Tag Archives: Ohio State

What to watch for in PWR this weekend

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This article looks at the most interesting outcomes of games this weekend, with a focus on what PWR might look like next Monday. If you want a more general analysis of the remaining regular season and NCAA tournament likelihood, check out the article, NCAA tournament outlook as conferences enter final regular season weekend, and the table, Wins needed to likely end regular season at PWR rank.

Biggest upside potential

#20 Wisconsin, visiting the red hot #4 Gophers in Minneapolis, has an opportunity to surge. The Badgers could climb to the 9-11 range with a sweep (as high as 7 is realistic), but will likely just stay put if swept. Of course, in the long run staying put is not good enough for the Badgers who needs 3-4 wins in their final 6 games to climb to the bubble (see NCAA tournament outlook).

#18 Boston College has a similar opportunity facing #8 Mass.-Lowell for a home-and-home series. Sweeping would provide a broad range of possible outcomes, from #8-#15 quite possible. Getting swept would likely result in a modest decline to the 19-20 range.

Biggest downside potential

As past readers of these articles know, just as teams around #20 usually have the most upside potential, teams around #10 usually have the most potential to fall.

#10 Cornell faces the most downside potential, with ranks 15-21 possible if swept by Rensselaer and Union. Given that these are the last two games of the regular season for Cornell, that would put the Big Red firmly on the bubble.

#9 Providence faces a similar outlook, with ranks 15-20 possible with a pair of losses to Massachusetts.

All of #8 Mass.-Lowell, #11 Penn State, #12 St Cloud St, #13 Ohio St, and #14 North Dakota face similar chances of a slightly more modest plunge with a pair of losses. Only Mass.-Lowell’s regular season ends this weekend, so others would have some opportunity to recover.

Top seeds?

#1 Denver and #2 Minnesota-Duluth each look unlikely to leave the weekend outside of the 1-3 range, regardless of outcome, and one of the two is almost certain to come out #1. Denver doesn’t quite control its own destiny, as Minnesota-Duluth stands about a 10% chance of sneaking into #1 even if both sweep. Other teams fighting for spots in the top 4 this weekend are #3 Harvard, #4 Minnesota, #5 Western Michigan, and #6 Boston University.

Methodology

Forecasts include the results of games played through Tuesday of this week.

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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This weekend’s big PWR movers

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As the weekend game results come in during the final few weeks of conference play, college hockey fans start watching the PairWise Rankings tables for big moves that might push teams into, or out of, position for an at-large bid. Here are the teams most likely to be cited on forums and in tweets this weekend for “surprisingly” large moves.

Don’t look down

#14 Penn State is unlikely to benefit much from a pair of wins over #40 Ohio State, but would likely plummet to about #20 (as low as #24 is realistically possible) if swept.

pennstate

Surprise! #15 St. Lawrence could climb just a little with a pair of wins over #10 Yale and #53 Brown, but is facing steep decline to the #22-24 range with a pair of losses (or a more modest decline with a single loss).

stlawrence

#17 Rensselaer won’t move much if they defeat #1 Quinnipiac and #55 Princeton, but face a steep decline of about 9 ranking positions if they drop both.

stlawrence

Going up?

#23 Minnesota Duluth, which I already noted is facing significant upside potential with a visit to #3 North Dakota, could surge to the #14-16 range if they hand the Fighting Hawks a second consecutive conference sweep. Even a single win would likely result in a noticeable climb.

duluth

#25 Robert Morris could excite fans with a likely move into the teens with a pair of wins over #30 Air Force. But remember, they’d need a repeat performance against Canisius next weekend to avoid giving that ground right back.

robertmorris

Friday morning’s PWR headlines today

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There are two Big Ten games today, so while people will be poring over PWR tables and running simulations tonight, I’ll predict their headlines now:

[OSU or Penn St] and [Michigan or UW] advance in first round of Big Ten tournament, knocking [Penn St or OSU] and [UW or Michigan] out of NCAA contention. Share of remaining scenarios in which Minnesota advances with one win [cut in half/double].

That is pretty much it. The primary tournament effects appear to be that the teams that lose are eliminated, which you probably already knew. The possibilities of other teams advancing in certain scenarios will shift a few percentage points here and there, with the only significant shift being Minnesota’s chance of advancing with 1 win going from 35% as of now to 50-55% if Michigan wins or 16-18% if Wisconsin wins.

No teams other than those playing today seem to have any potential scenarios closed off as a result of today’s action.