PWR predictions

[farce poobah]

Question for Jim Dahl, or perhaps other PWR experts. I'm not that familiar with the PWR, I generally wait until selection Sunday to find things out.

That said, I'm kind of curious....how does a team go from perhaps not making the tournament, and within 7 games land a #1 seed? If I recall, going into the Mankato series the Sioux could conceivably be left out of the tournament. They needed to sweep Mankato and their first round playoff series to give themselves a comfortable chance, and then 3 games later they move from there to a #1 seed.

I'm not looking for a highly technical explanation, but a more general one based on how the PWR works. It seems like it should be much more difficult than that (not saying it's not difficult to win those last 7 games, especially the Final Five).

Anyway, happy to learn...

I'm not an expert, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last month.

Going into the weekend, UND trailed a number of teams narrowly - and I mean narrowly - so that 3 "high impact" wins against TUC's raised UND's "TUC" comparison factor plus raised UND's RPI by enough to change 7-8 comparisons. It also helped that 2 wins were against "head to head" vs teams we had trailed (DU and MN), helping to flip those comparisons.

I leave the real explanation to the experts.

[nodakvindy]

It also didn't hurt that all most of our non conference opponents did extremely well in their conference tourneys, benefitting us in the common opponents category and further upping our RPI.

[dagies]

Thanks, farce poobah, that's very helpful.

[jimdahl]

Going into the weekend, UND trailed a number of teams narrowly - and I mean narrowly - so that 3 "high impact" wins against TUC's raised UND's "TUC" comparison factor plus raised UND's RPI by enough to change 7-8 comparisons. It also helped that 2 wins were against "head to head" vs teams we had trailed (DU and MN), helping to flip those comparisons.

The only two things I would add to that are:

1) UND was somewhat uniquely in that position this year, such moves aren't the norm. For example, you didn't see similar moves from any of this year's other conference tournament champs, even lower ranked ones. (ranking trends)

2) It was entirely as expected, we just didn't discuss it much because it was known that winning out would put us in a really really good place, so more of the focus was on what it would take to clinch. PWR possibilities of Mar. 12 modeled that if UND won out, the Sioux had an 83% chance of finishing 3-4.

[dagies]

Thanks again!

[krangodance]

I know the pwr no longer matter now that the NCAA tournament is set. However, call it obsession, I am interested to know where the Sioux can finish. If they win the national championship (a long shot, I know) can they also finish the season out at #1 in the pwr? Is there a tool somewhere that I can use to compute the different pwr outcomes based on the outcome of the NCAA tournament?

I know the polls release an end of season rankings list but every year they just pick the winner as #1. I'm interested to know if the Sioux can still finish #1 in the pwr, which is supposed to be an accurate measurement of a teams overall success on the season so far.

Again, I'm clear on the fact that pwr no longer matter this season but I just think it would be kind of sweet if there was still a way we could win the national championship and finish #1 in the pwr in the same season. That would just cement us as the best team in the country, not only in the post-season, but on the entire season as a whole.

Obviously winning the Frozen Four is the only important goal though.

[jimdahl]

I know the pwr no longer matter now that the NCAA tournament is set. However, call it obsession, I am interested to know where the Sioux can finish. If they win the national championship (a long shot, I know) can they also finish the season out at #1 in the pwr? Is there a tool somewhere that I can use to compute the different pwr outcomes based on the outcome of the NCAA tournament?

I know the polls release an end of season rankings list but every year they just pick the winner as #1. I'm interested to know if the Sioux can still finish #1 in the pwr, which is supposed to be an accurate measurement of a teams overall success on the season so far.

Again, I'm clear on the fact that pwr no longer matter this season but I just think it would be kind of sweet if there was still a way we could win the national championship and finish #1 in the pwr in the same season. That would just cement us as the best team in the country, not only in the post-season, but on the entire season as a whole.

Obviously winning the Frozen Four is the only important goal though.

Yes, the Sioux could actually come out of the weekend #1 in PWR if Michigan, Union, and BC stumbled. For the rest of the tournament, they would similarly need outcomes that flip those three comparisons in their favor without losing any others.

I would think Whelan's DIY Rankings Calculator would be suitable for the task. Just tell it you're calculating PWR and use specified results with your desired results added.