Northeastern, and Northeastern's season is done. Ohio State is another .0027 back and about to be disemboweled by Miami. Short of a Merrimack sweep of BU or a major upset or two involving teams near the cut line, the top 25 looks unlikely to change.

Comparisons in play:

Alaska: Their RPI lead has grown to .0066. We lead TUC, 8.5-7.5 to 7.5-7.5 (head-to-head does not count in TUC) and common opponents 17.5-9.5 to 17-13. 0-1-1 head-to-head. If we don't face them at the Joe, we have to flip RPI. If we do, we have to beat them, as there's no way we can overcome the RPI deficit otherwise; playing them even is probably enough the rest of the way, as we'll only need to either keep TUC or flip RPI.
Last week: 2-0 vs. Western Michigan 4-0, 4-1
This week: CCHA quarterfinals @ Northern Michigan, best-of-3
New Hampshire: Their RPI margin has dipped to .0057, and we've overtaken them in TUC, 9-9 to 11-12. Common opponents is a lock for us. Keep TUC and this is ours. I don't see any route for us to flip RPI while losing TUC (unless Michigan drops out of the top 25, and that appears unlikely, though not impossible, even if we sweep them), but if we do that we win the comparison as well.
Last week: 0-1-1 @ Boston College 3-3, 2-3
This week: Hockey East quarterfinals vs. Vermont, best-of-3
Cornell: Our RPI deficit has grown slightly to .0031. Cornell is still short of the 10 TUC games needed for that criterion to count, at 4-5 to our 9-9. Common opponents is a lock for us. Win our series with Michigan, and assuming Michigan stays in the top 25 we guarantee the comparison if Cornell faces Union and/or Yale in the final four and loses or splits (even if we lose both at the Joe, we'll be 11-12 at worst and they'll be 4-6 or 5-6). If Cornell beats both to win the ECAC tournament, we can't take the comparison without winning the CCHA tournament (we won't be able to catch them in RPI, and the best we can do in TUC would be a tie at 12-10 to 6-5). If Cornell beats one and does not face the other, we just need to beat Michigan and avoid losing both games at the Joe (even a tie in the third-place game, assuming that it would be decided via shootout to avoid delaying the championship game, should be sufficient if we sweep Michigan; if we win in three we would have to win one of the two games at the Joe). And if they don't make it to the final four, a series win over Michigan probably flips RPI (though we might need to avoid losing twice at the Joe).
Last week: Idle
This week: ECAC quarterfinals vs. Harvard, best-of-3
Ferris: Same situation as last week. If we meet at the Joe, winner probably takes the comparison - although if the loser wins their series in two and wins the third-place game while the other wins their series in three and loses the final the head-to-head point could be overcome (we might flip RPI in that scenario, and they would flip common games while keeping RPI). If we don't meet there (which requires that one of Ferris, Miami, or us gets upset in the quarters), matching Ferris win for win keeps TUC and common opponents and gives us the point.
Last week: Idle
This week: CCHA quarterfinals vs. Nebraska-Omaha, best-of-3
Northern Michigan: Same situation as last week. If we meet at the Joe, winner probably takes the comparison, although scenarios like the ones for Ferris could overcome that. If we don't meet there, we need to keep RPI and common opponents, which means matching them win for win. An extra win might be necessary, even, because Northern is so close in RPI and will face teams with higher RPIs than we will in the quarterfinals (and, should we both make it there, the semifinals).
Last week: Idle
This week: CCHA quarterfinals vs. Alaska, best-of-3
Minnesota-Duluth: We've gained a little ground in RPI (the gap is down to .0012). We lead TUC, 9-9 to 9.5-12.5. They lead common opponents 9-5 to 5.5-3.5 (possible relevant opponents for us: Northern; possible relevant opponents for them: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan Tech). If we keep the TUC lead and defeat Northern at Joe Louis (only way we can meet in the semis is if Ferris is upset by UNO and the rest of the chalk prevails), UMD would have to go 1-0 or 2-0 (1-0-1 is sufficient if they win against Tech or Minnesota in the opener of the Final Five, lose to someone else in the semis, and tie the third-place game assuming that's allowed) against relevant opponents to keep common opponents. If we do not face Northern, we take common opponents only if UMD goes 0-1 or 0-2 (or 0-1-1) against relevant opponents. If we lose to Northern, we cannot take common opponents and would need RPI to win the point.
Last week: 1-1 @ Alaska-Anchorage 2-3, 6-3
This week: WCHA first round vs. Colorado College, best-of-3
Nebraska-Omaha: RPI lead is down to .0045. Down in TUC (7.5-8.5 to 9-9), up in common opponents (15.5-10.5 to 16-12), 1-0-1 head-to-head. Keep the RPI lead and we just have to keep common opponents (very likely if we keep the RPI lead). Lose that and we need to make TUC even at worst and keep common opponents (unlikely if we lose the RPI lead). Should we meet at the Joe, it will be a similar scenario to those for Ferris and Northern - winner probably gets the point unless everything else goes as far the other way as possible.
Last week: 2-0 vs. Bowling Green 6-1, 6-1
This week: CCHA quarterfinals @ Ferris, best-of-3
Vermont: We lead RPI by .0060. Common opponents is now guaranteed. We have a slim lead in TUC, 9-9 to 10.5-11.5. Keep either RPI or TUC and we win the point.
Last week: 0-1-1 at Mass-Lowell 2-5, 1-1
This week: Hockey East quarterfinals @ UNH, best-of-3
Mass-Lowell: Our RPI lead is still a solid .0105. Common opponents is a tie at worst (that only if Mass-Lowell sweeps Maine and we lose to UNO at the Joe). TUC record is ours as well for the moment: 9-9 to 8.5-10.5. Pretty hard to lose this if we win the series with Michigan, although it might be possible if we lose twice at the Joe and Lowell wins the Hockey East tourney.
Last week: 1-0-1 vs. Vermont 5-2, 1-1
This week: Hockey East quarterfinals @ Maine, best-of-3
UMass: The poster child for "Why The Pairwise Is Weird". We lead RPI by a whopping .0141, but we lose the comparison because they're 4-0 vs. common opponents (3-0 against Maine, a win against Rensselaer) and lead TUC 11-9 to 9-9. We have to flip TUC. Hopefully Boston College will do us a favor there - a sweep means that as long as Michigan stays in the top 25, getting to Joe Louis will do it for us if we don't beat Michigan in three and then lose both at the Joe.
Last week: 2-0 at Maine 5-2, 4-3
This week: Hockey East quarterfinals @ Boston College, best-of-3
Maine: RPI lead of .0140 is practically insurmountable (barring a collapse which would have a lot of other teams passing us anyway). With no common opponents, RPI is enough to keep the point.
Last week: 0-2 vs. UMass 2-5, 3-4
This week: Hockey East quarterfinals vs. Mass-Lowell, best-of-3
Colorado College: Our RPI lead is just .0010. TUC record looks like a safe win. We only flip common opponents if CC loses to two of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan Tech in the WCHA Final Five. Best bet is to keep the RPI lead.
Last week: 1-1 in home-and-home vs. Denver: 2-1 away, 3-7 home
This week: WCHA first round @ Minnesota-Duluth, best-of-3
Union: RPI lead is .0110. Thanks to UMass replacing Northeastern in the top 25, Union has nine TUC games instead of eight now. We lose common games, but it will be hard to lose TUC now even if Union beats Cornell and Yale to get to 5.5-5.5. This one's safer than it was last week simply because of UMass making the top 25 (otherwise Union would be 5.5-4.5 if they win the ECAC, which would beat us unless we win the CCHA tourney).
Last week: Idle.
This week: ECAC quarterfinals vs. Quinnipiac, best-of-3
Boston University: RPI lead is .0142. Dead even in TUC (9-9 to 10.5-10.5), slight lead in common opponents (5.5-4.5 to 3-3; their only potential relevant opponent is Maine, ours is Michigan). Win the series against Michigan and we lock up common opponents, which with our RPI lead makes this a virtual lock. Get swept, and we need BU to lose to Maine in the Hockey East final four. Lose 2-1, and we need them not to beat Maine (they can lose, tie, or not play).
Last week: 2-0 in home-and-home vs. Northeastern: 5-4 home, 4-3 away
This week: Hockey East quarterfinals vs. Merrimack, best-of-3

Outlook

We seem to be in reasonable shape as teams behind us start having to play each other. That limits the amount of damage that can be done. With Vermont and UNH facing each other, and Ferris and UNO, it's unlikely that any more than two of those teams can take the point if we lose 2-1.

