jimdahl

I'll try this with the short one, since Bob already linked the full version. Video embedding (instructions here): ">" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350"> Of course, I still strongly encourage people to use the videos page to bring all interesting videos into one place, but it's also nice to be able to embed one into a relevant spot in a conversation.

Sure hope things go well in the "3rd frame"

Same for me, it doesn't come on until 9:00ET, but then only runs for two hours. Makes me think it's not even delayed, but just joined in progress. Oh, and since we're comparing beer stocks -- my fridge seems to contain 12 Winter Lagers, about 8 Sam Adams Boston Lagers, and 1 Red Stripe

40-50 cuts in Microsoft Fargo yesterday Though with only ~1000 of the planned ~5000 cuts in so far, who knows what the future holds.

Yeah, busy week. Now that I think I'm getting close to some readable, useful analysis of the forecasts, the next step will be to automate it so its not dependent on me having the time to run the simulation and type up the results.

We're only a month or so away from the Bracketology articles starting to get interesting and after a few weeks of playing around, I think I'm getting close to some useful ways to present PWR forecasts. So, without further ado: Predicting the PWR… The impact of the Denver series For those who can't be bothered to follow a link -- surprise, surprise, this is the biggest series of 2009 so far for PWR. A sweep will land UND an average of 8.5 spots higher in the PWR than getting swept. Other series this weekend that could move UND more than 1 spot: Northern Michigan over Alaska, Bemidji State over Niagara, SCSU over CC

I'm sure most people have seen this by now, but just in case: Microsoft to slash 5000 jobs I haven't yet seen any info on the potential impact on Fargo.

These guys claim that 1260 females were admitted to UND for a 46% ratio (boooooo!)

that's what my mutual funds keep trying to tell me -- past performance is not indicative of future results

The Huskies sound is working well.

I'm surprised to see you, of all people, spreading such an untruth. We both know that win or lose, Sioux fans complain for a ton of pages about the reffing after each WCHA game.

Does this mean Goon is now a sudo-reporter?

Added this morning's reading list to the news page. Of note, it looks like the MTU newspaper will be using the same live blog applet Schlossman used a couple weeks ago: Live blog Looks like there's also a link to the MTU audio there (I always like listening to the other announcers).

Right, the left axis is the likelihood (based on the outcomes of the 50 or so games in the NCAA this weekend) of each of the PWR rankings on the bottom. Though 11 is possible, it's like a 1% chance. To quote the post:

I was pondering that. 16 tourney bids is too many for 58 teams. When the change to 16 was made, D-I hockey appeared to be growing. If it drops to 55 or so teams, 16 starts to look ridiculous. Contracting back down to 12 would be nice for our national championship chances, but horrible for the sport.

NPH and I even have the same birthday (though apparently not the same taste in women , not that there's anything wrong with that). I really should update that pic, though, it's about three years old now. This chart is the meat of the post. This is the probability distribution of UND's PWR after this weekend based on the outcome vs. Mich. Tech. The variability surprised me a little:

Yep -- Bracketology (and PWR) tell you what would happen if the season ended today, but there are something like 400-500 games remaining to be played! The PWR rankings as of today are somewhat interesting, but going through the exercise of seeding the tournament as if the season were ending today is borderline ridiculous. I continue to think a far more interesting question is what PWR will look like in the future. We all saw how much PWR moved from the Minnesota series, and this post tries to predict how much it can move from the Michigan Tech series alone.

I've said it countless times, but will repeat -- I've generally supported the D-I move, and think it provides a great opportunity for football, but the sport with the greatest potential for magnitude of impact is men's basketball. Get a qualifying conference affiliation and win the conference and the gentlemen are in the biggest collegiate sporting event in the nation. I hope to be able to leverage the transition to help raise the profile of the sport, but the guys can sure help by continuing to put up a good event. Oh, and hold on to the lead guys.

And I normally wouldn't touch a thread like this with a 10-ft pole, but I have some facts worth sharing... Your wish is my command: 2004 SSI. Note that it's not the handbook, but a standalone SSI sheet. There's a good reason for that, coming later. The timeline is critical in interpreting it in the context of this discussion. Backing up to before that page, at the time UND dropped NDSU from its football schedule (Feb 04) even a win vs. NDSU would've hurt. * A win vs an independent I-AA was 4 points and a win vs. a counter I-AA was 8 points (we only later learned that NDSU would bizarrely have technically have been a counter) * A loss would have been even fewer SSI points, and the chances of a loss would increase by playing an opponent stacking on the scholarships No team in their right mind, hoping to make the playoffs, would schedule a I-AA under those conditions. Coming off two championship games in three years and trying to compete for fans with a 70 mile away rival selling itself as D-I, UND had it's eye squarely on the D-II playoffs. Frankly, I think NDSU itself coincidentally sealed the deal by beating Montana and failing to make the '03 playoffs, causing North Dakotans to begin paying a lot more attention to SSI and its ridiculous treatment of I-AAs. The SSI wasn't revised to the above 2004 numbers until late September of that year. It turned out, though no one knew this at 2004 scheduling time, that even a loss to NDSU would have been as good for SSI as a win over Crookston. At that point, bigger men with smaller egos might have resumed the game, but the damage was done and it never happened. There's little doubt UND administrators were influenced by factors other than SSI, or UND would've scheduled NDSU in sports other than football that didn't have such punitive rules; but in football, UND thought it couldn't play NDSU in 2004 due to NDSU having changed it's classification such that the game would have been highly detrimental to UND's playoff chances. Of course, the rules were later changed to prove UND wrong on even that concern, but no one knew that.

I was a little concerned about the photo of Woog -- I first wondered if it was an intrusion into his personal life (which would be out of bounds). However, I don't think it paints him in a negative light, but rather is just a famous person sighting (I don't see how a photo of a guy having a beer after a game could be considered negative )

Shameless plug -- if this is what you're looking for, the part where he is talking about the Jones scrum is linked on the videos page (along with the goals and scrums).

If anyone on the forum uploads something, they usually post it to the video clips thread. I also try to make sure that everything posted there, plus more, gets posted into the videos page (Videos link at top of every page). Looks like the scrum is already there. Generally, whatever people have gets posted within a day or so.

Thanks for the insightful analysis, very interesting!

When long-time Herald hockey writer, Virg Foss, worked full-time at the Herald, he could be reached at: 780-1267. (Don't call it now, though, it's probably someone else )

For people out of the G.F. area, don't forget about the UND Alumni Association's satellite parties across the country for Saturday night's matchup. I've hit a dozen or so of these over the years and always enjoyed them. Satellite Party Locations / Details Goodyear, AZ Mesa, AZ San Diego, CA Denver, CO Washington, D.C. Atlanta, GA Raleigh, NC Cedar Rapids, IA Boise, ID Chicago, IL Indianapolis, IN Bloomington, MN St. Cloud, MN Billings, MT Las Vegas, NV Gahanna, OH Kirkland, WA Hudson, WI Rock Springs, WY