Face Off Tackle Empire // Weekend Roundup 3/14/16

Weekend Review

Minnesota clinched the regular season crown. Again.  The Gophers have won all three B1G regular season crowns and an NCAA record tying 5 straight conference titles.  Their Friday loss to Wisconsin, as well as unfavorable results in other conferences, eliminated any hope for an At-Large berth in the NCAA Tournament.  Michigan swept Penn State, but finished 1 point out of first, the Wolverines have locked a spot in the NCAA tournament no matter what happens this weekend in St. Paul.  All other schools must win the Conference Tournament to go dancing.  Ohio State finished strong, taking points in their last 7 games and finishing 3 points out of third and 1 point below 50%.  Penn State really struggled as the season wore on, losing 22 of 36 points in their last 6 conference series.  Wisconsin was able to earn 4 more points than last season.  Only MSU had a worse record this year, earning 16 less points in 2016.  UNO was swept by Denver, eliminating them from both the NCHC tournament and an NCAA berth.  The Mavericks total collapse in 2016 means they won't have a chance to avenge their National Title Game loss from a year ago.

I was celebrating a friends bachelor party this weekend so I only caught the tail end of Friday's Wisconsin-Minnesota game.  I'm only going to link to the recaps and box scores again this week so I can start prepping for Big Ten Hockey Tournament #Content.  The B1G approved my media credentials to cover all 5 games at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul for OTE.  I will be live tweeting/game threading as the tournament goes on.

Penn State and Wisconsin face off Thursday afternoon with the winner facing Minnesota Friday evening.  Ohio State and Michigan State will finish things off Thursday night with the winner facing Michigan Friday afternoon.  The Championship Game will take place Saturday evening.  Look for a full tourney preview on Thursday with game threads and updated previews as the tournament progresses.

Ohio State Buckeyes @ Michigan State Spartans

Friday (USCHO)
Saturday (USCHO)

(14) Penn State Nittany Lions @ (9) Michigan Wolverines

Friday (USCHO)
Saturday (USCHO)

Wisconsin Badgers @ (19) Minnesota Golden Gophers

Friday (USCHO)
Saturday (USCHO)

(17) Nebraska Omaha Mavericks @ (6) Denver Pioneer

Friday (USCHO)
Saturday(USCHO)

Conference Standings

An overtime loss counts as a loss and no points are earned. If both teams are tied after the five minute OT period, the game goes down as a tie and both teams earn a point. A shootout follows a tie with the winner earning a second point. A shootout "win" counts as a tie, not a win in the standings and for NCAA Tournament seeding purposes. Total wins are used as the primary tie-breaker.  If teams have the same number of wins, head to head record is used.

KRACH Ratings, KRACH Rank, Pairwise Rank

Update on 3/14/2016 @ 8 PM EST

There are 60 teams in college hockey. The PairWise mirrors the selection process for the NCAA tournament. The top 16 teams are selected for the tourney. Conference tournament champions get auto-bids so teams rated 11-16 can be displaced if a lower ranked team wins its conference tournament.

Points, Elimination numbers, KRACH Projections, and Last Years Points

Change in expected conference points:

MN -1.49
MI +2.31
PSU -2.31
OSU +0.48
MSU -0.48
WI +1.49

Conference Table

Green boxes mean that the team in the row is ahead of the team in the column. Red means the team in the column is ahead. Blue means the teams have split points. Once a season series is completed, the color will be darker, the points will be bold, and the box will have a thicker border. Column on the right shows the points gained by a team. Row on the bottom shows the points lost by a team.

KRACH Projection Review

Let's see how the projections went this week:

And how teams did compared to the KRACH expectations: