This weeks polls??????

[Collegehockeynut]

Will be interesting to see how the poll comes out later today. There are a lot of questions after this weekend.

1) Does Dartmouth stay #1 after splitting a series with Minnesota, especially in light of the 7-3 score of game two?

2) Does Wisc. jump to number 3, over Harvard, in light of the Badgers strong showing against the Mavs?

3) With UMD's split with OSU, do they lose a spot to St. Lawrence?

4) Does New Hampshire drop out of the polls as a result of their loss to Providence.

5) Do the Mavs stay in the top ten, despite losing two games to the Badgers, games you could argue the Mavs should lose?

6) Does OSU slip back into the polls based upon their spilt with UMD?

OR

Do the pollsters take last weekend's with a grain of salt with many impact players away at the Air Canada Cup?

I am looking forward to the polls this week.

[dave1381]

My guesses -

1) I think Dartmouth will stay 1 but lose a couple votes. I think in most cases, a split on the road for the 1 against 2 will maintain the status quo.
2) Again, it might get closer, but I can rarely remember a time when one team jumped another after winning games against lower-ranked opponents.
3) I think UMD will fall past St. Lawrence, but no more.
4) UNH lost to Providence last week, and they fell to 10th. This week UNH humbled Gunn, one of the nation's best goaltenders. I think they'll move up to ninth in the polls with Mankato losing.
5) It'll be pretty close between Brown and Mankato for the 10th spot I think. Too close to call. I think with two losses for MSU, this might be Brown's week to jump in.
6) Brown not Ohio State was the team on the bubble last week, and the premium for splitting for UMD falls a bit since so many team's have done it now.

As for Air Canada, it's part of why I think Dartmouth will stay at 1, but I don't think it had too big an impact on any of the other games this week, in particularly the Mankato or UMD losses (neither team had players there, right?) who I think will be the only teams to lose ground.

[ARM]

I think a split by Dartmouth/Minnesota gives the voters all the more reason to place Dartmouth/Minnesota/Harvard in multiple different orders. I'd leave them as they are, but I could spin a case for any of the three to be #1, if I so chose. I think the margins tighten up and next weekends series will probably shuffle the deck some more.

[ARM]

Dartmouth keeps first by a point with Minnesota having one more first place vote:

http://www.uscho.com/rankings/?data=uscho1w

[skatinfiend]

Interesting. Dartmouth had to get second place votes by everyone who voted MN #1, but it looks like MN got two third place votes to drop them below Dartmouth. I guess two voters are big ECAC fans.

[dave1381]

Maybe not - it's possible Wisconsin could have gotten one of the second place votes (in which case Harvard got the other 2nd that didn't go UMN/Dart, and then two 4th place votes). Regardless, reasonable people can have different opinions. I agree with the overall result of the poll, but I respect how others might have different philosophies.

I never thought it would be that close at the top!! I wonder what'll happen in the AHM poll.

[skatinfiend]

True...I didn't work out all the math combinations; I was just basing it on polls from a few weeks ago when Dartmouth, MN, and Harvard were all getting first place votes and figured there were voters then who liked Harvard over MN and so maybe they did again. And why vote Wisconsin ahead of MN when you could just wait a week and have a better idea? :)

In any case, the polls are meaningless. It's just fun to try to figure out what the voters are thinking. Only the NCAA computer matters...

[dave1381]

the logic in voting Wisco ahead of the Gophers is perhaps that Wisco just swept MSU, and Minnesota recently split them. A very what have you done for me lately kind of view, but certainly a reasonable one considering the Minnesota's a much different team without Darwitz and Wall.

[skatinfiend]

But with the latest-results view, that voter shouldn't have made Dartmouth #1...

[dave1381]

It's not just a "latest results" view. It's more a matter of discounting games proportional to how long ago they were played. So you'd treat two games that happened on the same weekend pretty much the same way. That's why could rank Wisconsin above Minnesota, because you're pretty much treating the Dartmouth-Minnesota series as a wash, and almost totally discounting the first Wisconsin-Minnesota in Nov (or was it Oct?) It's not a view particularly agree with, but it's a reasonable one to have. I mean, in general, the polls at this point of the season are going to answer to who the teams are now, they're not trying to be an objective measure of who's had the best season to that point, where games between teams now and three months ago count the same.

