Tag Archives: Miami

This weekend’s big PWR movers

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Sorry for the lateness and any errors, had to crank this one out in a hurry…

More upside than you might expect

Not this week. Usually a team or two in the mid-20s have the opportunities for jumps approaching 10 spots. Plenty of teams in that range have the chance to jump about 5 spots, maybe even 6 if all goes well, but anything approaching a 10 spot jump from a team of any consequence is very unlikely.

More downside than you might expect

The high teens is a tough place to be this time of year.

#14 Penn State, idle last weekend but on the list of potential big drops two weeks ago, is in familiar territory — win 2 to stay in place, or be prepared to fall. A 10 spot drop to #24 is possible.

pennstate

#15 Minnesota-Duluth, which jumped 10 spots (as predicted) with an impressive pair of wins last weekend, doesn’t have much upside potential but stands to give back its ground if it doesn’t keep up its winning streak. An 11 spot drop to #26 is possible.

minnduluth

#16 Minnesota, which was also on last week’s potential big drop list, finds itself there again. Two wins won’t do much for the Gophers, but losses could result in up to a 9 spot drop to #25.

minnesota

#17 Michigan Tech, #18 Miami, and #20 Cornell also face potentially significant drops of up to 7-8 positions if they lose 2. They each, however, face more normal upside potential with success.

mtech

miami

cornell

This weekend’s big PWR movers

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Looking up!

As mentioned in yesterday’s PWR outlook article, all the teams from #20 St. Lawrence to #26 Clarkson have the potential to climb into the teens this weekend. But, #25 Minnesota-Duluth and #26 Clarkson, in particular, have the potential to make huge jumps.

The #25 Bulldogs could find themselves as high as #14, a jump of 11 spots, with a sweep of #2 St. Cloud St. Most likely with a sweep is a still unusual climb of 8-9 positions to #16-17.

duluth

#26 Clarkson could find itself as high as 16 with wins over Dartmouth and Harvard, though #19-21 are more likely. The likely outcomes for Clarkson with two wins cover a surprising #16-#23 span. Clarkson’s outcome with two wins would rest a lot on other games, with the Golden Knights cheering for sweeps from Alaska Anchorage over Minnesota St, St. Cloud St over Minnesota-Duluth, Maine over Northeastern, Alaska over Michigan Tech, and Canisius over Robert Morris.

clarkson

Going down?

Every team in the #14-22 range, except idle #15 Penn State, could fall more than five positions with a pair of losses. #14 Cornell, #17 Miami, #18 Michigan Tech, and #16 Minnesota are facing particularly steep falls.

Cornell could see itself fall as low as #24 with losses to Rensselaer and Union, though the spread of likely outcomes stretches a huge span of 17-24.

cornell

Miami faces a steep drop to as low as #29 if swept by Colorado College, with a still significant drop to 26-27 most likely.

miami

Michigan Tech could find itself as low as #28 if they drop a pair to Alaska, though #24-26 are more likely.

mtech

If Minnesota gets swept by Michigan, it will face a broad range of potential outcomes that stretches as low as #25. #19-23 are all reasonably likely in that scenario.

minnesota

With two weeks until conference tournaments begin, teams on the bubble need to get hot

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Picking up where I left off yesterday, in A few top teams are starting to look like locks for the NCAA tournament, those teams currently ranked #10 and below in the PWR need to do some work to ensure being positioned for an NCAA tournament bid.

If #10 Yale and below lose more than they win, they risk going into conference tournaments in the teens and having to glue themselves to this blog. #11 Boston University and #12 Harvard have very similar outlooks to Yale, each with 4 scheduled regular season games remaining, and each wanting two wins to maintain their current position.

yale

#13 Mass.-Lowell can also maintain its current position, or slip slightly, with a pair of wins. But, that would leave them squarely on the bubble going into conference tournament play.

masslowell

Because the Big Ten regular season extends later into March, #14 Penn State has 6 games remaining. But, the Nittany Lions need 4 wins to make maintaining their #14 ranking the most likely outcome.

pennstate

#15 St. Lawrence has kept me in business this year, with a wild ride from #10 in my inaugural January article, down to as low as #27 at the end of January. I noted back in January that they would need to win about 9 of their last 10 to go into the conference tournament on the bubble. After a 5-0-1 run, the Saints are still positioned for a #13-14 ranking with no more losses, or a #15-16 ranking with one loss.

stlawrenceride

stlawrence

The #16 Minnesota Gophers have 6 games remaining, and most likely need 5 wins just to maintain that ranking going into the conference tournament.