All predictions here should be taken with a grain of salt, as there are so many games in play and it's hard to say exactly how much the RPI will swing one way or the other on a win or loss, but the bottom line: Win the series and it will be hard for us to be left out (though it might still be possible if we lose twice at the Joe). Lose 2-1 and we're likely to be sitting right around the cut line. Get swept and all bets are off.

Conference Tournament Rooting Interests

All with an eye toward guaranteeing qualifying. Seeding really doesn't make that much difference except on the 1 line, where you are potentially playing for a home site and/or a weak auto-bid for your first opponent. Otherwise, bracketing follows the S-curve perfectly as long as it doesn't result in a conference matchup in the first round.

CCHA

#7 Michigan at #2 MSU: Duh.
#5 Alaska at #4 Northern: Alaska winning this is the low-variance option: Northern almost assuredly won't catch us (unless they lost 2-1 and we get swept) - the difference between playing Alaska and playing Michigan shouldn't be enough of an SOS boost for them to flip it - and we'll be hard-pressed to catch Alaska even if we win. If we beat Michigan, a Northern series win might let us catch Alaska but it keeps Northern in play as well. A bad showing at the Joe might leave us losing both, a split there with Northern not winning it all and not beating us may let us win both. If we lose to Michigan, a Northern series win all but guarantees we lose both. Importance: Critical if we lose, significant if we win
#8 Ohio State at #1 Miami: An upset here means we would play OSU first and be a (slight) favorite to win the auto-bid, but this really doesn't matter much. OSU is the only non-TUC still alive in the CCHA tourney (assuming Michigan stays in the top 25). The only complicating issue is the potential for bid-thievery. Better to have Miami (who can also help knock off the other CCHA bubblers - we won't face them until the final or third-place game) and not risk a stolen bid. Importance: Minimal
#6 Nebraska-Omaha at #3 Ferris State: Neither team is far from taking the point on us. Root for a 3-game series. If we win our series, the loser here is not catching us. If we lose, we're losing the point to the series winner. If Ferris wins and we win, we play them (assuming Miami does not lose to OSU). If UNO does, we cannot face them in the semis but could in the final or third-place game. For matchup purposes, Ferris might be a better opponent to face than UNO should it come to that - we're 1-1 against Ferris, 0-1-1 against UNO. I don't know that we care too much who wins, as long as it goes three games. I lean slightly toward Ferris, but even bid-thievery isn't likely to matter here as either of these teams winning it all would push them into the top 15. Importance: Minor

AHA

Totally irrelevant, as they have no one in at-large contention.

CHA

Root for Bemidji State to win it all, as they're the only at-large contender in the conference. They face Niagara in one semifinal; Robert Morris vs. Alabama-Huntsville is the other. Importance: Critical if we lose, minor if we win

WCHA

#10 Michigan Tech at #1 Denver: Immaterial by itself, except in the unlikely case that MTU makes a bid-thief run. Best for Denver to win this and keep stomping everyone in sight, limiting any gains on us in TUC record by fellow bubblers from the WCHA. Importance: Minimal
#9 Alaska-Anchorage at #2 Wisconsin: Ditto.
#8 Minnesota State (Mankato) at #3 St. Cloud State: Ditto.
#7 Minnesota at #4 North Dakota: Minnesota can't realistically catch us unless we fall apart (we have a solid RPI lead and an insurmountable TUC lead), but we're better off knocking them down to 1) prevent possible bid-thievery and 2) make it tougher for whoever emerges from the 5-6 series. Importance: Minor
#6 Colorado College at #5 Minnesota-Duluth: UMD in 3 would be ideal. It keeps CC off our back (they're close in RPI and we would need a miracle to flip common games) while giving us a solid shot at taking RPI from UMD. Importance: Significant

ECAC

#5 St. Lawrence at #4 Colgate: Both would be bid-thieves if they win the whole thing. Importance: Irrelevant
#11 Brown at #1 Yale: Prevent bid-thievery. Yale and Cornell are the only sure bets for the tournament from the ECAC at this point (and even Cornell could fall out if they get swept and certain other series go the right way). Importance: Significant
#7 Quinnipiac at #3 Union: Union could play their way in (and has an outside chance of stealing the point, especially if UMass should fall out of the top 25). Quinnipiac is auto-bid or bust. Easier road for the teams that are definitely in makes bid-thievery less likely. Importance: Minor to significant
#9 Harvard at #2 Cornell: Harvard winning this series almost certainly gives us the point on Cornell (if we win the Michigan series), but it also increases the risk of bid-thievery (Yale would be the only team left assured of a spot already). Given that we would pass Cornell in the pecking order, that's a trade I'm more than willing to make. Importance: Significant

Hockey East

#8 Vermont at #1 New Hampshire: If we win, we want this series to go 3. If we lose, we want it to be a sweep. A UNH win is probably better; it risks losing that point on TUC record but we'd be losing the point to someone who's already (relatively) safe rather than risking a loss of the Vermont point to a fellow bubbler. Importance: Minor to significant
#5 Mass-Lowell at #4 Maine: Maine can't catch us barring an RPI disaster, Mass-Lowell is a little closer in RPI but would also need to flip TUC or tie common opponents (the latter only possible if they sweep this series). The key point is probably that Mass-Lowell is ahead in the Pairwise (winning eight comparisons to Maine's five). But I think we're okay with anything that could happen here as long as we win our series; if we lose, Maine is the safer point but not by much (and we may need them to deal with BU; see below). Importance: Significant if we lose, minor if we win
#6 Merrimack at #3 Boston University: Win our series and this is moot. Get swept, and we lose the comparison to BU (assuming they don't drop out) unless they win the series and then lose to Maine. Lose 2-1, and we're mostly safe (though if BU plays Maine they must not win). Importance: Irrelevant if we win, minor if we lose 2-1, major if we lose 2-0
#7 UMass at #2 Boston College: Eliminate a potential bid thief, and knock UMass's TUC record into range for us to prevent them from stealing the point. Importance: Significant to major

After this weekend's games, USCHO will put up the Pairwise Predictor, which lets you input hypothetical results for the final weekend and see the resulting Pairwise standings. So by Sunday night we should know exactly where we stand and what we need. Win the series and we'll probably be looking more at seeding and bracket possibilities than whether or not we're in. Lose and it will be a long wait until the tournaments resume next weekend and we learn our fate.

MSU School of Decade Video

2010-03-10T21:29:27Z

Does anyone know where I can find the intro video from the Breslin? The one that features the Sports Illustrated School of the Decade stuff? I've been looking for it for a while. Hopefully someone on here knows where I can find it, Iit never ceases to pump me up. Thanks a lot.

Go Green for Life.

My post is apparently too short, so I am going to ramble on here for a few words, da da dah, GO GREEN!

Chris allen suspended for Friday's game

2010-03-09T16:44:22Z

I was just listening to Ermanni Midday on 1130 am, and he just broke the story that Allen has been suspended for Friday's game. He did not say why, or what happened, but just that he was suspended. I have looked everywhere on the internet, and have not found anything. Once I do, I will put up a fanpost.

Obviously, this puts a huge damper on the chances of going far in the tournament, depending on what happened, and how long the suspension is.

MOVing up the Ranks

2010-03-05T23:03:57Z

[Bumped. So we tend to play down against bad competition (although it hasn't cost us a game yet) but we don't play up against good competition. Not helping. I'm thinking we should ban any further statistical analysis of this team until we get through Sunday' game. -KJ]

The following quote has appeared on this site before, but in the wake of last night's nail-biter over Penn State, it definitely bears revisiting.

