ECRHA D2 Regionals

[timholl3]

I am just wondering how everyone feels about the process for making it to regionals. To me, it seems kind of unfair to pick the 12 D2 teams with the most points because its known that certain divisions are stronger than others. In my opinion the Southern Conference is the best conference in the league, and all the teams in the division should be making regionals. However, Temple, Millersville and Shippensburg are struggling to get in because of how difficult their schedules are. Its tough to get points when you have the national champion, 4th ranked and 9th ranked teams in the country in one division. I think the only fair way to have regionals is to either make it a 16 team tourny or to have a selection committee like there is for nationals pick. Leave thoughts.

[William Bourque]

I am just wondering how everyone feels about the process for making it to regionals. To me, it seems kind of unfair to pick the 12 D2 teams with the most points because its known that certain divisions are stronger than others. In my opinion the Southern Conference is the best conference in the league, and all the teams in the division should be making regionals. However, Temple, Millersville and Shippensburg are struggling to get in because of how difficult their schedules are. Its tough to get points when you have the national champion, 4th ranked and 9th ranked teams in the country in one division. I think the only fair way to have regionals is to either make it a 16 team tourny or to have a selection committee like there is for nationals pick. Leave thoughts.

I think things are fine the way they are...

i wish that scheds were a little more balanced...but things can be perfect

[MAmato]

While I agree that those teams are pretty good, you can't really just blame the conference system because the schedules are unbalanced, even within conferences. Some teams have benefitted by getting better draws due to location or scheduling conflicts, and some have gotten shafted; such is life in any sport. Furthermore, what happens when it comes down to situations (like the one this season) where there's around 6 teams that are arguably equal? When team A narrowly beats team B who narrowly beats team C who beats team A, and all three teams are at risk of missing regionals, who should miss it?

Let's say we go to a 16 team bracket and do double-elimination. When that happens, the topic of complaint changes from teams not making regionals due to strength of conference to teams getting crappy seeds due to strength of conference. Doing a head to head comparison is impossible because we don't have a big enough number of games to get a good sample and avoid the situation of teams A,B, and C from above.

Conference strength shifts from year to year, and it's that way in pretty much every sport year in and year out. Somebody is always going to benefit in some way and someone is always going to get screwed.

[minveninato]

I am just wondering how everyone feels about the process for making it to regionals. To me, it seems kind of unfair to pick the 12 D2 teams with the most points because its known that certain divisions are stronger than others. In my opinion the Southern Conference is the best conference in the league, and all the teams in the division should be making regionals. However, Temple, Millersville and Shippensburg are struggling to get in because of how difficult their schedules are. Its tough to get points when you have the national champion, 4th ranked and 9th ranked teams in the country in one division. I think the only fair way to have regionals is to either make it a 16 team tourny or to have a selection committee like there is for nationals pick. Leave thoughts.

i def agree with to a certain point but if u have a 16 team double elimantion toruney then u have a few teams that shouldn't be there, granted i agree that all the teams in the south deserve to be there because they have had extremely tough schedules, but i don't think u can have 16 teams because then u have 3 or so teams that really shouldn't be there and remember there is only 17 teams in d 2 here in the east! 12 is a good number but u can't have almost every team make regionals thats not fair to the teams who got the job done in the regular season what happened say briarcliffe made it as the 16th seed (my team) with a record of 1-11-1 beat say neumann and eliminated them in the first round that would be awesome lol but thats not fair to neumann because they r what 15-0-1? and to lose to us because we came in second to last place thats really not fair to them

[William Bourque]

i def agree with to a certain point but if u have a 16 team double elimantion toruney then u have a few teams that shouldn't be there, granted i agree that all the teams in the south deserve to be there because they have had extremely tough schedules, but i don't think u can have 16 teams because then u have 3 or so teams that really shouldn't be there and remember there is only 17 teams in d 2 here in the east! 12 is a good number but u can't have almost every team make regionals thats not fair to the teams who got the job done in the regular season what happened say briarcliffe made it as the 16th seed (my team) with a record of 1-11-1 beat say neumann and eliminated them in the first round that would be awesome lol but thats not fair to neumann because they r what 15-0-1? and to lose to us because we came in second to last place thats really not fair to them

your point is correct, but could have done without the last point...

if there are 16 teams, and you win that game, its not that its not fair to neumann...if you beat them, thats good...what wouldnt be fair is making them play a game that could be potentially 15-0, ie Neumann-Ship...

the 12 teams is fine...i wish it was 8, double elimination, cause that would be more exciting and make the regular season much more important...

[dan sangiorgio]

I agree with the fact that being in the southern division is tough and could cost a good team a playoff spot. However i don't think adding teams is a good idea. i think we have too many teams making the playoffs as it is. having 9 teams(half of the teams in east) seems like a better number to me, keeping the same format we had last year. with 9 teams making it just one less round robin pool(instead of 4pools of the 3 we would have 3 pools of 3) and then having a 8v9 play in game after seeding the brackets. a 8 team double elimnation tourney i also feel would work. Also i think with less teams making the playoffs it puts less stress on regionals which i know many people have complained about the last two years i.e wenthworth not making nationals last year and ship the year before.

