jimdahl

Future Cap -- Big Joe Finley

Pretty much. The chart is as of next Monday but the CHN article is as of the end of the Final Five, so I'm predicting things could end up after this weekend where he predicts they could end up at the end of it all. So, if things went really well or pretty poorly it may be possible to land outside the range he predicted. Of course, I haven't yet actually verified that those two games could move us further, but it seems quite likely (at least on the downside). It's the same mistake we all make when we try to analyze the PWR by hand, we underestimate how far it's possible to move because it's really hard to consider the cascade of games you didn't think were important but that cumulatively can bump you another spot or two. Of course, those scenarios are also pretty unlikely -- think of how many times this season UND landed right in the middle of the distribution of predictions. You can't expect a much better result from the manual technique, and he clearly knows his PWR and writes a column that I think gives far more useful information than what the exact bracket would be if the season were over today, in mid-January.

Sure. Though I've gained a lot of confidence over the season in the technique in general, this week's chart is somewhat suspect because I was only able to get the conditional third game included for UND, not for any of the other teams. So, the ranges are probably about right, but take the whole thing with a grain of salt. From WCHA first round PWR implications

Thanks. I agree, and will appreciate people letting that part drop.

2002 Fighting Sioux Hall of Fame Inductees David Vonesh (BB 1987-91)

Dr. Bonnie Dunbar, Deputy Director to the NASA Johnson Space Center, was commencement speaker at UND in 2001 after having logged 1208 hours, or 50 days, in space. fine print

Yesterday... There were 120 applicants to be taught by the 9 full time faculty in UND's Physical Therapy program

For Mar. 8 From the photo gallery of UND's 12-10-2008 67-66 win over Valley City State, Bledsoe setting up the offense: Complete gallery

For Mar. 7 ...or, if you're tired and like castle tower motif, you can catch some shuteye at the Settle Inn Suites 1211 North 47th Street, Grand Forks, ND 58201

For Mar. 6 If you run out of gas by UND's technology park checking out Ntractive's Mac CRM software or learning about Microbeam's fuel quality analysis technology, you should head to: Stamart 1212 N 47TH ST GRAND FORKS, ND

For Mar. 5 Heading to a UND sporting event? If you're 2-12 you can get a youth ticket, 13 and above are adults. Fighting Sioux tickets

Did they receive the verification email? If not and if they supplied a valid email address, it may have been delivered to a bulk mail or spam folder. If they did receive the verification email and clicked the link, they may have been caught up in a small processing delay caused by my botched return travel from Madison this weekend. Everything in that class has been resolved, so should try logging in again.

If you're staying in the Canad Inn in Grand Forks, you may want to stay in: Fighting Sioux Executive Suite 1214 This two-room twelfth-floor suite highlights the Fighting Sioux using the great green color in the carpet of the business room area. This separate room has a boardroom style table and six boardroom chairs for those small meetings. Additional chairs sporting the Fighting Sioux brand and themed pictures add the finishing touch to this area. Our separate bedroom with its own washroom is adorned with special Fighting Sioux items. If required, an adjoining room can be utilized further expanding the business effect for this specialty suite

More equipment manufacturing distress in Fargo... Fargo's Case New Holland cutting 140 jobs for hourly employees

If you're a grades 5-12 girl, you may be interested in: Women's basketball camp July 12-15 Flyer (warning -- for a 1 page flyer, it's inexplicably 20Mb)

James E. Mitchell, M.D., of the University of North Dakota's School of Medicine and Health Sciences Department of Neuroscience was a coauthor of: "Psychological Considerations of the Bariatric Surgery Patient Undergoing Body Contouring Surgery" In Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Volume 121(6) June 2008 pp 423e-434e

Thanks -- great link. The PWR table here continues to rank teams with RPI as the tie-breaker, as it has since that language was added to the championship handbook and me not yet having seen convincing evidence otherwise (despite CHN and USCHO doing it differently on their tables). What I don't understand is why, if Wodon knows it wrong, CHN continues to publish an incorrect table some two years later?

All the Championship handbook says is: Though we always think of the rankings as deterministic, USCHO's FAQ says: Emphasis added. To me that implies that in the case of a tied PWR ranking the team that wins the head to head comparison gets the nod (not to be confused with the h2h games criterion), with RPI used to resolve ties only when the comparison itself is tied.

Re: UND's RPI breakdown It's the much-derided 51% weighting on opponents' opponents' win percentage. CC has a better win% than SCSU or Mankato against roughly similar competition so should arguably contribute more to UND's strength-of-schedule than either of those other teams. Instead, RPI dramatically overemphasizes (relative to the past and to other sports) the win% of CC's opponents when considering how beating CC affects our strength-of-schedule. Despite CC being an obviously better team than Mankato, RPI gives more credit for playing Mankato because Mankato has played a slightly tougher schedule.

Elaborating on what AZ said... The bracketology articles are highly educated guesses as to how the teams selected by PWR* will be seeded. The big guys (e.g. USCHO, CHN) actually have conversations with people on the selection committee about their process, so their guesses are pretty good. However, they do sometimes transpose a couple teams, so I wouldn't book travel plans based on them. At this point, though, they're really just "what if the season ended today" speculation produced for fun and to give insight into the process. There are dozens of games left to be played. PWR won't be predicting the correct field until the last conference tournament game (the day before selections?) * The PairWise Ranking process (what we all refer to as PWR) simulates the selection process and has never picked a wrong team for inclusion in the tournament (though it isn't used for selection, so could be wrong).

Cool, I was hoping someone would upload it -- I also linked to it on the videos page (gentle reminder -- which everyone can also do themselves).

I know, this is the most bizarre forecast I've seen -- if these numbers hold up, a sweep has a high 20's% chance of us dropping 1, a high 10's% chance of us dropping 2. That's a big part of why I posted it as a sneak preview: 1) I thought it was fascinating enough that I wanted to share, but 2) I'm suspicious enough that I'm doing some extra investigation to make sure I believe those numbers before posting them on the front page. I haven't made any changes that I think could be causing problems, but I'll do some confirmation of specific scenarios in the next day or two.

A sneak preview of the forecast... (as of next Monday Mar 9, incl. Sunday's Providence v. BU outcome)

Nice run to end the season. As long as we score more than 68, we seem to be ok SIU-E 76-68 Seattle 73-68 @ SIU-E 72-68

According to an American Indian Sports Team Mascots opinion piece from 2002: I've got to think that number is lower now, since at the time they claimed there were 88 at the college/university level with Indian mascots.