While a team plays to win the game, its chances of winning are much greater when it leads by 20 with five minutes to go than if the game is tied at that point. There is a significant incentive to building a comfortable lead rather than just trying to stay a point ahead of the opposition all game long. You never know when your opponent is going to go all Chandler Parsons on you. For this reason teams capable of building big leads typically build them, and past results indicate that those teams are headed for good things in the future.

Thinking about this also led me to consider John Gasaway's recent observation that although Wisconsin currently sits atop his efficiency margin rankings of the conference, with the best numbers on both offense and defense (and holds a similarly lofty position with other margin-of-victory-based rankings systems - Pomeroy #4, Sagarin PREDICTOR #4), the Badgers have attained this position with the aid of two major blow-outs of conference doormat Indiana. Controlling for games against Indiana still leaves the Badgers looking good, just no better than Purdue or Ohio State.

When you look at the Big Ten this year you see three pretty clear strata: the top four (sorry, Illinois), the middle four and the bottom three (Penn State and Indiana have recently been trying to separate themselves, albeit in different directions). If teams "headed for good things" build big leads, then we would expect to see impressive wins over the worst teams by the best. How do the teams look if you separate their games against the weak sisters of the conference from the rest? Like this: (Numbers are from Ken Pomeroy's site.)

Efficiency: Top Tiers vs. Bottom

Team	PPP	Opp PPP	Pace	EM	Avg. MOV	Record
Wisconsin	1.19	0.83	62.0	0.36	22.4	5-0
Purdue	1.11	0.87	62.6	0.24	15.2	5-0
Ohio State	1.14	0.93	63.0	0.21	13.5	6-0
Michigan State	1.12	0.95	61.8	0.17	10.4	5-0
Illinois	1.03	0.91	62.3	0.12	7.3	6-0
Minnesota	1.12	1.01	69.0	0.11	7.8	4-1
Michigan	1.06	0.95	61.3	0.11	6.5	4-2
Northwestern	1.13	1.16	61.6	-0.03	-1.8	2-3

Wisconsin's overall superiority in efficiency margin is fueled not only by the two Indiana games but by their walloping the tar out of the other two weak teams as well. Even the improbable OT game against Penn State in the Kohl Center ended in an 8-point Wisconsin win. And it could be even more extreme. The schedulers only gave them 5 games against the bottom tier and other teams, including Ohio State, Purdue, and Illinois had the benefit of six. Gasaway lists Wisconsin among his unlucky teams, having outscored the rest of the conference at a rate that would normally net a 15-2 record rather than 12-5. But, that margin is fueled to a some extent by much greater domination of the bottom tier than anyone else. (Wisconsin's EM versus the worst teams was an amazing 49% better than second place Purdue's.) Here's a scatterplot look at how the top two tiers did against the bottom compared to how they played each other.

If margin of victory is one of the best predictors of future success, these numbers won't give Spartan fans a lot of comfort. They have neither feasted on the weak nor played "up" to the strong, placing a clear fourth in EM in each category. Not only that, it looks like they're going to have to win their share of the title against the toughest of the middle-tier opponents (who just missed making Gasaway's unlucky list themselves). The interesting number is Ohio State's margin of 0.083 against the stronger teams (which includes two Turner-less losses to Michigan and Wisconsin). This is an impressive 24% better than Wisconsin's number, which was also fueled significantly by two blow-outs of OSU and MSU. Although Wisconsin's numbers against the weak and OSU's against their peers are both characteristic of strong teams, I'm not sure which should have more weight. A neutral floor tournament rematch of OSU and Wisconsin with both at full strength is an intriguing possibility.

Pairwise Update: CCHA Early-Round Edition

2010-03-04T02:46:08Z

[Auto-bump. --LVS.]

MSU hockey sent the seniors out in style with a 5-2 home win on Friday, but fell in a shootout (counts as a tie for Pairwise purposes) on Saturday. Unfortunately, 1-0-1 against an awful team didn't help our RPI, and a few teams took advantage. Cornell and Alaska both passed us in RPI to take the comparisons, but Colorado College being swept gave us the advantage over them. No movement at the TUC cliff. Net result: down one point to 12, dropped to 12th in the standings (and a precarious 12th at that: Vermont trails in RPI by just .0017; should it come to an RPI tiebreaker with UMD and Ferris at 11 points, we would come out worst and potentially right on the cut line.

Thanks to Western somehow forcing a shootout both nights against Ferris, we earned the #2 seed in the CCHA tournament. That means we sit out the first weekend. Not having to play one of the dregs of the league averts any risk of an RPI-anchor loss; a 2-1 series win would probably be a net loss in the Pairwise.

After the jump: the CCHA tournament, other teams of interest, and our rooting interests.

CCHA Tournament Byes: #1 Miami, #2 MSU, #3 Ferris, #4 Northern Michigan

First round series (best of 3): #12 Western Michigan at #5 Alaska, #11 Bowling Green at #6 Nebraska-Omaha, #10 Lake Superior State at #7 Michigan, #9 Notre Dame at #8 Ohio State.

The four winners will be reseeded and travel to the four teams with byes for best-of-three series in the second weekend of March. The four survivors of those series go to Joe Louis for a single-elimination bracket with a third-place game (which can end in a tie; the rest go as far into OT as necessary). Win the whole thing and this exercise becomes a question of seeding only; the tournament carries an auto-bid for the winner.

Michigan's spot in the top 25 is still quite precarious (they're 24th in RPI). To keep our TUC record up, it is definitely best if they stay in with a sweep of Lake State. Notre Dame-Ohio State is pretty much irrelevant, as neither has a realistic chance of making the top 25 and it won't affect seeding of other teams. As for the other two series ... well, that's where things get complicated.

Michigan is easily the most dangerous team we could face in the second round (they actually finished tied for second in the league in goal difference, usually either losing close games or winning big), but they're also the only potential TUC we could face. If they face someone else and win their series, our .500 TUC record (unless we lose twice at the Joe) is safe. If we play them and win in three, Michigan probably stays up and that gets us a game over .500 on TUC if we split at the Joe. If we sweep, Michigan is probably going to stay in but it will be dicey. If they do, a split at the Joe gives us an 11-9-2 TUC record, which probably wins that part of the comparison on all but the top teams. If Michigan should drop out, that falls to 6-8-2. (All of this, of course, assumes that the teams at the Joe are all top 25; this is likely unless there's a major upset or two.)

If Alaska and UNO both win their series and Michigan beats Lake State, we get Michigan in round two. If one of them is upset, we get the Ohio State-Notre Dame winner. If both fall, we get Bowling Green. I don't know which is more in our interest, but if one of Alaska and UNO is to fall it would be far better if it is Alaska. We cannot take the point from them without passing them in RPI, and we already have a decent lead on UNO.

