Sunday, February 21, 2010

Where We Stand

Men

The Engineers are in a 4th place tie with Colgate with 22 points. Colgate technically wins the tiebreaker right now with a head-to-head victory over RPI, but the teams play each other on Friday. If Colgate wins or there is a tie, Colgate wins the tiebreaker. If the Engineers win, they would win the 3rd tiebreaker on record vs. Top 4 regardless of the outcome of their game with Cornell on Friday (Colgate posted no wins against Yale, Cornell, Union, or St. Lawrence, RPI beat Yale twice, who are guaranteed a Top 4 finish).

The Engineers can clinch a first round bye on Friday with a win AND a St. Lawrence loss to Dartmouth. They are eliminated from contention for the bye with a loss.

RPI cannot finish any higher than 4th, but cannot fall any lower than 6th. The only teams that can have an impact on the Engineers' finishing position are Colgate, St. Lawrence, and Quinnipiac.

St. Lawrence is in 6th place with 21 points, one point behind the Engineers. They win the head-to-head tiebreaker with RPI due to their 3-1 season series win, but RPI can be seeded ahead of SLU with the same number of points if they both tie Quinnipiac for 5th place thanks to the Bobcats' sweep of the Saints.

Quinnipiac is in 7th place with 18 points, four points behind the Engineers. Because of the RPI season sweep of the Bobcats, QU cannot pass RPI in the seedings, and would lose the only potential three-way tie for 5th with St. Lawrence (although they would beat the Saints in that scenario to claim the #6 seed).

Yale, Cornell, and Union have clinched first-round byes and will all finish in the Top 3. Yale currently holds the #1 seed with 30 points. If there is a winner in Friday's Cornell-Union game, that team will win the tiebreaker and secure at least second place. Cornell wins the tiebreaker on total ECAC wins in the event of a tie.

Clarkson will finish in last place for the first time in program history and will travel to Colgate, Quinnipiac, RPI, or St. Lawrence for the first round, depending on who finishes in 5th.

With a 4th place finish, the Engineers would potentially host Colgate or any team currently ranked below them in the standings with the exception of Clarkson in the 2nd round.

With a 5th place finish, the Engineers would host Clarkson in the first round and would potentially travel to either Colgate or St. Lawrence in a 2nd round matchup.

With a 6th place finish, the Engineers would potentially host Quinnipiac, Harvard, Brown, Princeton, or Dartmouth in the first round, and would potentially travel to Cornell, Union, Colgate, or St. Lawrence in a 2nd round matchup.

Yale, at this time, is the only team that RPI cannot possibly face in the playoffs until Albany at the earliest.

Full tiebreaker situations:
RPI-Colgate:
  • Colgate win or tie on Friday: Colgate, RPI
  • RPI win on Friday: RPI, Colgate
RPI-St. Lawrence: St. Lawrence, RPI

RPI-Quinnipiac: RPI, Quinnipiac

RPI-Colgate-St. Lawrence: St. Lawrence, (see RPI/Colgate tiebreaker)

RPI-St. Lawrence-Quinnipiac: RPI, Quinnipiac, St. Lawrence

Women

The Engineers finished in a tie for 5th place with Princeton, winning the 3rd tiebreaker with a better record against the top 4 teams (Cornell, Clarkson, Harvard, and Quinnipiac) to become the #5 seed in the ECAC playoffs. They will travel to #4 Quinnipiac next weekend.

Cornell clinched sole possession of the regular season championship with their win over Union. If they defeat #8 Colgate next weekend, the ECAC Semifinals and Championship will take place in Ithaca.

In the unlikely event of a road team sweep, the ECAC Semifinals and Championship would be held in Troy, although that may not be assured if the men's team could be hosting a playoff series that weekend.

With a series victory this weekend, there are situations where the Engineers would be matched up with any of the other six teams in the semifinals. Cornell cannot face Clarkson or Harvard until the championship game.

Playoff pairings:
#8 Colgate at #1 Cornell
#7 St. Lawrence at #2 Clarkson
#6 Princeton at #3 Harvard
#5 RPI at #4 Quinnipiac

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.