The end of last season pointed up three issues with the format. The Ryerson Rams ended up with the No. 1 seed for the Wilson Cup men's playoffs since a loss to the Guelph Gryphons did not factor into the RPI. The Gryphons, at 9-10, did not make the playoffs since they were fourth in the OUA Central whilst Laurier (9-11), Laurentian (6-13) and Toronto (5-14) got inside the velvet rope. That was not right.
To its credit, OUA is rectifying that for 2016-17, as CANhoops related:
- All games count in crunching the RPI;
- The top 12 teams in RPI, regardless of division, make the playoffs.
It's a good idea to have it in OUA when the West division plays 20 games and everyone else plays 19. However, it can favour the teams that are in a division with one or two of the usual suspects (Carleton, Ottawa and the Rams). It can also affect an team from the West that has one-fifth of its schedule against expansion Algoma and rebuilding Waterloo.
A third tweak would have been to half-weight divisional games. Maybe next year, eh. Two changes is a good start.
The men's and women's schedules are online. Of note, Final 8 host Dalhousie will be in the GTA on the first weekend of October for some non-conf. action.
0 comments:
Post a Comment