Comparisons In Play

We cannot realistically take the comparison with any of the current top 8 in the Pairwise (Denver, Miami, Wisconsin, St. Cloud State, Bemidji St., BC, North Dakota, Yale). Nor can any of the bottom 5 (Northeastern, Minnesota, Mass-Lowell, Michigan, BU), or any team likely to replace them, realistically catch us. That leaves 11 comparisons in play:

Alaska: This one's all about the RPI. We have common opponents handily, they have a head-to-head win. Unless we play them again (a possibility at Joe Louis), TUC record is moot, because if the RPI goes the other way the RPI is the tiebreaker. We trail by .0023 at the moment. If we meet them at the Joe and win, TUC (which we currently lead by a narrow margin) is enough even if we don't flip RPI. If we lose to them, we need both RPI and TUC. This weekend: Hosting Western Michigan, CCHA first round, best-of-3 series
New Hampshire: We're down by a decent margin in RPI (.0100), but TUC is pretty close (counting ties as a half-win, half-loss, they're 11-10 and we're 9-9; I'll simplify most such records this way so it's easier to see the win%) and common opponents is a lock for us. They play BC this week; a BC sweep would give us the lead in TUC for the moment in addition to bringing RPI closer. This weekend: Home-and-home series with BC, regular season.
Cornell: Common opponents locked (we're 3-0 to their 3-0-1, all ECAC teams so our perfect record is safe), TUC doesn't count yet (they're 4-5), down slightly in RPI (.0021). If they make the ECAC final four and lose to either Union or Yale (or split against them), we can win TUC and make RPI moot as long as Michigan stays in the top 25. If they don't make it that far, RPI probably favors us anyway. This weekend: Idle, awaiting quarterfinal opponent in ECAC tourney
Vermont: Up .0017 in RPI, common opponents is guaranteed unless they draw Maine in a first-round series and sweep (then it ends in a tie), down in TUC (they're 11-9). Keep RPI and we keep the point. Lose it and we need both common opponents (likely) and TUC (unlikely). This weekend: @ Mass-Lowell x2, regular season.
Minn-Duluth: Down .0028 in RPI, leading TUC handily as long as Michigan stays in (they're 9.5-12.5), down in common games (9-5 to 5.5-3.5). Games against Lake State or Northern would help us in common games; UMD could fall back toward us if they play Minnesota, Wisconsin, or Michigan Tech (though if it's the latter, they likely won't lose). Swinging RPI or common games (as long as we keep TUC) would do it. This weekend: @ Alaska-Anchorage x2, regular season
Ferris: We're pretty safe in TUC (they're 4.5-8.5, drop to 3-7 if Michigan falls out), one game up in common opponents (16-10 to 15-11), split head-to-head, they're up .0018 in RPI. If we face them at the Joe, the winner is almost sure to take the comparison. If we don't, we have to match them win for win to keep common opponents. This weekend: Idle, awaiting quarterfinal opponent in CCHA tourney
Northern: We lead RPI by .0024, trail TUC by a narrow margin (they're 9.5-8.5 to our 8-8; head-to-head games don't count under TUC), split head-to-head, and we have a slight lead in common opponents (19-11 to 18.5-12.5). Have to keep RPI, most likely, as I don't see any way we can flip TUC while losing RPI, nor any way they can flip common opponents without winning RPI as well. Probably another win-for-win situation, and that may not even be enough since they'll get a tougher quarterfinal opponent than we will and thus a bigger SOS boost. This weekend: Idle, awaiting quarterfinal opponent in CCHA tourney
Maine: No common opponents, head-to-head split, we lead RPI by .0052, they own a slight advantage in TUC (11-10 to 8-8). TUC is moot unless RPI somehow ends up exactly tied. This weekend: Hosting UMass x2, regular season
Nebraska-Omaha: Up .0080 in RPI, +1 head-to-head, down in TUC (7.5-8.5 to 9-9), up 1.5 games in common opponents (15.5-10.5 to 14-12). Keep RPI and we win, lose it and we have to get TUC to even (unlikely if they make up that much ground). This weekend: Hosting Bowling Green, CCHA first round, best-of-3 series
Union: Up .0113 in RPI, they don't have enough TUC games to count it yet (3.5-4.5), losing common games (5.5-1.5 to 7.5-1.5). This is a weird comparison: if Union wins the ECAC tournament by defeating Cornell and Yale, they will hit 10 TUC games and take the TUC point. (We can still win TUC if we win the CCHA tourney, but then we're only worried about seeding.) If that happens, we need to make common games even at worst, which is only possible if we play Lake State. If Union sweeps Rensselaer then beats Cornell and Yale, there is no hope of winning this comparison regardless of RPI (short of winning the CCHA tourney). If Union does not face them (which would require that either they or St. Lawrence are upset in the first round), a sweep of Lake State is the only way we can tie common games. If Union wins that series in 3, either sweeping Lake State in the quarterfinals or beating them at the Joe would do.
On the other hand, if Union does not defeat both Cornell and Yale, this seems pretty safe. Our RPI lead is pretty significant, and if they don't face both Cornell and Yale TUC cannot come into play (thus RPI alone would be enough). If they split against them in the ECAC semis/final/third-place, we are in good shape as long as Michigan stays in but would lose this if Michigan drops out. If they lose to both, we'll have TUC pretty solidly even in the worst case and it should be impossible for us to lose this point. This weekend: Idle, awaiting quarterfinal opponent in ECAC tourney
Colorado College: Despite being 20th in the Pairwise, this comparison is a precarious one for us. Our RPI lead is just .0014, we're losing common opponents (2-3 to 4.5-4.5), but winning TUC fairly handily (9-9 to 8.5-13.5). We can't help the common opponents, but if Colorado College faces some combination of Minnesota, Wisconsin, or Michigan Tech they can fall back to us. Have to either keep RPI or flip common opponents (the former being more likely). This weekend: Home-and-home series with Denver, regular season.

Interestingly, keeping Michigan as a TUC may not be that critical. Despite it being a big help to our TUC record, we're winning TUC in many of the comparisons that we are losing and either losing TUC already or so far ahead it wouldn't matter in many of the comparisons that we are winning.

Rooting Interests

Western Michigan over Alaska. This keeps us from facing Michigan in the quarterfinals and kills Alaska's RPI. (Not going to happen, but if they can at least go to a third game it'll be a significant RPI hit for them.) Importance: Significant
Should the above fail, Bowling Green over UNO would be nice. That would also keep us from facing Michigan and it would lock up the point for us over UNO. But I'd rather not have both occur, as that means we get a no-win series with Bowling Green (two wins wouldn't help our RPI much, 2-1 would probably hurt it, losing the series would be SEASON OVER). Best to get a team that wouldn't be a total RPI-killer, such as Ohio State, Lake State, or Notre Dame. Importance: Minor
Ohio State over Notre Dame. We're 0-2-2 against ND, 1-1 against OSU, so I'd rather have the team we have a better track record against. Importance: Minor
The Michigan-Lake State series has very different implications based on what happens elsewhere. Facing Lake State could give us some help in the UMD comparison if we can't catch them in RPI, and it might be our only hope of catching the point on Union if they win the ECAC. Keeping Michigan in the top 25 could potentially help us against Union (if they don't win the ECAC), Cornell (if they don't win the ECAC and don't beat Union or Yale while losing to a non-TUC), and UNH (if we fail to catch them in RPI). Best of both worlds is probably to get Lake State to win 2-1 and have the teams below them in the RPI lose, but I think the opportunity to face Lake State may be more important than keeping Michigan in. Add to that that Michigan is arguably a much better team than their record shows and a series against them would be a serious potential threat, and the verdict is: Cheer for Lake State. Importance: Major, depending on other results
BC over UNH. We're not catching BC, and this would likely give us the point on UNH for now. Importance: Significant
Mass-Lowell over Vermont. Lowell isn't catching us, and we keep the point on Vermont as long as we beat them in RPI. Importance: Significant
Alaska-Anchorage over UMD. Bring UMD's RPI down. A potential first-round series between UMD and Minnesota would require some unlikely results if we get help from UAA, but it would be potentially useful as Minnesota could give us common opponents by beating up on UMD. Importance: Significant
UMass over Maine. 1-0-1 might be better than a full sweep, in terms of trying to keep Michigan safe should Lake State win, but better to build the lead on Maine. Importance: Minor to significant (we're up enough that a split keeps us in decent shape).
ECAC first round results: Nothing too significant here, as all three of the ECAC TUCs have byes. The important games start next week.
Denver over CC. Keep CC from overtaking us in RPI, and Denver's so far ahead it doesn't matter. Importance: Significant to major

Next week, MSU will be back in action with the CCHA quarterfinals, and the WCHA and Hockey East tournaments will begin, while the ECAC tournament continues onto the quarterfinal round. The CHA tournament will also be played that weekend (relevant only because Bemidji State is the only at-large contender in the conference; we want them to win the tournament to prevent any bid-thievery).

Rosters from past teams?