[William Bourque]

I agree with the fact that being in the southern division is tough and could cost a good team a playoff spot. However i don't think adding teams is a good idea. i think we have too many teams making the playoffs as it is. having 9 teams(half of the teams in east) seems like a better number to me, keeping the same format we had last year. with 9 teams making it just one less round robin pool(instead of 4pools of the 3 we would have 3 pools of 3) and then having a 8v9 play in game after seeding the brackets. a 8 team double elimnation tourney i also feel would work. Also i think with less teams making the playoffs it puts less stress on regionals which i know many people have complained about the last two years i.e wenthworth not making nationals last year and ship the year before.

couldnt agree more

[MBurke]

Flawed logic, I think.

Having only 8 teams make it only makes the problem of conference and schedule strength worse. Here's the playoff teams if the season were to end today:

Neumann, Stony Brook, Hofstra, Drexel, West Chester, Maine, Cornell, Brockport.

One could make a pretty good argument that deserving teams are left out under that system.

The advantages of the system we are using this year as opposed to the one used the past couple years?

1. 3 Round-Robin games per team (4-team brackets) means a single loss in the round-robin doesn't necessarily doom you to a terrible seed in the elimination round based on one game. See the past DII elimination round for some proof of how the playoff brackets can end up completely lopsided based on one game played at the end of the season.

2. A shorter elimination round (more traditional tournament-style format) means that the 3-game round robin actually counts for a lot, since you need to do well in that (finish top 2 in your pool) to move on. One game won't doom you, but two games probably will. Since fewer teams make it to the elimination round, there's less chance of a team losing one game in an early round and missing out on nationals entirely when they should be there (see Rutgers last year).

Nothing's ideal, really, short of having a 3-game series for each round. Any double-elim tournament larger than 8 teams runs too long, and only taking 8 teams with the current disparity in conference strength and relatively short regular season is sure to generate complaints, too.

One of the things we're going to do at the meeting in March is to actually split you up into divisional groups to vote on how you want to do this kind of stuff by division next year.

[JimmyCruse]

What teams from the ECRHA should be at nationals this year?

[tadams97]

While I agree that those teams are pretty good, you can't really just blame the conference system because the schedules are unbalanced, even within conferences. Some teams have benefitted by getting better draws due to location or scheduling conflicts, and some have gotten shafted; such is life in any sport.

Conference strength shifts from year to year, and it's that way in pretty much every sport year in and year out. Somebody is always going to benefit in some way and someone is always going to get screwed.

Amen to that..... seeing how Ship and Ville could possibly not make regionals while Cornell can with a draw of playing Scranton, Briarcliff, & Duquesne twice each and having a forfeit win served on a plate.....

[RustyPipes27]

Handle your business and getting in won't be an issue. If you're not in the top half of the league, you probably shouldn't be going to any form of postseason. No offense to those teams that might miss the cut, but a line needs to be drawn somewhere.

[MAmato]

...except that in my example, we tied Brockport who lost to Maine who beat you who beat us who lost to Maine by one. I would dare say that we are in the neighborhood of teams like Maine and Brockport, whom nobody questions as a regionals pick! We had a relatively light out of conference schedule but 2 games v Wentworth should have balanced that out. Unfortunately, nobody could have seen them dropping when they made the schedule.

You guys are a good team and I hope to see you in Regionals (especially since you walked all over us), but I'm not about to agree that my team doesn't deserve to be there.

[minveninato]

Amen to that..... seeing how Ship and Ville could possibly not make regionals while Cornell can with a draw of playing Scranton, Briarcliff, & Duquesne twice each and having a forfeit win served on a plate.....

yea Cornell had a little bit of a weaker schedule then u guys but i wouldn't say its because they played duqense, briarcliffe and scranton 2 times each duquesne , i mean duquense can be a fiesty team and is def not and easy just look at their losses to brockport 4-2, temple 8-5 and 4-3 and they tied cornell 7-7 so thats def not an easy win, and as for briarcliffe were certainly not a team that has been walked over this year we have had a very tough schedule and had a lot of close games millersville 7-3( thats was a lost closer then the score was) temple 9-7, cornell 2-1, albany 5-3, shipp 9-8, maine 5-3 and then we tied cornell and yea we gotten blown out in a fewe other games but we were in most of them for 2 periods and fell apart in the 3rd and as u can ask most of the teams we have played were certainly not a pushover by any means. Cornell won the games they should have won and thats what good teams do so yea they deserve to be at regionals!

[Leaferguy]

Cornell won the games they should have won and thats what good teams do so yea they deserve to be at regionals!

My sentiments exactly.

The same tough in-conference teams you play during the regular season will be at Regionals, so just getting there doesn't mean you'll walk. Yes, anything can happen and there are always upsets, but a good team will be good now and then.

Just as you see it not being fair for Cornell to play an "easy" schedule, it's not fair that they not make it due to their "easy" schedule. They're a good team and have progressed far since last year. Let them have the shot they've earned.

[minveninato]

with all this talk about regionals and about teams not deserving to be there and everything about teams having weaker schedules then others and not enough regular season games i was thinking instead of have 5 or 6 exhibiton games y not have those games become regular season? like the pre season toruney where it is mandatory for every team to be there y not have every team play teams not in their division like they already do and have them count as a regualr season games and thats an extra 3 or 4 games for ur regular season record and the 2 exhibiton games throughout the season be regualr season games and that gives a 22 game regualr season schedule instead of a 16 game schedule and thats an extra 6 games! just an idea any thoughts on it?