Yale’s No. 1 ranking in last Monday’s USCHO.com Division I poll certainly generated a lot of controversy, at least judging by the comments left here on USCHO.
So while it’s probably a bit early to start making brackets for Bridgeport, Manchester, St. Louis and Green Bay, it’s not too early to take a look at the components that make up each ranking system. Perhaps voters will begin taking the computer rankings — at least the “official” PairWise and RPI — into account in making their decisions.
One thing that does bear out the opinions of the poll voters: Yale sits atop both the PairWise and RPI (and the entertainment-only, non-official KRACH.) But the opinions of those who feel Yale hasn’t faced a tough schedule — particularly supporters of Minnesota-Duluth or North Dakota at No. 1 — are also borne out by Yale’s middle-of-the-pack schedule strength.
In any case, with USCHO’s 2010-11 edition of all three computer rankings having been live for the past several days, we thought we’d point readers to the new, improved versions for this year. The biggest addition is the ability to sort columns: clicking on the column headers will allow you to see RPI, PWR or KRACH sorted by various parameters. It should make for some interesting discussions — especially strength of schedule.
Watch for bracketology discussions here on this blog through the latter half of the 2010-11 campaign, and later in the season, columns from our resident bracketologist, Jayson Moy.
By the way, USCHO also publishes a PairWise, RPI and KRACH for women’s D-I hockey, which is now live for 2010-11. For D-III men and women, a PairWise Comparison — showing the raw data used to select teams — and KRACH are published and are also now live. Links to all are found either in our main menu or in the side menus within the rankings section of the site.
