Playoff Brackets

[WC player]

Id just like to point out how ridiculous it was that all four west coast teams were placed in the same side of the playoff brackets. The whole point of the selection committee is to prevent things like this from happening. The fact that the last two west teams in the tournament had to knock each other out in the sweet sixteen was just stupid.

(Luckily, the UNLV kids still cheered for us even after we knocked them out, no matter how rowdy and belligerent they got during our Lindenwood game. Its awesome for the sport to have regions getting together and cheering for each other like that.)

[Patn Lawton]

Valid point, try PMing someone working for the NCRHA to talk about it instead of making a thread complaining about it being ridiculous and stupid.

[GSJaguars11]

i was pretty surprised with the brackets too, we were 1 of 3 teams that went 3-0 in DII pool play but were the 5th or 6th overall seed

[topshelf]

Id just like to point out how ridiculous it was that all four west coast teams were placed in the same side of the playoff brackets. The whole point of the selection committee is to prevent things like this from happening. The fact that the last two west teams in the tournament had to knock each other out in the sweet sixteen was just stupid.


I agree 100%. The selection committee is a complete joke. The NCRHA seeding system needs to be completely overhauled if the legitimization of the sport wants to be achieved. I'm not even from the west, but I can see why they would be upset. The west got screwed, plain and simple. Why would anyone want to pay that kind of money to fly across the country to play a team that they play all year? All 4 teams from the west in the same bracket and all the Florida teams in the same bracket? Long Beach vs UNLV and Rhode Island vs Buffalo? Wow!


Congratulations to UMSL on a fantastic season and great Championship win!

[PMoyer3]

I was on the selection committee when nationals were in Anaheim and if they still do it that way I think it is fair but if I remember correctly we put a little bit of extra time at the end to re-arrange teams so that they wouldn't play teams they already played or from their own region if possible.

The selection was purely based on round robin record for the most part so I have no idea how a 3-0 team would get a seed lower than a 2-1 team if that actually happened then it is an injustice for sure.

But it honestly shouldn't be too difficult for the selection committee to look at the match-ups after all is said and done and just flip flop a couple team with identical positions in the brackets so they get more inter-regional play. And I'm pretty sure inter-regional play is one of the goals of the NCRHA.

It's definitely a buzz kill to go all the way across the country just to play a team you've played 3-4 times already during the year early in the brackets.

[MBurke]

i was pretty surprised with the brackets too, we were 1 of 3 teams that went 3-0 in DII pool play but were the 5th or 6th overall seed

Seeding doesn't always exactly match up - as Pat points out below, we try to avoid matching you against regional/pool opponents right off the bat if it can be helped. In this case, it's likely you slid up or down a bit in order to get you out of playing another ECRHA team or a team you had already played in round robin.



But it honestly shouldn't be too difficult for the selection committee to look at the match-ups after all is said and done and just flip flop a couple team with identical positions in the brackets so they get more inter-regional play. And I'm pretty sure inter-regional play is one of the goals of the NCRHA.

The interregional problems were more difficult to avoid this year in DI based on how the initial rankings (as you pointed out, mostly based on pool record) ended up. For instance, there were seven ECRHA teams in the field and most of them were ranked in the middle of the pack. The only way to get out of ECRHA vs. ECRHA matchups would have been to move teams way up or down into seeds they didn't really deserve. As a result, the bracket ended up having three second round games with ECRHA teams playing each other.

I think we got out of all the first-round regional matchups, but it's tough to prevent that across all the possible permutations when you have eight second-round games to worry about.

[Patn Lawton]

So Burke is saying its impossible to please everybody. I guess now that we have that out of the way, we can go back to playing some roller derby.

[rowanhockey]

the seeding in my opinion was horrible, we went 3-0 and got a 5th seed doesnt make sense, what is the point of the round robin if thats the case, regardless all the quarter games were hard but how would central mich an west chester get seeded ahead of us considering they both went 2-0-1 in the round robin. and as far as d1 goes, rutgers playing rhode island in the playoff round? thats really bad

[MBurke]

the seeding in my opinion was horrible, we went 3-0 and got a 5th seed doesnt make sense, what is the point of the round robin if thats the case, regardless all the quarter games were hard but how would central mich an west chester get seeded ahead of us considering they both went 2-0-1 in the round robin.