2010-02-27T21:48:31Z

So I was hoping to find a database somewhere that could show me any MSU basketball roster I wanted, preferably in the Izzo-era. Does anyone know where I could find them? I want to find atleast the rosters of all the Izzo teams (1995-present). Anyone have this info and/or know where I can find it online? If you cannot find the rosters specifically, is there a list somewhere of all Izzo-recruits?

Thanks for any help.

What Happened?

2010-02-24T03:55:28Z

I may be a little early with this, but the Ohio State game (which I drove 260 miles each way to attend) put many of us in a similar state of mind. MSU has now matched last season's loss total, with three regular season games remaining. And I think it's safe to say that they're unlikely to run the table from now through the NCAA tournament, meaning that this season represents a drop-off from last, in one of the most important statistics, anyway.

Although many of us probably felt that the pre-season expectations for this team were a bit inflated, they were based on the general idea that a very good but not dominant team (+0.13 efficiency margin) returning 69% of its possession minutes* would expect to improve enough on offense to offset an almost certain fall-off in defense (from the losses of Suton and Walton).

*Returning Possession Minutes is a John Gasaway statistic that tries to qualify returning minutes by adjusting for the role that departed players had in the offense. So a team like MSU (Walton) or Illinois (Frazier and Meachem) that lost players who consumed relatively few possessions on offense would have a higher RPM than raw returning minutes. It could really just as well be called returning offensive minutes.

The College Basketball Prospectus Major Conference Preview 2009-10 (buy your copy here) did an impeccable job, as usual, of quantifying what needed to happen for MSU to meet or exceed last season's performance.

Their defense may well slip now that Walton's gone, but there's enough room for improvement on offense that the net result can be about what it was last year. The key numbers here are 48 and 22. Last year in conference play, perimeter-averse MSU made just 48 percent of their twos and gave the ball away on 22 percent of their possessions. If the Spartans can raise that first number and lower the second (while of course maintaining their Tasmanian devil-level offensive rebounding), they can indeed fulfill the towering expectations being placed upon them.

They included a further analysis of MSU's offense last year.

The Spartans transcended their poor shooting in three ways. In order of importance they were: 1) defense; 2) offensive rebounding; and 3) trips to the line. It's a little scary to ponder what this team might do in 2010 if these three factors stay unchanged but MSU improves in the areas of shooting and taking care of the ball. Even a little.

It's easy enough to see how it played out. Here are conference-only statstics, from Statsheet.com.

As you can see, the Spartans improved in their weakest area, shooting the ball, and even shaved a little off the turnover percentage. But, unfortunately, the other factors didn't hold firm, leaving us with the unexpected conclusion that rebounding (along with getting to the line and sinking free throws) is to blame for leaving the offense almost exactly where it was last year (1.062 PPP vs. 1.063).

So, did the defense fall off too? Does Dallas Lauderdale only make dunks? Overall efficiency went from 0.93 to the current 1.00. Here are some basic numbers. (I've included opposition FT%, to show that there's been a little bad luck, too.)

Of course there's no way to say whether this decline is greater than expected. The efficiency number represents a worsening of 7.5%, which would have seemed fairly reasonable to me at the start of the season. (1.0 is where Wisconsin finished last season, believe it or not.) Interestingly enough, a small amount of this can be attributed to bad luck. If opponents in 2009 had shot free throws as well as this year's cold-blooded killers the efficiency would have gone from .930 to .946. It has probably seemed worse than it is since MSU started the conference season with some impressive showings against good offensive teams like Northwestern, Wisconsin and Minnesota. And in general, although overall efficiency is down and they're giving up more good looks (Waltonlessness), fewer opponents are getting to the line to inflict their deadly accuracy.

In general, then, I think you can say that the defensive fall-off has been within the range of expectations, but has not been offset by the hoped-for offensive improvements. Based on what we knew about this team at the beginning of the season, what they lost and what they were likely to gain, I've come to the paradoxical conclusion that we can lay the blame for the failure to meet expectations, to a significant degree, on the offense.

Hockey Rooting Interests: Feb 26-27

2010-02-23T16:54:55Z

[I know that KJ mentioned this post below, but it's far too thorough and fantastic to not be on the front page. Also, I added the picture. --LVS.]

Last week I outlined the Pairwise Rankings and how their existence makes it a little easier to predict what will help or hurt your team's chances of making the NCAA tournament.

Last weekend didn't go particularly well for MSU hockey. We split with Ferris State, remaining tied for second in the CCHA with one weekend to go in the regular season. That split leaves our comparison with them in serious jeopardy; from here on out we have to match them win for win. Minnesota crept into the top 25, bringing our loss to them into play for TUC record. Alaska's sweep of Lake State is a double-whammy: Alaska (and our 0-1-1 record against them) is pretty solidly into the top 25 now and probably can't drop out without a disastrous run, and Lake State (and our 1-0-1 record against them) dropped out. The good news: Michigan has now snuck in at #25, which is huge for our TUC record (3-1), and Nebraska-Omaha split with Miami to hold their spot. We currently sit 10th in the Pairwise, but with Michigan hovering right on the edge we could easily drop if they fall out.

The conference race is down to the final weekend, with a lot still up for grabs. There is still a chance that we fail to earn a bye, as Northern Michigan and even Michigan could catch us if we have a disastrous weekend. (Teams 5-12 play best-of-3 series, and the winners are re-seeded and face teams 1-4 in best-of-3 series, with those winners advancing to the single-elimination final rounds at Joe Louis.) The good news is, we're playing Bowling Green this weekend, which is to the CCHA what Latvia is to the Olympic ice hockey tournament. A sweep there clinches at least third (Ferris would own the tiebreaker over us due to goal difference in our head-to-head games if they also sweep).

After the jump, a detailed breakdown of the Pairwise: which comparisons are still in play for us, which teams near the "TUC cliff" (the RPI #25/26 cut line) we would like to see above the line, and who to root for.

Comparison rundown: (Note: thanks to RPI being the tiebreaker if the comparison is even, if you hold RPI and a better head-to-head record, you win regardless of the other components.)

Not Happening

Denver
Miami
Wisconsin
St. Cloud State (best we can do is tie common opponents, so we need to swing the RPI and that's not likely)

Possible But Not Likely

Bemidji State (flipping RPI might be enough, but we may also need to swing common opponents - easiest if UNO takes a win and tie against them)
Yale (need to swing RPI)
Boston College (need to swing RPI and at least maintain a tie in TUC)

Trailing But In Play

North Dakota (we hold a slim edge in TUC, if we can hang onto that there are chances to flip RPI and/or common opponents)
New Hampshire (any edge in TUC - currently tied - or catching up on RPI would do it, as we hold common opponents pretty solidly)
Minnesota-Duluth (trailing very slightly in RPI and common, ahead slightly in TUC)
Colorado College (same as UMD)

Ahead But Close

Alaska (have to keep the slight RPI lead due to losing record against; must also keep at least one of TUC and common; may well need to match win for win)
Ferris (slightly behind in RPI, way up on TUC, barely ahead in common - have to match win for win)
Cornell (maintain our slight edge in RPI and we keep it)
Union (as long as they don't add three more TUC games, we just need to keep the RPI edge; if they do, we may need to win TUC record or common)
Maine (slight edge in RPI will do since we have no common opponents)
Vermont (decent RPI lead and common opponents locked up; TUC record is even but we'll probably lose that if we lose RPI so we need to keep RPI)
Boston University (solid RPI lead, but very close in common and losing a close one in TUC)

Reasonably Safe

Northern Michigan (decent RPI lead, game and a half up in common, losing close in TUC)
Nebraska-Omaha (pretty similar to NMU except with a head-to-head win)
Northeastern (solid edge in RPI and TUC, likely safe in common)
Mass-Lowell (good lead in RPI and common, smaller lead in TUC - this one's borderline locked up)
Minnesota (good leads in all three; only not a lock because of head-to-head - an RPI swing would be enough to lose)

Sure Things

Michigan

Of teams not in the top 25 at the moment but close, UMass and Minnesota State could give us trouble in common opponents. Lake State, Merrimack, Rensselaer, and Ohio State (unless we meet them in a playoff series and get swept) seem pretty safe for us should they overtake someone.

So, to business: What do we want to happen this weekend?

Key Series

Sweep Bowling Green. This is close to mandatory, as I'm not sure we can afford the RPI hit even 1-0-1 might bring us against a team that is 5-22-5 overall, #54 (out of 58) in the RPI. Too many teams close behind us that could make up some ground.
Michigan over Notre Dame. Keeping Michigan in the RPI top 25 is crucial to keep our TUC record up - lose them and it will take a spectacular run to catch anyone who is winning the comparison against us right now except possibly New Hampshire.
Lake State over Northern Michigan. Doesn't make a huge difference for TUC record (1-0-1 instead of 1-1) if they can creep in and/or knock out Northern, but every little bit helps.
Western Michigan over Ferris. This is about the equivalent of rooting for Indiana football over Penn State, but any margin they can give us for common opponent record over Ferris would be nice. (Plus Ferris has the tiebreaker should we both sweep, so we at least need Western to force a shootout once in order to get the 2 seed in the CCHA tourney.)
Merrimack over Maine. Knocking down Maine hurts our SOS a little, but it's more important that we build a significant RPI lead over them - passing us there is enough for them to win the comparison.
Northeastern over New Hampshire. TUC games for both, but we have a much better chance of catching UNH (in fact, TUC record alone could do it and that's currently tied) than Northeastern does of catching us.
Alaska-Anchorage over Alaska. Dropping them out would be ideal, though difficult at this point. Realistically, we just want to build the RPI lead.

Other Series of Interest

Rensselaer over Colgate. Mostly for SOS boost, but there's a slight chance they could sneak into the top 25, and that's another TUC win for us if it happens.
Clarkson over Harvard. Purely SOS boost, as both teams are awful.
North Dakota-Colorado College: We probably want this series to be a sweep one way or the other, as we have chances to catch both teams. A split keeps both comparisons pointing the wrong way for the moment, a sweep may give us the point over the loser (and if not it will be close). Probably better to get a North Dakota sweep, as CC seems like a threat to make up a lot of ground (their RPI is well above their Pairwise position).
Vermont-Boston University: Both teams have a chance at catching us, but BU is probably the more dangerous one if they draw Maine and sweep in the conference tournament (we would then need to hope we meet Notre Dame or Michigan at some point and win, may have to get two wins). A Vermont sweep may be best, as it likely takes BU out of play entirely and has the potential to flip TUC for us against BU should they come back in. But again, we need to keep RPI over Vermont.
Minnesota over Minnesota-Duluth. Eliminating Minnesota would give us a slight boost in TUC, but we can pretty easily flip the comparison on UMD (this would likely give us an edge in common opponents and possibly RPI).
Nebraska-Omaha vs. Bemidji State: Split is probably best. We want UNO to stay in but we need to stay ahead in RPI.

CCHA Tournament

If we sweep, Ferris splits, Michigan sweeps, Lake State sweeps, and Miami sweeps Ohio State, the final CCHA standings will look like this:

Miami
MSU
Ferris
Michigan
Alaska
UNO
NMU
Lake State
Ohio State
Notre Dame
WMU
Bowling Green

This sets up nicely for us, with Michigan avoiding a potential RPI-death series in the first round and the potential for Ferris and Alaska to both be eliminated prior to the Joe. Should Northern split with Lake State, they would jump to 5th, and assuming neither of the bottom two pulls a shocking upset in the first round Ferris and Alaska would meet in the quarters. (Since teams are reseeded between rounds, if NMU lost to Bowling Green, Alaska would face Michigan.) This would guarantee one of them out, but I'd rather have the chance for both to fall.

Next week: The CCHA tournament begins, and other conferences wrap up their regular seasons.

Efficiency by half

2010-02-23T16:38:10Z

[Bumped. Whatever Tom Izzo is doing at halftime, he should go ahead and do it before the game starts. My theory on the phenomenon is in the first two paragraphs after the jump in Sunday's game recap.

Also, hockey fans should check out SpartanDan's comprehensive rundown of what need to happen for MSU to make the NCAA Tournament. -KJ]

As we are all aware, this year's MSU team has a tendency to fall behind by big margins in the first half of games and then make a valiant comeback effort in the second half. In the past few games against quality opponents those comeback efforts have fallen just short. I thought it would be interesting to look at our efficiency and our opponents' efficiency by half for every Big 10 game. Statsheet.com provides box score data by half but not tempo free stats by half, so I had to calculate possessions myself in a spreadsheet. This was an educational experience, as when I did the calculation using the common formula suggested by Ken Pomeroy, which is FGA-OR+TO+(.475xFTA), I got disparate possessions for each team, often with differences approaching 4 possessions per half. I asked KJ and John Gasaway how to reconcile discrepancies, and both said to average the estimated possession totals for both teams to get total possessions, so that's what I did. Without further ado, here are the MSU and opponent efficiency averages by half:

	MSU eff	Opp eff	Efficiency Margin
First Half	0.99	0.97	0.02
Second Half	1.14	1.03	0.11

We are definitively a second half team. In general we play much better offense in the second half of games. Our defense is somewhat worse, but the net effect is a much better efficiency margin in the second half of games compared to the first half. In the second half we look like a true Big 10 title contender, with an efficiency margin comparable to OSU, Purdue, and Wisconsin. In the first half we look like Minnesota or Illinois.

In order to be sure that this effect is not being fueled by a few outliers due to furious comebacks from large deficits, I threw out the Wisconsin, Purdue, and OSU games, and the pattern of improved offense in the second half still holds. We play better offense in the second half of games, on average, and better defense in the first half of games as well. Throwing out those three games does change our first-half efficiency margins significantly, however. Without those games we look like a Big 10 contender in both halves, with a first half efficiency margin of .14, fueled by very good defense (average .89 opponent points per possession) and OK offense (average 1.02 PPP). Our second half features excellent offense (an average 1.16PPP) and mediocre D (1.03 Opponent PPP). We get it done with D in the first half of games and offense in the second half, but in both cases our efficiency margin is in double digits if you throw out our three big losses.

Looking specifically at those three games, we had a total offensive and defensive collapse in one of them (Wisconsin), a total collapse on offense in the OSU game, and a total defensive collapse in the first half against Purdue. We did not play particularly good D in the first half against OSU, allowing them 1.08PPP, but it was fantastic compared our offense, which averaged only .72PPP. The D we played in the first halves against Purdue, where we allowed 1.41!!! points per possession, and Wisconsin, where we allowed 1.35PPP in the first half, was really bad. Our first half offense against Purdue was not atrocious but was worse than normal. The Wisconsin game was the only game where we played absolutely terrible basketball in both halves. I guess if there is a pattern it is that our normally stout first-half D deserted us in all three games.

This analysis doesn't go very far toward explaining why we are playing so badly in the first halves of games against quality opponents lately. One could argue that we looked better than we really are due to a soft early schedule, but I'm not sure that's the problem. Granted, we did not get Purdue or OSU until recently, but they hadn't played us (a team that looked, statistically, like a title contender) either. We had Wisconsin, Minnesota (twice) and Illinois as well as Michigan and Northwestern (twice) on our early schedule. Also notable was who we hadn't played yet - no games against PSU or Indiana, the two worst teams in the league. That's one top shelf team and six games against decent teams, vs two games against a basement dweller (Iowa). We didn't play a murderers row but it wasn't a particularly soft early schedule. We just seem to have a knack for coming up small in the first half of big games. If we can break that habit we may be able to turn things around.

