jimdahl

Looks like last night's action allowed all teams to become comparable in a single group via Bradley-Terry (there must be a path of wins/ties in each direction between each pair of teams for comparison). Here's the top 15: Rank Team KRACH Record SOS 1. St Cloud St 396.2590 8-0-1 23.3094 2. North Dakota 100.0000 6-2-0 33.3333 3. Colorado College 77.0792 6-1-1 17.7875 4. Boston College 63.5443 6-2-2 27.2333 5. Maine 53.8364 8-2-0 13.4591 6. Massachusetts 38.8649 7-2-0 11.1042 7. Denver 38.3352 6-2-1 14.7443 8. New Hampshire 34.5780 6-2-1 13.2992 9. Michigan 33.6089 9-2-0 7.4687 10. Wisconsin 32.3313 5-3-1 20.5745 11. Dartmouth 27.7503 2-0-2 9.2501 12. Providence 25.0788 6-2-2 10.7481 13. Minnesota-Duluth 21.6110 4-5-1 26.4135 14. Ohio State 19.8163 7-5-0 14.1545 15. Clarkson 17.8013 4-2-3 11.3281 http://siouxsports.com/hockey/rankings/krach.php (it's the ratio between teams KRACHs' that is important, not the actual value; as a UND-centric site, I center on UND=100). Last night's big win for SCSU pushed them to #1 in KRACH, RPI, and PWR. UND has two losses, but is still highly ranked because of an insane SOS: half of its games are against #1 or #4, with another 25% against #13.

I checked out that thread, and it's worth noting that a lot of reasonable Bison fans have also told the whiners to quit blaming the refs. When you get a team with tens of thousands of fans, there's going to be a mix of all personality types. I have no doubt there would be Sioux fans with similar grumblings if we were in a similar situation.

After more exposure to the division (as a moderate college football fan, I never really knew anything about DI-AA because they weren't the majors and none of the teams I followed were in it), I've been claiming lately that there's a lot of overlap between D-II and DI-AA football. I honestly think the top teams in D-II would also be near the top of DI-AA, but are classified D-II because of geography/history. After seeing a top D-II team play a top DI-AA team last Fall, here's some additional confirmation of that from the Forum: Northern Colorado proves D-I worthy

I actually find their general stories more interesting than USCHO's (general stories = not to be confused with USCHOs excellent game recaps ). However, part of the "interesting" is that they try to be more controversial, inject a lot more opinion, write more light-hearted, and let the pulse of the fans (message boards) influence their writing. A lot of those traits make their writing seem less professional, but they seem to have consciously chosen to do something different from competing with USCHO on seeing who can deliver the hardcore news the quickest. They do seem to have the pipeline into UND's official photographer (and none others) since a S. Gaddini photo graces the front page EVERY week. Perhaps that's just an attempt to placate some of you (since we can tell from their articles that they devour the message boards).

I'm sticking with Money line until someone convinces me otherwise.

Sioux earn NCC title with perfect season

That was actually going to be my question for Stauss -- how many NCC D-II losses should a win over a non-divisional opponent wipe out? What if the Bison had been 4-3 in the conference? Frankly, there's a reason the division doesn't give higher SOS credit for beating a non-divisional opponent -- it's impossible to know how strong Montana is relative to the best of D-II because the schedules don't interlock enough. I think Stauss was frustrated that a very competitive D-II football team had just lost too many games to be in playoff consideration and, as bisonguy said, was trying to highlight the positive aspects of the season. Even if Montana pumped up NDSU's SOS, the Bison still wouldn't make the playoffs because they've lost 3 of 10 games. I think most Bison fans would agree, a strong schedule is a nice bonus, but first you have to win your conference games.

