March 8 USCHO Polls

[toots]

USCHO.com Final Division I Women's Poll March 8, 2004
Team (First Place) Record Pts Last Week
1 Minnesota (14) 26-4-2 149 1
2 Harvard (1) 25-3-1 130 3
3 Dartmouth 22-5-2 125 2
4 St. Lawrence 24-7-1 103 4
5 Wisconsin 24-5-3 93 5
6 Minnesota-Duluth 19-11-2 70 7
7 Mercyhurst 24-6-4 55 6
8 New Hampshire 21-8-4 47 8
9 Princeton 20-9-0 37 9
10 Brown 16-10-2 12 10

Others Receiving Votes: Providence 3,
Minnesota State 1

USCHO.com Division III Women's Poll March 8, 2004

Team (First Place) Record Pts Last Week
1 Manhattanville (10) 23-2-2 143 3
2 Elmira (3) 18-7-2 122 4
3 Plattsburgh (1) 20-5-2 119 1
4 Middlebury (1) 21-4-0 112 2
5 Bowdoin 20-4-1 98 5
6 Gustavus Adolphus 22-5-0 70 7
7 Wis.-Stevens Point 17-6-4 69 6
8 Rensselaer 19-5-3 37 9
9 Wis.-Superior 19-7-1 31 8
10 St. Thomas 19-6-2 16 10

Others Receiving Votes: Williams 5,
Wis.-River Falls 3

Comment on DI:
Dartmouth slips to number 3, even having beaten Harvard twice during season. You may know from my previous posts that I'm a big fan of Katey Stone's team at Harvard, but these polls sometimes make no sense. I believe head-to-head competition, especially as recent as last week, overides any other criteria. I know Dartmouth has 5 losses to Harvard's 3, but I don't see how that overides two wins on the ice. Someone will enlighten me. I'm sure...

[brookyone]

Seems now the number of possible scenario's should be declining. What does Wisconsin need to do and or have happen to make the FF, and same for St. Lawrence ?? Assuming it's between those two only.

[gano]

I don't know what games SLU has remaining, but I would guess that Wisconsin will need two wins and at least one SLU loss.

[ARM]

If SLU doesn't lose, then other eastern teams like Dartmouth will. That might get a winning Wisconsin past them in the PWR.

Dave is usually our scenarios expert. Is the picture still that five teams are alive, but nobody has clinched a spot in the field?

[Jerrytas]

The reason Harvard moves past Dartmouth in the polls is because of their win over Princeton, who recently handed Dartmouth their fifth loss of the season. The only category in which Dartmouth beats Harvard is head-to-head, and I think voters took that into account.

[toots]

That is a thought, Jerrytas, but the Princeton win over Dartmouth happened BEFORE (Feb 21) the second win by Dartmouth over Harvard (Feb 27).
The thinking of the voters just eludes me. :confused:
But, I'll take number 2 if they say so!:D

[polarbear2]

On the DivIII side...I thought Bowdoin might get a slight bump in the polls after a convincing win over Midd...but they've been solid at No 5 since the second week of the season and there they remain...goes to show just how long a few losses and a tie against a team you were expected to beat can haunt you...

[dave1381]

Harvard jumped Dartmouth in the Pairwise this week, didn't they? So the voters in moving Harvard up to No. 2 might be just thinking the same way as the Pairwise.

I for one, don't think two head-to-head losses should override everything. If that were the case St. Lawrence would be ahead of Dartmouth, Dartmouth would be ahead of Harvard, Harvard would be ahead of St. Lawrence... see the problem???

As for scenarios, I said last week that I really don't think it's enough for Wisconsin to lose to Minnesota in the final. Because of the way RPI works, and puts so much weight on record of opponents and not much on record of opponents' opponents, wins over UMD I think are highly undervalued. The ECAC teams already have a big gap over Wisconsin over RPI, and it'll stay that way unless they beat UMD and Minnesota. And Wisconsin's doomed in record vs. common opponents category against the top ECAC teams.

I haven't really looked into it, but I think Minnesota's pretty much a lock. They're in good position in just about every criteria. I'll try to get a better handle on that one at some point.

[Liam3851]

Originally posted by dave1381
Harvard jumped Dartmouth in the Pairwise this week, didn't they? So the voters in moving Harvard up to No. 2 might be just thinking the same way as the Pairwise.

Seems to me this has definitely happened the past couple years... beyond a certain point in the season the pollsters just abdicate and copy the pairwise rankings, even when PWR switches because of SOS and no new real info. Helps in some ways.. no controversy with "oh but the poll consensus is that my team is top four!!"

[Penwhale]

Interesting, however, that someone still either put Harvard or Dartmouth at #4... Wonder why...