Pairwise and Bracketology 2013 Edition

[Numbers]

Denver, Minnesota, Mankato, North Dakota, St Cloud and Alaska all fly no matter where they are placed. Niagara is over 400 miles from Providence, but only 300 from Toledo, so they could actually drive there. That would tend to indicate a BU-Niagara switch which would eliminate two flights and (presumably) help attendance in Providence. The downside is that creates 6-9 and 8-12 pairings, which would be less than ideal. You could also move the Yale-BU game and the SCSU-Niagara games and not hurt bracket integrity too much.

My bad for assuming Niagara was having to fly without checking Toledo. Doh!

See, that's another reason to do the early bracketology: to work out mistakes in the system so we can predict the field before we see it announced on ESPN. Don't stop asking questions! I've been doing this for 8-9 years and still make errors.

Thanks. I thought the 7 was in regard to the present bracket situation, when I was counting more than that.

[Numbers]

Anything over a certain mileage of driving (the magic number is 300) is considered to be a "flight", regardless of whether or not the university *would* fly to that location. In terms of how the NCAA will try to place teams in the regionals, they will only allow closeness to be an consideration overriding bracket integrity when it comes to universities within the 300 mile circle; this is colloquially known as "a flight is a flight" around the boards (that is, once a team is already flying, it doesn't matter where they end up).

Of the current Bracketology 16, 7 of them are more than 300 miles from every regional: Denver, Alaska, North Dakota, Minnesota State, Minnesota, St. Cloud and Niagara (although Niagara is within a long bus ride of all four locations, none of them are smaller than 300 miles in distance*). That means they will go where they are placed based on bracket integrity, and avoidance of in-conference first-round matchups. They won't try and force any of them to go to their "closest" regional.

*Well, technically Niagara is within 300 miles of Toledo if one drives through Canada, but I do not know whether the NCAA takes cross-border travel into consideration.

Thanks to you, too.

[IrishHockeyFan]

Re: Pairwise and Bracketology 2013 Edition

Anything over a certain mileage of driving (the magic number is 300) is considered to be a "flight", regardless of whether or not the university *would* fly to that location. In terms of how the NCAA will try to place teams in the regionals, they will only allow closeness to be an consideration overriding bracket integrity when it comes to universities within the 300 mile circle; this is colloquially known as "a flight is a flight" around the boards (that is, once a team is already flying, it doesn't matter where they end up).

Of the current Bracketology 16, 7 of them are more than 300 miles from every regional: Denver, Alaska, North Dakota, Minnesota State, Minnesota, St. Cloud and Niagara (although Niagara is within a long bus ride of all four locations, none of them are smaller than 300 miles in distance*). That means they will go where they are placed based on bracket integrity, and avoidance of in-conference first-round matchups. They won't try and force any of them to go to their "closest" regional.

*Well, technically Niagara is within 300 miles of Toledo if one drives through Canada, but I do not know whether the NCAA takes cross-border travel into consideration.

I think the magic number is actually 400 miles. Under 400 is a drive, 400 or more is a flight. I also believe the NCAA uses a specific mapping program to determine distances and if this rule then applies. Priceless (or Alton if he's lurking, he seems to know ALL this stuff and ought to be on speed dial for all of us to ask these questions) might be able to answer more definitively.

[Priceless]

Re: Pairwise and Bracketology 2013 Edition

I think the magic number is actually 400 miles. Under 400 is a drive, 400 or more is a flight. I also believe the NCAA uses a specific mapping program to determine distances and if this rule then applies. Priceless (or Alton if he's lurking, he seems to know ALL this stuff and ought to be on speed dial for all of us to ask these questions) might be able to answer more definitively.

It is 400 miles. I can't remember off the top of my head which mapping software the NCAA uses but I use Google Maps and occasionally Delorme. I have 58 teams programmed in (don't have PSU yet) and can do the 400 miles radius pretty quickly.

Thanks to Maine defeating the Chiefs today Dartmouth is in the tournament.

1 Quinnipiac
2 Minnesota
3 Miami
4 Boston College
5 New Hampshire
6 Western Michigan
7 Yale
8 St. Cloud State
9 Niagara
10 North Dakota
11 Boston University
12 Denver
13 Minnesota State
14 Alaska-Fairbanks
15 Dartmouth
16 Notre Dame

Manchester (UNH)	Providence (Brown)	Toledo (BGSU)		Grand Rapids (Michigan)
Boston C		Quinnipiac		Miami			Minnesota
New Hamp		St Cloud		W Michigan		Yale
Denver			Niagara			Boston U		No Dakota
Mankato			Notre Dame		Alaska			Dartmouth

We have to get rid of the Mami-Alaska pairing and we can do better for attendance.

Manchester (UNH)	Providence (Brown)	Toledo (BGSU)		Grand Rapids (Michigan)
Boston C		Quinnipiac		Miami			Minnesota
New Hamp		Yale		        W Michigan		St Cloud
Denver			No Dakota		Boston U		Niagara
Dartmouth		Notre Dame		Mankato			Alaska

We could further switch BU and No Dakota but attendance is passable already. Attendance is going to suck everywhere but Manchester anyway, so we should start getting used to it.