The point of the round robin is to give that group of reps from each region as much info as possible to try to compare strength of teams. Ever play in a tournament and get that "unfair" pool where all of the teams are stacked? That's what we're trying to mitigate by having a democratic seeding process with all the regions involved. They're not perfect; they never will be.

WCU and CMU tied each other - judging by the game results in the elimination round, seeding them in the top 4 was pretty accurate, as both made it that far.


and as far as d1 goes, rutgers playing rhode island in the playoff round? thats really bad

I'm curious; in what way is it worse than PSU playing Stony Brook or Buffalo playing West Point? ECRHA teams had to win first-round games to set up all those regional matchups.

[alex]

At least in the seeding meeting I went to, more than anything, emphasis was put on avoiding teams playing each other that had just played in round robin at the tournament. After that the emphasis was on avoiding matching up teams from the same region but that can only be avoided for so long. Eventually you're going to have to play each other if teams from the same region keep winning.

I've never seen anything like the seeding committee before and after participating in one and thinking about it, I think too much emphasis was put on regular season/regionals performance. I don't think a team with a 2-0-1 record should be seeded ahead of a 3-0 team because they did better in the regular season for example. I definitely see the benefits of the seeding committee as opposed to simply seeding by tiebreakers like goals against. It can help balance out the fact that pools can't possibly be even. And it gives the opportunity to avoid, as much as possible, having inter-region matchups and rematches from round robin, by simply switching a team from the high 7 seed to the low 7 seed for example.

[RowanPhil]

[/QUOTE]
WCU and CMU tied each other - judging by the game results in the elimination round, seeding them in the top 4 was pretty accurate, as both made it that far.[/QUOTE]



yea but maybe it would have been different with different seedings, the 3-0 teams the top 3 seeds makes sense. if your going to look at regular season rowan beat neumann. was that taken into consideration?

[socalhockey]

Bottom line, the seedings system is in need of a major overhaul. There is no way that anyone can justify putting all 4 West Coast teams in the same bracket. Remember this is the division that received six National bids and was by far the most competitive region in the NCRHA. The only way any team from the west could make it to the final four they would have first have to beat one of the other west coast teams and then beat Lindenwood. I guess the fact that UCI made it to the final four last year did not sit well with the powers to be, so they made sure that it wouldn't happen again this year.


No worries though, I assure you that the West will be back. And hopefully it will be played out on our turf in San Jose that way if we have to play each other again, at least we won't have to fly across the country to do it.

What a joke!!!!!

Congratulations to USML on an impressive year and Nationals victory. I guess just as with the Yankees money can't always buy a championship!

[topshelf]

I absolutely agree. There is no way that anyone can justify putting all 4 West Coast teams in the same bracket. How can Rhode Island receive a higher bid then Long Beach when they lost to them? For the West Coast to have made the final four, one of them had to beat Lindenwood in the Quarter finals. After they beat up on each other first. UNLV mercies a team in the first round and then has to face Long Beach, who they had played all year long.

Bottom line, the seeding system needs to be revamped, as many of the seedings made absolutely no sense at all. They also proved that the round robin play means very little as it pertains to seedings.

Congratulations to UMSL on slaying the giant. I mean the Lion!

[William Bourque]

There is no way that anyone can justify putting all 4 West Coast teams in the same bracket. Remember this is the division that received six National bids and was by far the most competitive region in the NCRHA.

Yea i think the west got a raw deal with all four teams in the same bracket, but at the same time, i think you need to remember that the ECRHA had 7 teams and all made the round of 16. From there, Buffalo knocked out Rhode Island and URI knocked out Rutgers. Penn State knocked out Stony Brook and Buffalo knocked out West Point. Towson was knocked out by Lindenwood, and Buffalo was knocked out by UMSL. The ECRHA was the deepest league in all three divisions (not taking away from the GP in DI) and pretty much dominated the tournament. Oh and Towson beat UCSB, the west champion, 3-2.