Crying Foul

2010-02-19T22:12:33Z

[Bumped. Further inquiry into the "Mystery of the Unusually Low Opponents' Free Throw Rate. -KJ]

I've begun to think that the mystery of MSU's low opponent free-throw rate (28.7, #21 in the country according to Kenpom) reflects more than just a conference-wide lack of aggressive offenses (see discussion here for example). Not only does the Big 10 lack teams with a dominant inside game, but it looks as if the refs "let 'em play" more in the Big 10 than in, say, the whistle-happy Big 12 (all stats are for conference-only games through 2/18 from Statsheet.com):

Conference	Fouls	Games	Fouls/Game
Big 12	2,647	66	40.1
ACC	2,660	69	38.6
C-USA	2,527	67	37.7
Mountain West	1,925	52	37.0
Big East	3,906	106	36.8
Pac-10	2,450	67	36.6
SEC	2,385	66	36.1
Big 10	2,538	74	34.3

However, within a relatively foul-free conference, MSU is actually one of the more foul-prone teams:

Team	Fouls	Games	Fouls/Game
Indiana	266	13	20.5
Northwestern	270	14	19.3
Purdue	236	13	18.2
Michigan State	243	14	17.4
Illinois	219	13	16.8
Iowa	233	14	16.6
Minnesota	216	13	16.6
Penn State	216	13	16.6
Wisconsin	231	14	16.5
Michigan	197	13	15.2
Ohio State	211	14	15.1

Shifting the emphasis from free-throw rate to foul rate brings a really interesting number into view: opponents' free throw attempts per foul (I could have used a factor to estimate the number of actual shooting fouls committed, but I think it's safe to assume that the ability of one's opponents to hit the front end of a one-and-one is equally distributed across the conference):

Team	Fouls	Opp FTA	Opp FTA/Foul
Illinois	219.0	237.0	1.08
Purdue	236.0	254.0	1.08
Northwestern	270.0	289.0	1.07
Minnesota	216.0	230.0	1.06
Indiana	266.0	283.0	1.06
Wisconsin	231.0	243.0	1.05
Iowa	233.0	238.0	1.02
Penn State	216.0	213.0	0.99
Michigan	197.0	190.0	0.96
Ohio State	211.0	198.0	0.94
Michigan State	243.0	198.0	0.81
Avg.			1.01

The number that really stands out is MSU's .81 Opp FTA/Foul, which (even after the recent parade to the line by Indiana) is fully 20% lower than the conference average. This, I suspect, is a bad thing, though I haven't found the numbers to prove it yet. As I ranted in the second Wisconsin post-game thread, the best fouls prevent easy buckets - dunks and layups. The worst are offensive fouls that turn the ball over but, defensively speaking, it's non-shooting fouls, which speed your team's journey to the bonus without creating defensive value. Committing a lot of fouls without sending people to the line, as MSU does, would seem to be indicative of bad defense: getting out of position, reaching for balls, not boxing out on rebounds, etc. Additionally, these numbers might indicate that, since we don't lack a willingness to foul, we may be giving up a lot of uncontested easy looks. I crunched the numbers and the good news is that there doesn't seem to be a significant correlation in the conference between opponents' eFG%, offensive efficiency or 2Pt% and how often they get sent to the line. For the conference season, MSU is still fairly good at defending the 2-point shot and somewhat more efficient than average overall. I thought perhaps the answer was that by not ending possessions with fouls, MSU gives their opponents more overall opportunities per possession to shoot and make field goals. Even that is not really the case, as the Spartans only give up a fairly average .85 Opp FGA per possession (Wisconsin is best at .79). I'm guessing this is due to strong defensive rebounding taking away the opportunities that the lack of shooting fouls creates.

So about all I can conclude is that our low Opp FTR masks a tendency to commit too many of the "wrong" kind of fouls, which in turn suggests some real defensive deficiencies. Judging by the increasing Opp eFG% we've been seeing in recent games (see this analysis), opponents may be beginning to exploit these deficiencies. And if our fouling tendencies reflected a more normal proportion of shooting to non-shooting fouls, the opposition would be finding another way to stay in the game, as Indiana clearly demonstrated.

Ray Lee Basketball sophmore '12 MSU?

2010-02-19T22:03:16Z

sources say he is very close with '11 Commit Brandan Kearney, Both played on the Team Detroit AAU team together as Lee played the point and Kearney was the off guard. As we know Lee is one of MSU's hot targets in the '12 class. Does Kearneys commitment have Lee leaning torwards state?

Other schools on Ray's list are Syracuse, Georgetown, Michigan, Ohio State, Tennesse, Florida Int., and Notre Dame,

Ray Lee with a layup under Brandan Kearney-next generation sports

Efficiency Margin - Bad Luck 13 Games Played Edition

2010-02-16T22:42:05Z

Well, we are now 13 games into the Big 10 season with only 5 remaining. I thought it would be a good time to check back in with where we are in efficiency margin terms. Those of you who read Basketball Prospectus have probably already seen these numbers in John Gasaway's Tuesday Truths column, but here they are on our favorite blog with some perspective on where we were vs where we are now.

Things do not look as rosy for us as they did last we checked in halfway through the conference season, and the culprit, as KJ demonstrated in a recent post, is defense. Our offensive efficiency has remained steady throughout the Big 10 season at about 1.06 points per possession. It was up at 1.08 PPP when first we checked in after 4 Big 10 games, but has dropped to 1.06 by the 25th of January and is still there right now. In contrast to this consistency, our D has been a major disappointment in the past few games. We were in a virtual tie with Wisconsin for the conference lead (we were at .94 PPP and they were at .93 PPP) in defensive efficiency going into the game in Madison. Beginning with that game we posted a series of sub-par defensive performances against Wisconsin, Illinois, and Purdue, and now sport a barely passable .99 defensive efficiency. We really need to pick it up on that side of the ball.

	PPP	Opp. PPP	EM
Wisconsin	1.08	0.93	0.15
Ohio St.	1.08	0.96	0.12
Purdue	1.08	0.97	0.11
Michigan St.	1.06	0.99	0.07
Illinois	1.03	1	0.03
Michigan	1.01	1	0.01
Northwestern	1.08	1.12	-0.04
Minnesota	1.03	1.07	-0.04
Iowa	0.92	1.04	-0.12
Penn St.	0.96	1.1	-0.14
Indiana	0.93	1.09	-0.16

As for the rest of the conference, the other contenders have passed us by in efficiency margin, with the exception of Illinois. We now look a decidedly lackluster 4th in the conference, with Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Purdue with sizeable leads on us. Wisconsin has just kept chugging along despite Leuer's absence - they are remarkably efficient on both sides of the ball. Purdue has improved marginally on offence but more considerably on defense. Last we checked in they were allowing opponents to score more than a point per possession, but are now down to .97 PPP. Ohio State has continued to make strides on both sides of the ball and is now nipping at Wisconsin's heels for best efficiency margin in the conference. Lets hope we can solve our defensive problems before OSU comes to town. Otherwise, it may be our second CONT-H loss, and may eliminate us from real contention.

The Pairwise Rankings: And you thought the BCS was weird.

2010-02-16T08:00:22Z

[Bumped. Handy, pocket-sized guide to MSU hockey rooting interests at bottom. -KJ]

As the ice-rink version of March Madness approaches, hockey fans have a much better idea of where their team sits and what their chances of making the tournament are than basketball fans do. The reason? A ranking table called the Pairwise Rankings. Unlike the basketball selection committee, which uses votes by ten members to determine the at-large bids and seeds and allows committee members to weigh various factors differently, the hockey selection procedure is quite rigid. The Pairwise Rankings began as an attempt to mimic the committee's decision-making process and does so quite well - to date, it has predicted the field exactly every year.

After the jump, an explanation of the Pairwise Rankings, their oddities, and what it all means for MSU hockey this year:

The Pairwise Rankings are limited to the top 25 teams in the RPI, known as "Teams Under Consideration". Each TUC is compared directly against the others as follows:

RPI: Better RPI gets one point.
Record vs. TUC: Better record gets one point, as long as both teams have played at least 10 games against other TUCs. (Head-to-head matchups are not included here.)
Common opponents: Better record gets one point. Here there is no minimum number of games, and every game against a common opponent counts even if one team played more games against a particular common opponent than the other.
Head-to-head: One point for each win over the other team.

