2014 WCHA Playoff Race, Week 23, Part One

This will be long.  I apologize.  In fact, it’s going to take two posts.  This one is the easy one!

Let’s get this over with first: here’s the methodology/model, where things stood after week 19, and where things stood after week 20, and then there’s last week.  There’s also the Google Drive spreadsheet, which you’ll want to look over if you’re of a mind to see how this progresses.

Here are the final predicted standings:

What a difference a week makes: Tech was looking to have home ice before last weekend’s sweep by Alaska; then they were on the outside looking in; now they’re in a five-way tie at 28 points!

Oh, dear God in Heaven … let’s break this tie.

1. No head-to-head comparisons can be used because the teams involved didn’t all play each other four times.
2. Conference wins puts Alaska in 3rd.
3. The team-by-team tiebreakers are on W% down the table. As such, I looked at the schedule for each of the four teams, and:
a) Everyone got 25% of their points against Ferris save Anchorage (0.000), who gets 7th as a result.
b) Of the three remaining schools, BG has the highest W% against Mankato (.500) and gets 4th.
c) Between Bemidji (.250) and Tech (.000), the Beavers have the higher ranking against the Mavs, but this is based on the premise that the Huskies don’t pick up any points in Mankato. If the Huskies pick up any points in Mankato, they’d have at least home ice and would be 3/4 with the Nanooks. But for the purpose of evaluating the predictive model as show, BSU would get 5th and MTU 6th.

About the Tech-Mankato result:  if the Huskies pick up a tie in Mankato, they don’t have more conference wins (12) than the Nanooks (13), but they have a points advantage (29 v. 28) … but … MTU does have a HTH comparison with Alaska  (season split); they’d have the same number of conference wins (13); so it comes down to W% against the Bulldogs, which has the Huskies at .500 while the Nanooks are predicted to be just .250. If Alaska sweeps Ferris (taking them to 14 league wins), we’re not having this conversation unless Tech also sweeps Mankato, and then Huskies get third — each is .500 with Ferris; MTU has the edge against Mankato —  with the Nanooks in fourth. Phew.

Chaos, man, chaos.  Best/worst to follow later this week, as this is the point that I’d said that I would do it.  However, this SQC exam beckons…

P.S. Here is the entire text from the WCHA Manual:

WCHA Tie-Breaking Procedures

For Playoff Seeding Only

In regular-season competition, each Western Collegiate Hockey Association team shall accumulate points from each WCHA contest (i.e., a contest between teams representing two WCHA member institutions played as part of the conference schedule), receiving two points for each game won in regulation time or overtime, and one point for each game tied at the conclusion of overtime. The team accumulating the greatest number of points in regular-season WCHA contests shall be the WCHA Champion. If two or more teams are tied for the Championship, they shall be consid- ered co-champions.

Seeding for the WCHA Tournament

If two or more teams have accumulated the same number of points shall be determined according to the following procedure:

A) If two or more teams are tied, and all teams tied have played four contests against one another, then the team with the most accumulated points from these head to head contests will be granted the higher seed.

B) If two or more teams are still tied (or all teams tied have not played four contests against one another) the highest seed will go to the team with the greater number of conference wins.

C) If not determined by A) or B) above, the recipient of the highest seed shall be determined by comparison of the winning percentages of the teams tied, against the remaining highest ranked WCHA team successively, until the determination is accomplished, or all WCHA contests have been considered.

In the event of multiple ties within the standings that become depen- dent on one another for determination, the procedure shall be applied to the highest tie first, using combined winning percentage against all teams involved in the lower tie(s) and continuing through the order if needed. If this fails to break the highest tie, the procedure shall be applied to the next highest tie (and so on if needed), using combined winning percentage against all tied teams as needed when proceeding through the standings.

D) If not determined by A), or B), or C), the recipient of the higher seed will be determined by “winning margin” during conference contests.

“Winning margin” = WCHA conference goals for minus WCHA conference goals against.

In the event of multiple ties within the standings that reach this step, the procedure shall be applied first to the highest tie in the standings. If this fails to break the highest tie, the procedure shall be applied to the next highest tie (and so on if needed) until any tie is broken and all procedures are re-started.

E) If not determined by A), or B), or C), or D), the recipient of the higher seed shall be determined by the flip of a coin.

In the event of multiple ties within the standings that reach this step, the procedure shall be applied first to the highest tie in the standings after which all procedures are re-started.

In the case of ties among three or more schools, the criteria will be used in order until a team, or teams, is separated from the top of the pack. At that point, the process will begin anew to break the “new” tie. In other words, when a three-way tie becomes a two-way tie, the two-way tie is treated as a “new” tie and the process begins with the first criterion.