I personally would like UND to have D-I athletics, but am not positive if their current economic situation can support it. With schools like UNC, SDSU, and NDSU reclassifying, it does seem likely that UND could also afford it. Therefore, my answer is that I definitely want UND to conduct a formal reclassification study so we can all see the numbers. We could then evaluate what changes in attendance/costs/fund-raising would be needed and evaluate the worst case/best case scenarios. Right now, we're all guessing blindly by trying to compare UND to NDSU/SDSU (the results of whose moves aren't known yet, anyway). It's worth noting that being D-I would destroy UND's national competitiveness in every sport except football/swimming & diving (sorry if I missed any!) UND athletics are at a peak of success, so I can see why the insitution would be hesitant to risk that by reclassifying into a level in which we'll be much less successful. Will losing to obscure D-I opponents draw more fans than winning against D-II opponents? That's the big economic gamble. I was digging through the football archives to try to uncover the last time UND swept the NCC (1975). Here are some of UND's non-conference opponents from then: 1971-80 UNLV, Montana, and Montana State were frequent opponents, 1973 Minnesota, 1976 Wisconsin It's a shame we got away from that level of competition in the 80s, and I'd like to see us return to it. I know UND hasn't grown with UNLV, but the level of competition UND plays in football has defintely deteriorated. While football still wouldn't be "big time" (schools like Montana/Montana St are still very much "small time" compared to I-A), it would be a hell of a lot bigger time than playing schools like Newberry and Mesa State. For me the final word is that although the NCC still has quite a few institutions that seem like UND peers, the rest of D-II does not.

If one were to choose a single player for whom to name the line, I don't think Brady is the one. Bochenski will most likely be the scoring leader for the line and Zach provides the flash. I like the Saved by the Bell homage in Zach Attack

To properly evaluate that, we would have had to have known how good Mesa was. They haven't lost a game, either, since losing their opener, and are ranked #1 in the West. THAT is SOS, baby. I believe they have 2 games remaining, including a game today against UNK, the outcome of which I don't know.

On that I definitely disagree: that old guy who leads the ENTIRE crowd in cheers, Varsity, the band smacked up against the ice, all the fans (young and old) at the Gritty and on State St before and after every game, most eyes in the building actually watching the game instead of others in the crowd. The building itself isn't perfect for hockey, there are some bad sight lines in the upper deck, but I believe the Kohl Center hosts a crowd that's more into the game that almost any other arena. REA and Mariucci both have a lot of people there because it's the hot ticket/place to be seen -- Kohl Center is full of people who want to watch hockey. It is true that it has been off a bit the last couple years of Badger mediocrity

UND, Minnesota fans love to get under each others' skin Energy level in Mariucci? No disputing it was THE shrine to college hockey until REA was built, but fan energy is something it's really lacked lately (disclaimer: I haven't attended a lot of regular season games in the last two years, the peak of Gopher success, but went to quite a few for the couple years preceding that). Maybe he meant the Gopher team's energy level was unusually low in REA, which is hard to dispute.

In an intermission interview with Gopher hockey program associate Mark Bahr, the interviewer asked his opinion of REA being an NHL-class arena but somehow maintaining a college feel (no one had the guts to directly say "in contrast to Mariucci"). Bahr credited the fans for creating the atmosphere and specifically mentioned that the students make a bunch of crazy signs -- they then tried to discuss one relating to the Potulnys, but couldn't collectively recall the wording. Good job all you crazy sign-wielding people.

3rd has begun. 19:30 now.

Surprisingly, they didn't really obsess about it. They showed the replay and pointed out that it should have been a goal, but didn't really dwell on it much. That did mark the start of the complaining about how the Sioux were getting "lucky bounces".

Just minutes ago the announcers were talking about how the Sioux had dominated the game. Now it's all about how the Sioux have gotten lucky bounces and the Gophers should really be ahead How quickly they forget the first 30 minutes of play. 2nd ends.

3-4

Could we ever put one of these away with more than 20 seconds left? Way to go Glas. 48 yd FG with 10 secs to go.

