Volatility on the edge of TUC

This article was silly and probably not worth a mention but I couldn’t resist. Yep, the Pairwise Rankings are volatile and unpredictable, I think that is why the Pairwise Rankings were made to look at after all of the games have been played, to include the conference playoffs. It doesn't hurt to take a look, but they will change.

USCHO.COM --- Robert Morris’ loss Thursday night to Canisius had a big effect on North Dakota’s PairWise ranking. The Colonials dropped as a Team Under Consideration (TUC) when their RPI fell below .500 in the 5–4 defeat. That cost the Fighting Sioux two wins against TUC (causing them to lose that comparison against Denver) and a few decimal points in RPI (causing them to lose the RPI comparison vs. Boston College), moving North Dakota to fifth in the PairWise and out of an NCAA regional No. 1 seed.

Why does this matter now? Because it has implications for the final few games of the season. Robert Morris is likely to stay right around .500 in the RPI as it battles for its first AHA title. The Colonials could return as a TUC with a decent regular-season finish and a successful Atlantic Hockey playoff run.

North Dakota fans may find themselves keeping tabs on Atlantic Hockey playoff results to see whether those two wins against RoMo at the Ralph in January will help the Sioux or not.

I think that I can predict that Sioux fans probably won’t be watching Robert Morris University or the AHA playoffs. It would probably be like watching paint dry. Yeah the Fighting Sioux are on a bye week and with the loss of Robert Morris on Thursday night The Sioux did drop to 5th in the Pairwise Rankings but the next night they moved back up to second in the pairwise rankings. If you want good analysis on the Pairwise Ranking check out Jim Dahl of Sioux Sports, Jim is the PWR master.