That should be no surprise, as all the way back on January 6, I published a chart on Minnesota that suggested Minnesota needed to win about 12 of its remaining 16 to end up ranked #15-16. Including two additional tournament games, Minnesota has gone 8-4 over that period, leaving them little room for additional losses.

minnesota

#17 Rensselaer, #18 Cornell, #19 Michigan Tech, #20 Miami, #21 Dartmouth, and #22 Clarkson all need to win out to be most likely to end the regular season in the #13-14 range.

rpi

clarkson

#23 Minnesota-Duluth has a bit more wiggle room, with a finish in the #14-16 range likely with even just 4 wins in its remaining 6 games. The Bulldogs have the notable RPI improvement possibility, and challenge, of playing #2 St. Cloud and #3 North Dakota on the road.

In late January, I suggested that the Bulldogs would need to win 8/9 out of their final 11 to end up in the 14-16 range. In the interim, they’ve delivered a 3-2 performance, so it’s a modest upside surprise that they might be able to afford two more losses.

minnesotaduluth

Playoff cutline movers

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It’s been three weeks since my first look at the 2016 cutlines, in which I identified five different tranches of teams. With most teams having played about 6 games and having about 10 remaining, some have managed to noticeably shift their fates.

The article noted that no one was safe (which is still true), but that 1-11 would be fine as long as they didn’t slump with performances approaching .500.

#9 Nebraska-Omaha (then #3) is demonstrating just such a swing, with a 1-5 run since that article. They now need to win about 5 of the remaining 10 to stay on or above the bubble going into conference playoffs.

#14 Cornell (then #7) is also teetering on the edge following a 2-3-1 run. The Big Red need to take at least 6 of the remaining 10 for a chance to stay on the bubble at the end of the regular season.

#26 St. Lawrence (then #10) has plummeted with a 1-6 run, and now needs an improbable 9 out of 10 wins to get back into at-large position.

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cornell

stlawrence

The article also observed that the 12-19 teams were very much alive, and generally needed to win 60-80% of their games to stay positioned for an at-large bid. A 3-0-3 run has treated #7 Boston College well (rising from #16). An 0-3-2 run has treated #29 Union (formerly #18) poorly.

bc

Union

In the 20-26 block, which I noted is the lowest from which a team usually manages to break out for an at-large bid, #13 Denver has thus far delivered with a 5-0-1 run. The Pioneers need to keep up that success and win about 6 of the remaining 10 scheduled regular season games to go into the conference tournament on the bubble.

denver

I noted that 27-45 weren’t mathematically eliminated, but needed a near perfect season for a shot (and that those near the top were in much better shape than those near the bottom). Of that group, #22 Miami (then #28) has come the closest with a 3-1-1 performance that still leaves them needing near perfection for a shot at the bubble.

miami

From the 46-60 block, which I predicted needed to win the conference tournament for a bid, #27 Northeastern (formerly #49) has made the most noise with an unexpected 6-0 run (the Huskies were 3-12-4 until that run). However, even if they improbably maintain perfection over the remaining 9 scheduled games, the bubble still seems just on the edge of their reach.

northeastern

Methodology

Forecasts include the results of games played through Sunday of this week, unless otherwise noted.

Each forecast is based on at least one million monte carlo simulations of the games in the described period. For each simulation, the PairWise Ranking (PWR) is calculated and the results tallied. The probabilities presented in the forecasts are the share of simulations in which a particular outcome occurred.

The outcome of each game in each simulation is determined by random draw, with the probability of victory for each team set by their relative KRACH ratings. So, if the simulation set included a contest between team A with KRACH 300 and team B with KRACH 100, team A will win the game in very close to 75% of the simulations. I don’t simulate ties or home ice advantage.

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