The Top 25 College Hockey Teams of the NCAA Era

[SkinsFan09]

Re: The Top 25 College Hockey Teams of the NCAA Era

42-1-2

There are 10 teams in the top 25 that lost 2 or fewer games. We'll see what happens!

But only one had a player put up 100 points in 39 games.

[LynahFan]

Re: The Top 25 College Hockey Teams of the NCAA Era

But only one had a player put up 100 points in 39 games.

But did they have a *defenseman* who was over 2 pts/game?

[FreshFish]

Re: The Top 25 College Hockey Teams of the NCAA Era

But only one had a player put up 100 points in 39 games.

and only one team averaged 8.4 goals per game over an entire season, blah blah blah....

I have a hunch that a team that went undefeated and won the National Championship would be hard to dethrone however....

to FS23: Have you already published your methodology / formula components somewhere for how you compiled your list? I would be curious to see it...if you don't mind....

[Fighting Sioux 23]

Re: The Top 25 College Hockey Teams of the NCAA Era

to FS23: Have you already published your methodology / formula components somewhere for how you compiled your list? I would be curious to see it...if you don't mind....

I don't remember if I published it in the old thread, but basically the methodology was to build a formula that accurately reflected how strong a team was, both nationally and in conference. Basically, conference accolades (Regular Season Championship, Tournament Championship, All-Conference members, etc.) built conference points, and then conference points were compared with how strong the conference was. Then, national accolades (NCAA Tournament performance, Out of Conference Play, All-American members, etc.) built national points, which stood on their own. Those two sections were added together to come up with total points.

I have tweaked that formula to put older teams on a more level playing field with teams of the past 25-30 years. The reason was since today we have more players on All-American teams, more NCAA Tournament games, and more out-of-conference games (and more games in general, among others), it was not fair to compare say the 2008-2009 BU squad against the 1955-1956 Michigan squad without tweaking the formula slightly. I believe my previous formula would have given that BU squad almost triple the points of that Michigan team.

Ultimately, I have a list of about 250 teams that I have compiled the data for, so I decided that top-25 would be a lot of fun, spark a lot of discussion, and hopefully allow some reminiscing about these historic teams.

Also, I'll point out that this is just based off a formula. If one team is ahead of another by less than .001% doesn't mean that the team ahead is better. What that probably means, is that if those two teams played 50 times, they'd probably each win 25 (or tie all 50 ). All of these teams were great, and should be recognized as such. That is what I wanted to do with this idea, and I'm glad College Hockey Weekly allowed me to contribute in this way to their site.

[FreshFish]

Re: The Top 25 College Hockey Teams of the NCAA Era

Also, I'll point out that this is just based off a formula. If one team is ahead of another by less than .001% doesn't mean that the team ahead is better. What that probably means, is that if those two teams played 50 times, they'd probably each win 25 (or tie all 50 ). All of these teams were great, and should be recognized as such. That is what I wanted to do with this idea, and I'm glad College Hockey Weekly allowed me to contribute in this way to their site.

Thanks for the explanation!

I suppose you are constrained by the format to list teams in order...too bad you can't go 1, 2, 3, 4,4,4,4,8,8,10,11,12,12,12,15 etc. to address those situations in which the differences are so small.

I notice that Moneyball and Soccernomics thinking is starting to make its way into pro hockey now, too. [oops, can't find link....]

[Fighting Sioux 23]

Re: The Top 25 College Hockey Teams of the NCAA Era

So, as we saw yesterday, the #25 Greatest Team of the NCAA Era was released.

For those of you who missed it, it was the 1994-1995 Boston University Terriers. They finished less than a point ahead of the 2004-2005 Colorado College Tigers, 1959-1960 Denver Pioneers and the 1996-1997 North Dakota Fighting Sioux, so it was a very close contest to see who would crack the top 25.

I have submitted the information for the #24 team of all-time, and it should be up shortly. I will post the link when I see that it is up.