The TUC line:

29 Rensselaer 0.5044
30 Holy Cross 0.5022
31 Massachusetts 0.5019
--
32 Brown 0.4950

[Priceless]

Re: Pairwise and Bracketology 2013 Edition

Based on the Crockpot semifinals

Manchester (UNH)	Providence (Brown)	Toledo (BGSU)	Grand Rapids (Michigan)
Boston C		Quinnipiac		Miami		Minnesota
New Hamp		St Cloud		W Michigan	Yale
Mankato			Niagara			Denver		No Dakota
Dartmouth		Notre Dame		Boston U	Alaska

[Snively65]

Re: Pairwise and Bracketology 2013 Edition

Why not flip the Yale - Nodak, St Cloud - Niagara, and W Mich - DU brackets for attendance purposes?

[Priceless]

Re: Pairwise and Bracketology 2013 Edition

Why not flip the Yale - Nodak, St Cloud - Niagara, and W Mich - DU brackets for attendance purposes?

That would set up 1v7, 2v6 and 3v8 in the quarters and the committee prefers to keep the 1v8/2v7 etc bracket integrity if possible. When they need to they tend to play around with the #3 or #4 seeds.

[Numbers]

Re: Pairwise and Bracketology 2013 Edition

Priceless,

It appears that slack.net is still down. Do you know if Mr Whelan has put his information elsewhere?

Thanks.

[Priceless]

Re: Pairwise and Bracketology 2013 Edition

Priceless,

It appears that slack.net is still down. Do you know if Mr Whelan has put his information elsewhere?

Thanks.

No clue. I've sent him an email but have not heard back. If we lose that site it would be a tremendous loss for the community.

[mnpokecheck]

Re: Pairwise and Bracketology 2013 Edition

Swapping teams for sake of attendance, can make for less of a national feeling in the tournament. Do we really want to see regionals become rehashes of conference tournaments? East vs West games are much more compelling to me. Though I'm not interested in seeing a replay of the all-WCHA Final Four type scenario either.

[IrishHockeyFan]

Re: Pairwise and Bracketology 2013 Edition

Swapping teams for sake of attendance, can make for less of a national feeling in the tournament. Do we really want to see regionals become rehashes of conference tournaments? East vs West games are much more compelling to me. Though I'm not interested in seeing a replay of the all-WCHA Final Four type scenario either.

I don't think we can have it both ways. If we want even a chance of decent attendance at most of these regionals, we have to get teams closer to home. If we don't want potential re-hashes of conference tournaments we have to accept the likelihood of poor to horrible attendance.

[LTsatch]

Re: Pairwise and Bracketology 2013 Edition

FYI Yale at Brown postponed until Sunday at 5 due to snow.

[Priceless]

Re: Pairwise and Bracketology 2013 Edition

I don't think we can have it both ways. If we want even a chance of decent attendance at most of these regionals, we have to get teams closer to home. If we don't want potential re-hashes of conference tournaments we have to accept the likelihood of poor to horrible attendance.

The committee has to weigh those factors when they build the brackets. Some years the national tournament has looked like a rehash of conference tournaments, others it has been truly national. If a team is going to make a huge impact on attendance, that might make a difference, but not many schools (especially in the east) can do that. Combine that with central locations for the western regionals and you lose the massive attendance boosts of Wisconsin, North Dakota and the Minnesota schools. I really don't know what possessed the NCAA to put both western regionals in Michigan and Ohio in the same year.

I expect most of the eastern slate of games will be cancelled because of this storm. It will be interesting to see how many Saturday games get played. Maine left yesterday to beat the storm to Vermont and they're far enough inland that the storm might be over there. For most of New England this storm is supposed to end during the afternoon on Saturday, but cities have to dig out which will be made more difficult with the 40-60 mph winds. Still, it's amusing to see people panic.

*****http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/487811_10151470655425310_943334295_n.jpg******

[Priceless]

Re: Pairwise and Bracketology 2013 Edition

Since the brackets have to be blown apart because of intraconference games (BC-BU, QU-Dartmouth, Denver-NoDak, Miami-Alaska) we can screw integrity and try to boost attendance as much as possible.

Manchester (UNH)	Providence (Brown)	Toledo (BGSU)		Grand Rapids (Michigan)
New Hamp		Quinnipiac		Boston C		Minnesota
No Dakota		Yale			Miami			W Michigan
Alaska			SCSU			Mankato			Denver
Dartmouth		Boston U		Notre Dame		Niagara

[HoosierBBall_GopherHockey]

Re: Pairwise and Bracketology 2013 Edition

Since the brackets have to be blown apart because of intraconference games (BC-BU, QU-Dartmouth, Denver-NoDak, Miami-Alaska) we can screw integrity and try to boost attendance as much as possible.

Manchester (UNH)	Providence (Brown)	Toledo (BGSU)		Grand Rapids (Michigan)
New Hamp		Quinnipiac		Boston C		Minnesota
No Dakota		Yale			Miami			W Michigan
Alaska			SCSU			Mankato			Denver
Dartmouth		Boston U		Notre Dame		Niagara

Toledo looks brutal, while Providence looks like a cakewalk for SCSU.