The Sicatoka

Please follow link and read. (No need for me to re-post a re-post of a post.) The idea of a new tier in DI football has been put out by Nick Saban and Karl Benson (Sun Belt Commish). http://forum.siouxsp...cs/#entry608424

Back to the larger point: In NCAA play the pace of play ... slows .... way ..... way ...... way ....... down (because of their different TV timeout standards compared to regular season play). I think that hurts deep teams that rolled four lines all season. In NCAA play you can get away with "two lines and a spare forward" <cough-Duluth-cough-2011-cough-cough> and can drop down to five defensemen earlier than usual. Will Hakstol make that adjustment this year?

Why not take the whole leap ... St. Clair Gaarder Caggiula Pattyn Rodwell MitchMac <-- in this scenario I'd sit MitchMac for Jim

Final Massey Ratings for the season are out. http://masseyratings.com/rate.php?lg=chw&sub=NCAA I 1 Minnesota 2 North Dakota 3 BU 4 Wisconsin 5 BC The 3 OT game should've been a NC game and not a quarterfinal.

I am.

Holy crap! I think I just agreed with a call by Don Adam.

I'll say it again: I believe three tiers of DI football are on the horizon. - today's BCS conferences - the rest of BCS plus the top of FCS - all the rest Were something like that to come to pass, I think you'd see the 15k requirement dialed back to about 10k for the middle tier (or a hard 35k requirement put in to play in the top level).

Interesting statement from Faison:

So it looks like the NCAA "gamed" the system again. "Well then, I guess there's only one thing left to do." "What's that?" <Crash Davis quote here> The greatest victory is achieved by defeating your opponent at their game, by their rules, on their field.

No, no. To your time zone point, why not ... Northeast: Chicago (host: Wisconsin) East: Minneapolis (host: SCSU) Midwest: Denver (host: USAFA) West: San Jose (host: UAA/UAF)

Never thought I'd accuse anything associated with USCHO of this, but I think they are overthinking the brackets. I'll bet right now their "not adjusted for attendance" brackets are closer to actuality than their adjusted versions.

What I find interesting right now is that Jim's "after Thursday" simulations have UND looking at: #5 2.8% #6 9.9% #7 27.2% #8 22.1% #9 21.7% #10 13.3% #11 3.0% #12 0.0% Tournament invites: 100.0% But the actual PWR on Friday morning has UND at T-10 (#11). That says more than likely UND will move up in PWR over the next two days by going home, staying healthy, and getting rested. Here's hoping the rest of the games at the Final Five go at least as long as the UND/UM womens game last weekend.

This squad needs to figure out that it is acceptable to come out and kick the opponent in the "cup" and then step on their throat in the first 10 minutes in the game. There is no shame beating everyone 6-0 or worse. Quit trying to play close games. Put them down. Hard.

Duluth, two years ago, lost their opener in St. Paul, was written off for dead, and three weeks later was back in St. Paul and beating Michigan on a Saturday night.

Williams is out of the game (took boot to head). It's 5-2 Wisconsin to start the last period.

We have an early leader for most annoying commercial during the Final Five: the Great Clips ad (guy in Venus fly trap) is old already.

And now the purple cows take a dumb penalty.

Has anyone scored four in fifty minutes against Wisconsin this year?

Looking at the Massey Ratings, MSU-Mankato (Massey #4) v. Wisconsin (Massey #6) should be a good battle. For reference, Massey's Top Ten: 1 Minnesota 2 Quinnipiac 3 UM-Lowell 4 MSU-Mankato 5 North Dakota 6 Wisconsin 7 St. Cloud 8 Miami of Ohio 9 Notre Dame 10 Denver

Didn't Fox Sports Network North (FSN North) run live stream of all WCHA games on their site in the past. You'd see the "Director's Cut" sort of thing with all the camera angles on one screen.

+1 People deal with money every day, but very few have any formal training on how.

He's assuming WMU, Union, and Wisconsin in. Per Jim Dahl's analyses, the best of those has a 56% chance to be in. Put in three different teams, or even just one different and reshuffle the order of 14-16, and those brackets change significantly.

Vanilla ... If it were a real wager it'd be rocky road.

Here's the MVC this morning: Take Creighton out of that picture and I see Wichita State feeling lonely. Adding Oral Bob's School of Basketball and Baseball (Tulsa, OK) would give them a nice travel partner. Alternatively, adding Belmont (Nashville, TN) would allow for reasonable travel partners as well (Mizzou St/Wichita St; SUI/Belmont). Either way, I don't think the MVC will look north; I don't think they'll look to a public school; and I don't think they'll go above ten, ... for now.

I guess I'm in the court that says, at this point, when you can define and run all 300-plus-thousand scenarios and then look at the statistical outcomes, why not do it that way. And right now, things like KRACH may be undervaluing Michigan's current play and overvaluing Quinnipiac's recent play. I was never a fan of the "Last 16 Games" criteria when the Committee used that in selections, but I'd argue it makes some sense in doing analysis like Jim is doing here. As Tommy Lasorda used to say, "You're only as good as your last at bat." Michigan's last at bats are pretty good but KRACH really doesn't show that. Knowing all the scenarios (inputs) and outcomes (outputs) makes it pretty clear who needs what to happen. I like that when it's a defined possible set.