It's not certain whether even a maximal effort could have prevented the watering down, but those schools that failed to do everything they could but are now complaining in arrears do indeed seem foolish to me. The million dollar question. D-I seems to be having some success with punitive transition requirements and hard attendance limits; perhaps 30 years ago that would have done something for D-II, but now it's water under the bridge. Whereas dissatisfied D-II members can climb to D-IAA, and have been for 20+ years, the major D-I's have nowhere to climb but out of the NCAA, which is what convinces me that they'll put up a more valiant fight than the major D-II's did. Bison1234- I, too, hope UND reclassifies. There's a big difference between discussing obstacles and hoping for failure. A year ago some Bison fans were chastising Sicatoka and me for discussing the difficulties we thought NDSU would face in finding a D-I conference; the NDSU leaders had assured the faithful that conferences were knocking on NDSU's door, but that they just couldn't be named until the deals were finalized. The highly punitive probationary period is another major stumbling block that NDSU leaders have instructed the faithful to ignore with promises that it would just go away (as cited by Tony). Addressing obstacles and risks leads to better planning and mitigation; unfortunately, NDSU's and SDSU's leaders have been under continuing pressure to sell the reclassifications to the public which I think has led to downplaying those risks and obstacles. Those who dare discuss them are branded as trying to disrupt the reclassification (ridiculously so, since my claiming there are obstacles has no actual effect on whether or not there are). My primary interest in this topic is because I hope UND is able to reclassify, but don't really know all the obstacles/risks.

A school trying to move up probably doesn't care at all that they're watering down the division, it's not at all foolish for them; the existing members that let their division be watered down are foolish. Whereas some people who complain continuously about the watering down of D-II also like to bet that D-I will continue to open its arms to being watered down by institutions like NDSU, star2city was guessing otherwise.

Not so useful yet, but still there: What-if The big change this season will be support for all 6 conferences. That was actually not trivial because some conferences don't play all games in series (which the WCHA calculator assumed). I'm not positive they all work perfectly yet, but will by January. The toolchest is getting big enough that I suspect I'll just add a "stats tools" page around mid-season that points out everything working by then. My long-term hope is to apply technology similar to the conference standings what-if to some of the other ratings, but the hurdles are much bigger and I'm pretty far behind where I'd need to be to get it done this season. Come on, the real-time no-reload high-speed sorting on those ratings pages is neat and you know it.

Obligatory plug: you can actually view preliminary computer rankings without waiting and without even leaving the site: RPI, PWR, Bradley-Terry We already offer a few unique features such as in-place sortability and the uber-geeky drill-down into comparisons features in PWR. By the time the numbers become more meaningful, I'll have hopefully had to time to add help text to aid lesser geeks interpret the data and perhaps a few more features/meaningful ways to present the data. A page that compares various ratings is already in the works -- other suggestions for improvements in presentation are always welcome. (Known flaws: The SOS calculation in KRACH still isn't dealing with sparse data perfectly, though the Bradley-Terry itself is correct. The RPI shows an opponent win % of 0 for teams that have faced only one opponent, though the value should actually be undefined).

How long have you been in Salt Lake City? I made it to a few days of the '02 Winter Olympics (including US vs. Russia hockey) and had a blast there. I can't tell you how much film I wasted trying to time it right to get a picture of a bobsled with a point and shoot film camera (I didn't even bother trying digital).

Though I'm the first to admit to being a little confused by the new D-II football tournament selection criteria, my understanding is that the regional rankings are the sole determinant of playoff participants. Those are calculated by the NCAA based on a published set of criteria that do not include any polls (unlike the BCS). Therefore, 3rd party polls, such as the d2football.com poll being discussed, are just novelties and bulletin board filler.

The catalyst for change IS NDSU choosing to reclassify. While discontinuing the matchup requires a choice by UND, I suspect most fans want UND to do what's best for itself -- that probably means maximizing playoff chances rather than continuing the rivalry. While I can only speak for myself, quite a few of us actually wish UND would study reclassification. Depending on the results of the study, that could lead to maintaining the rivalry. It seems UND is taking a wait-and-see attitude on that, as well. I would still predict that any interruption will be only a hiatus rather than an end to the rivalry -- the schools are too similar to be in different division over the long term. However, given the current state, I do think UND should do what's best for itself.