Certianly, Michigan didn’t do us any favors with their 7-1 thrashing of Penn State last night, but did the loss kill any hope of the Nittany Lions getting an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament? If you’ve read some of my early posts this week (Do we have to sweep Michigan?), you already know that the answer to that question is NO.
Here’s why.
First, let’s take a look at what the loss did do to us in the Pairwise rankings. Here’s the current top 21, which includes all of the teams that I had in contention before yesterday’s games.
- North Dakota
- Quinnipiac
- St. Cloud State
- Boston College
- Providence
- Denver
- Michigan
- Boston University
- Yale
- Notre Dame
- Mass.-Lowell
- Harvard
- Minnesota-Duluth
- Michigan Tech
- Northeastern
- Nebraska-Omaha
- Cornell
- Penn State
- St. Lawrence
- Minnesota State
- Minnesota
We sit at #18 which, given that only 16 teams make the field, is clearly on the outside looking in. But, that’s exactly where we were before last night’s games. The opportunity to move up is still there, although we certainly have fewer games with which to do so, which now means there is no margin for error. Our loss was nowhere near as devastating as Minnesota’s for example. Minnesota was bested by Wisconsin, which dropped them from just ahead of us a #17 all the way to #21. They are out of the running for an at-large and must win the Big Ten tournament in order to get a bid. Penn State, on the other hand, still has two opportunities, i.e. win their next three games, which should put them in a decent spot for an at-large, or win three straight at the Big Ten tournament, which will give them the automatic bid. Either one of those will definitely be a long shot, but all hope is not lost.
First and foremost, of course, is to win tonight’s game (lose that one and winning the b10 tournament does become our only option). Let’s analyze what a win tonight will do for us. Basically, the top 12 teams are pretty much guaranteed bids to the tournament at this junction. Two additional bids will be handed out to the winners of the Atlantic Hockey and the WCHA tournaments. That leaves two at large bids that the rest of the teams are fighting for. That number could be reduced if a team from outside the top 16 wins a conference tournament, with Minnesota being the most likely candidate to pull off said upset. For the time being, we’ll just assume that there aren’t any tournament upset winners.
A standalone analysis of a Penn State win over Michigan tonight would show us moving up to #16 in the Pairwise rankings, a jump of two spots. That’s a nice move, but still not enough to put us inside the bubble. Of course, things don’t happen in a vacuum. There are another 20 games going on (all of them being the second game of best of three quarterfinals in conference tournaments, i.e four games in each of five conferences). The results of those games will have an impact on our standing.
So, let’s do a couple of analyses. First, let’s assume that all of the conference tournament games get closed out tonight. In other words, every team that won last night, wins again tonight. In a way, that’s a worst case scenario for PSU. It’s basically one where all the teams that are immediately around us win. Here’s how the Pairwise, from #13 on, would look.
- Minnesota-Duluth
- Northeastern
- Michigan Tech
- Penn State
- Nebraska-Omaha
- Cornell
- St. Lawrence
- Dartmouth
- Minnesota State
- Minnesota
At #16, we’d still be on the outside looking in, but we’d still be in a lot better shape that we are this morning. Also, because Michigan Tech, the team immediately in front of us, is from the WCHA, a one-bid conference, we would actually be the last team out if the bids were to go out tonight. We would only need to pass either Minnesota-Duluth or Northeaster to be back inside the bubble.
So what’s the chance of catching either of those teams? Not so good for tonight, but much better down the pike. Ideally, they would drop a game tonight, then lose the rubber match tomorrow. I can’t run the numbers but I feel fairly comfortable, that if either, or both, of those lose their series, then we would catch them this weekend. And even if they win their series this weekend, they likely face an even bigger hurdle next weekend with Duluth getting #1 Omaha and Northeastern getting defending national champ Providence. If either of those teams lose their semifinals next week, I think we can catch them with two wins in the Big Ten tournament.
So, we’re not out of this quite yet.
Your rooting interests tonight are clear:
- Penn State over Michigan
- Notre Dame over Northeastern
- Miami over Minnesota-Duluth
The rest I wouldn’t worry too much about.