[buoldtimer]

Re: The Top 25 College Hockey Teams of the NCAA Era

So, as we saw yesterday, the #25 Greatest Team of the NCAA Era was released.

For those of you who missed it, it was the 1994-1995 Boston University Terriers. They finished less than a point ahead of the 2004-2005 Colorado College Tigers, 1959-1960 Denver Pioneers and the 1996-1997 North Dakota Fighting Sioux, so it was a very close contest to see who would crack the top 25.

I have submitted the information for the #24 team of all-time, and it should be up shortly. I will post the link when I see that it is up.

This is great stuff.

[Fighting Sioux 23]

Re: The Top 25 College Hockey Teams of the NCAA Era

This is great stuff.

Thank you. I'm glad most people are enjoying it thus far.

Here is the link again, with #24 now online...

http://www.collegehockeyweekly.com/greatest-teams.html

[burgie12]

Re: The Top 25 College Hockey Teams of the NCAA Era

"The streak ran to the semifinals of the *ECAC Tournament* where the 25-1-1 Terriers..."

But, great writing and it's really enjoyable reading (again) about the old teams that I never got a chance to see.

[JF_Gophers]

Re: The Top 25 College Hockey Teams of the NCAA Era

Eastern Bias.

So Maine pretty much has this wrapped up, eh?

[Fighting Sioux 23]

Re: The Top 25 College Hockey Teams of the NCAA Era

"The streak ran to the semifinals of the *ECAC Tournament* where the 25-1-1 Terriers..."

But, great writing and it's really enjoyable reading (again) about the old teams that I never got a chance to see.

I just figured the Beanpot was all that BU cared about, that they called every tourney the Beanpot

I'll send in a note and that should corrected shortly. Thanks for spotting that.

[Fighting Sioux 23]

Re: The Top 25 College Hockey Teams of the NCAA Era

Eastern Bias.

So Maine pretty much has this wrapped up, eh?

As I stated before, there were 10 teams in the top 25 that had 2 losses or less, and 10 teams that had a winning percentage over .900. Also of note, only 1 team failed to at least win a share of its Regular Season conference title. There are definitely a lot of interesting facts.

[FreshFish]

Re: The Top 25 College Hockey Teams of the NCAA Era

As I stated before, there were 10 teams in the top 25 that had 2 losses or less, and 10 teams that had a winning percentage over .900. Also of note, only 1 team failed to at least win a share of its Regular Season conference title. There are definitely a lot of interesting facts.

Yes, I know of at least one team that went undefeated....and another that went 35-2-1 (is that a 93.4% winning percentage? I'm not sure how ties are calculated....), including 20-1 in its conference.

It looks like the wild card, so to speak, will be those other scoring elements in your ranking formula, like All Americans and such.

[Fighting Sioux 23]

Re: The Top 25 College Hockey Teams of the NCAA Era

Yes, I know of at least one team that went undefeated....and another that went 35-2-1 (is that a 93.4% winning percentage? I'm not sure how ties are calculated....), including 20-1 in its conference.

It looks like the wild card, so to speak, will be those other scoring elements in your ranking formula, like All Americans and such.

You have the percentage right. Think of points, and it makes it easy to calculate (i.e. 2 points for win, 1 for tie and add those up and divide by points possible).

Keep in mind that winning percentage isn't everything. Who you play has a lot to do with it as well. For example, beating a tournament team by 1 is better than beating a nobody by 6.

[burgie12]

Re: The Top 25 College Hockey Teams of the NCAA Era

Yes, I know of at least one team that went undefeated....

There are three, actually.

Clarkson, 1956, 23-0-0
Iona, 1967, 16-0-0
Cornell, 1970, 29-0-0

Only one won the national championship. I, like Interested, would not be surprised to find them at #1 when this is all said and done.

NCAA Division I Record Book (pdf) (pages 13 and 17)

FS23, I'm curious where Iona's 1967 team would rank in your list of 250. It may difficult to compile enough relevant information.