[HockCity21]

I also think that the seeding wasn't done too well. At least from an ECRHA perspective I think were the first mistake was made was in the pool selection. Stony Brook which was realistically probably the 4th or 5th best team in the ECRHA this year got a pretty easy pool and went 3-0 which earned them a bye. Rutgers, Towson, and URI had much harder pools. Then to seed Buffalo, URI, and Rutgers who have been the top 3 teams all year long in the same quarter of the bracket was also not too smart. We played URI in the second round and it was a great game but I don't think it should of happened until later in the tournament.

[rollerRocket]

Will someone please give the MCRHL a little respect?! MSU loses to Lindenwood in the Final Four in D1 and Grand Valley and Central Michigan play eachother in the D2 National Championship. Hats off to these teams on a great year.

[rowanhockey]

wcu lost in the quarters also and so did san diego which were top 4 seeds, im just seying missouri state made it to the semis, which we beat, regardless, it shouldnt go by what people think, it should go simply by record an goals against, we had the most points in the round robin an the lowest goals against and still were seeded 5th, how does that make sense,

[catch]

While it may be true that Rowan wound up seeded fifth I would say two things. 1) there was a lot of discussion about the very issues you raise as to being 30 versus 2-0-1 teams; and 2) after seeding was determined there were a number of shifts which were made to avoid inter-conference play and repeating pool play. We were (MSU) in the same pool as Rowan. A number of times it was brought up, not by me, that our pool was the most competitive. Ultimately, the 6th seed won the tournament. i don't think the seeding had as big of an impact as you think though. It was very clear that Neumann was #1 and UC San Diego #2. Thus, a 3 or 4 seed would have left Rowan with the same exact game it lost in only wearing a white jersey instead of a dark, i.e., the winners on both sides were 1,2,3 and 5 seeds. 2 was playing 3 either way. The team I was least happy with in terms of seeding was Truman State. I felt Truman should have been seeded 6th and Grand Valley 7th. Our region was out-voted on that by every other region despite my giving a long argument otherwise. Ironically, we had played both Grand Valley and Truman in the year and beat Grand Valley and were 1-0-1 against Truman. Had my theory prevailed perhaps the outcome would have been different. In hindsight i was wrong as Grand Valley clearly showed they were the best team. We beat them 3-2 in St. Louis in what I would describe as a dead even game. On Sunday they were not going to lose to us and they were the best team.

[RowanPhil]

that was the first time we were black all tournament...
and was the only loss we had.......

[GripperWheels]

Will someone please give the MCRHL a little respect?! MSU loses to Lindenwood in the Final Four in D1 and Grand Valley and Central Michigan play eachother in the D2 National Championship. Hats off to these teams on a great year.

No respect you get three bids and thats it. East coast gets SEVEN.
Looking at the schedules from other regions the other teams out of the MCRHL played D2, D3 and community colleges. padding there record or lack of with community college wins.

[GongMaster]

Maccomb was the only community college in the MCRHL. DII never played the DIII teams as they played against the B division. DI only played DII as exhibition. The schedule is setup the same in the MCRHL as any other region. They only got three bids. That is three bids out of the six total teams in DI of the MCRHL.

[Hiigh_Stick]

GripperWheels, you have no idea what you are talking about. haha

[rocksforhands]

The brackets for nationals could and should have been different. Pool play should determine your overall seed. It shouldn't make a difference who you played during the season,what region your in, and who is in your pool. If you go 3-0 you should be rewarded for that and not get moved down seeds because you already played a team. In D2 it should run like a top 16 seed tournament like a region in NCAA baseketball...(1vs16,8vs9 winners play each other...etc...)

[ISFN]

The #1 and #2 seeds on both sides of the D1 bracket advanced to the semis, that must mean something was done right. If it was the #3 vs #8 or something odd like that in semis then yes I would agree something needs to change but for the past 2 years (and maybe more I can't find data) the #1 seeds have advanced to the finals. Speaking for D1 of course.

[United Inline]

The #1 and #2 seeds on both sides of the D1 bracket advanced to the semis, that must mean something was done right. If it was the #3 vs #8 or something odd like that in semis then yes I would agree something needs to change but for the past 2 years (and maybe more I can't find data) the #1 seeds have advanced to the finals. Speaking for D1 of course.

Just for the record... it really wouldn't matter where you put a team like Lindenwood or UMSL in the bracket, they would advance the the final four anyway.