Teams are then ranked by the number of comparisons against other teams won; comparisons that are tied go to the team with the better RPI. Teams who have won the same number of comparisons are ranked by RPI as well, although on the bubble head-to-head comparisons may be used to break ties instead. This ranking is used to choose the at-large teams and seed the field 1-16 (swaps within a seed line are common to accommodate home teams or avoid first-round conference matchups, but teams are not moved up or down a seed line unless there is no alternative).

The Pairwise Rankings are notorious for their volatility; Brian at mgoblog wrote a detailed explanation of the flaws three years ago. To summarize:

Assuming no head-to-head play (or a split of the series), a huge edge in one category can be totally wiped out by losing the other two by a tiny bit. An example: Vermont owns the comparison with St. Cloud State at the moment despite an RPI difference of over .03, thanks to one extra TUC win (8-8-3 instead of 7-8-3) and the lack of a tie in common opponents (2-1-0 to 2-1-1).
TUC record can fluctuate severely if teams near the cutoff line jump in and out of the RPI top 25. Nebraska-Omaha's sweep of Michigan last weekend dropped the Wolverines out and moved UNO in; as a result, our TUC record changed from 7-6-2 to 5-5-3 without us playing a single game. This can lead to some perverse incentives: in the second round of the CCHA playoffs, which is best of 3, it can sometimes be better to win the series 2-1 than 2-0, particularly if you had a good record against that team in the regular season. If a 2-0 sweep drops them out of the top 25, that record will no longer help you in TUC comparisons, so it may well be worth the RPI hit from a loss to keep those wins in the TUC count. (As it happens, in 2007 there was a scenario on the final day which could have seen us left out of the tournament altogether - but it required us to tie the third-place game. A win or loss meant we were safe, the latter because it would have brought our excellent record against Lake Superior State into play for TUC points.)
Common opponents puts a massive emphasis on a tiny number of non-conference games. Losses to Minnesota and Wisconsin in the College Hockey Showcase make it much, much harder to win any comparisons against WCHA teams, as the common opponent point is likely lost. (A win over Michigan Tech offsets this partially, but Tech is so bad that we're probably better off not letting WCHA teams count their regular demolitions toward common opponents.) Meanwhile, wins over Rensselaer and Clarkson give us a big edge over ECAC teams in the Pairwise. A split with Maine probably helps against Hockey East, as Maine is near the top of the standings (so most teams will be below .500 against them).

Just this past weekend, with no games of our own to affect the results, we moved from 13th (barely on the good side of the bubble, as there are usually two auto-bids below 16th) to 9th to 11th. At the moment, aside from "win to get our RPI up and pass people that way", some things that would help MSU's chances of reaching the tournament and getting a good seed:

Sweep Ferris State. With them having the RPI edge and our common opponent edge hanging on by a thread (12-7-5 instead of 12-8-4), we could use the security of two extra points against them. Even 1-0-1 isn't good enough if they flip the common opponents, as RPI would break the tie in their favor.
Get Michigan back into the top 25. Painful as this may be, we could use the boost of our 3-1 record against them in the TUC category. Even without an RPI move, this could flip our comparisons with New Hampshire and possibly Yale (if they pick up a couple of TUC losses to allow the comparison to count). Similarly, we want to keep Minnesota and our 0-1 record against them out, keep Lake Superior State and Nebraska-Omaha in (1-0-1 against each), and drop Northern Michigan (1-1 split) and Alaska (0-1-1).
Ideally, we'd like to draw an opponent in the CCHA second round who is safely into the top 25 so we can sweep them without knocking them out. If it's someone farther down, prefer Alaska or NMU so that if we do knock them out, we're knocking out a loss as well as the wins. We do not want Michigan here, as it's possible we'd push them out if we sweep. Best case is to get Michigan to do just enough to stay in.

As the regular season ends and conference tournament play begins, I'll revisit this and look at MSU's rooting interests around the NCAA.

New Breslin Intro Video and more

2010-02-10T23:00:04Z

For those that were at the game yesterday (PURDUE), was it just me or was that the coolest intro video they've ever done for a game there? The highlights they used covered a ton of my favorite moments as a Spartan Basketball fan, including the Ager dunk on Redick and Summer's slam against UConn, and the whole Team of the Decade angle was pretty cool. Got me hyped up for sure. Too bad the first half didn't continue that, uh...hypeness.

Anyway, anybody know where that might be found posted on the internet? I didn't see it anywhere on coachizzo.com yet.

Also, what'd everybody think of the new unis? I know discussion about them probably all got lost in the fact that we, you know, lost, but I thought they were pretty cool. They looked less "Nike'd" than our current jerseys, and almost like throwbacks but with the modern logo/materials/[sleeveless] style. That being said, what is with us losing big games when we roll out new unis? Even if the change is more subtle than the silver monstrosities worn during the Duke debacle of 2003, it was a bit of bad karma that was stuck in the back of my mind as I watched blown layups and perfectly good shots rimming out during the course of last night's game.

All that being said, I'm not having panic attacks about the rest of this season like so many others (including all of the ridiculously negative people sitting around me at the game last night, what gives?). I think this stretch of schedule was extremely difficult and was made all the more difficult by the loss of Kalin Lucas right in the middle of it. But it's the Big Ten. Crazy things happen. Yes, we probably should have beaten Illinois and probably would have with Kalin. Yes, we should have beaten Purdue at home, and if all the guys played to their potential, or Green has at least a passable shooting night, or Lucas is healthy, we could have. But we also should have and could have beaten Penn State and Northwestern at home last year. We didn't. Ended the season in Detroit as National Runners-up. Let's have a little perspective here.

The fact that Wisconsin, Illinois, and Purdue all came in to play us off of longer layoffs than we've been afforded in quite some time is no small factor in my opinion. The schedule begins to give us some rest down the stretch. If we can get a win in Happy Valley and at Assembly Hall, no small feats, we are in great position in the Big Ten race. One game at a time. Let's go.

I don't know about you, but I can't wait till Saturday at Noon, and I'm thinking a lot of the guys on that team can't either. Go State.

Trey Zeigler question

2010-02-10T21:37:57Z

I know this question has probably been asked multiple times but does anyone have a clear answer to how MSU has room to include trey zeigler in 2010?

From what I can tell from the schollie situation:

Seniors: lucas,allen,summers, herzog
Juniors: green, lucious, roe

Sophmores: Sherman, nix

Freshman: byrd, guana, appling, payne

Count them up and I see 13 scholarships. I have heard izzo say they are stilling looking to add one more and zeigler seems to have never said anything indicating a scholarship situation but the only way I see him coming to msu are by way of:
A) someone leaving for the NBA. lucas? summers? I doubt it.
B) Atrrition in the program. herzog graduating and not staying for a 5th year to ride the pine? maybe.

C) Trey come to MSU w/o a scholarship and pay for the first year of school before being put on scholarship after lucas/allen/summers/herzog are gone.

Today I read an article saying he was "comfortable" with MSU and his top 7 schools (uofm,UCLA,Arizona,ASU,duke,MSU, CMU) are all even. Also, although I am sure this isnt exactly what he meant but when zeigler said how cool it would be to have another fab 5 in college (PG appling SG byrd SF zegiler PF Guana C Payne...hey I can dream can't I?) was there a chance MSU crossed his mind? I really hope he takes a visit to MSU and strongly considers going here but unless I am missing something, I do not see how MSU can get him w/o A,B or C coming true.

Why playing overseas is a good alternative

2010-02-08T19:31:17Z

Adam Ballinger knew he didn't have a shot at NBA superstardom but rather than toil in obscurity in the United States he took off for Australia and it's professional basketball league.

Sure he's not LeBron or Kobe but playing at the top level of any country's league, even Australia, has to be more enjoyable than playing in the D-League in front of the 18 people in Idaho willing to brave the cold to come to a game.

Not every overseas location is glamorous but not many leagues outside of the NBA are. College players should wise up a realize that a steady paycheck playing basketball isn't hard to attain if you're willing to put in the work and live abroad.