[franeepack]

This should be a big weekend for Wisconsin and St. Lawrence to make or break their NCAA chance. Watch out for Brown or Mercyhurst to sneak into the NCAA if either team gets hot and has some help. Princeton is still alive too. This assumes that Minn Dart and Harvard can keep winning and umd won't run the table . It should be a huge four weeks of hockey.

[skatinfiend]

dave,
I think you're being argumentative just because one can endlessly theorize any possibility of what's in a voter's mind, and sometimes work or school is boring, so why not post messages.

I don't think the poll is a latest-results view. I was just saying that if a voter were taking the "what have you done lately" stance for MN vs WI, which you proposed as why WI may have gotten a #2 vote instead of Harvard, a logical question could be then why wouldn't he or she use that rationale for Dartmouth, too, who just got blown out? And aren't the odds that Harvard did get those two #2 votes anyway? Of course it's possible that they didn't.

I see nothing wrong with any of the top four being picked above the others in the poll. That's why the games will be fun to watch the rest of the way out.

[dave1381]

Haha, while work being boring is often an explanation for why I post here, I actually posted that first thing in the morning to wake myself up :D Your criticism could be applied to just about any post on this board, and if it weren't for the board being more interesting than other things, we wouldn't have a message board.

While you might think I'm just "endlessly theorizing" I'm pointing out one kind of heuristic that I think explains some of the behavior I've seen in polls over the years, obviously I don't have time to back it up with empirical evidence, and I don't think explaining behavior like that is a hopeless task. And regarding your first question, I think I already answered it pretty clearly in my post, and I knew exactly what you were saying, you didn't need to clarify.

Regardless, I agree we have beaten this topic to death. Time to move on.

[hungryman]

I think its funny everyone is arguing about the polls and who, where, and why their team should be higher etc.....

fact is the polls mean absolutely nothing they are just a bunch of people and their opinions - kinda like the posters on this thread.

The only important thing is the Pairwise Ranking which is as close to the selection criteria as you can get. the last three FF have been exactly what the Pairwise was. Ironically the polls generally begin to mimic the Pairwise at the end of the season so they are usually correct by this point. But at this point in the season they still include personal biases and feelings. Formulas don't have feelings adn are not subjective.

SO my suggestion is everyone relax and forget the polls becasue they aren't goign to decided anything, click on the Pairwise and find out who is where, then go to the individual comparisions and see who will jump up and fall according to losses. That way there is not question as to why UNH did this and why Ohio did that.

just my 2 cents.

[SKATNMIASOV]

IMO Wisconsin is in a great position right now. Their number four ranking seems to be keeping them under the radar. No one really seems to pay attention to the number four spot , just the top three. As of late they are playing well and it seems alot of people are looking past them. They really are not mentioned much.

Minnesota will be big games for them as they lost two to the gophers earlier in the year. I think this Wisconsin team is a bit different than the one that lost two to the gophers and one to OSU earlier.

Minnesota has proven they can still play with the best with even with the loss of two key players. The series between Minn. and Wisc. should really be a great one.

[brookyone]

It should be a great series all right and no doubt Wisconsin is a MUCH better team than in the earlier meeting between these two. No looking past anyone in the WCHA though. Wisconsin is certainly on Minnesota's radar & I expect the Gophers will be ready. In that regard, I think the type of game played against Dartmouth last Sunday came at an opportune time.

[ARM]

The fact that Wisconsin has as many conference points as the Gophers do makes them hard to overlook.

[dave1381]

While the polls do mean nothing for NCAA selection, I nontheless find it fun to predict and argue over them. I also think the polls try more to project who will be No. 1 in March, while the Pairwise Rankings tell who's No. 1 based on current equal-weighted results (hence why they tend to converge in March). When we're arguing over the polls, to some degree we're arguing over who's in the best position come March.

[ARM]

More to argue about, courtesy of USA Today:

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/hockey/usatwomen.htm

Dartmouth has first by three points, gets two more first place votes than Minnesota, with Harvard getting one. Frankly, I'm surpised they aren't getting more.