2025-2026 Badger Men's Hockey

Pittiful Performance against OSU. AT HOME!!!!! OSU has what 13 wins this year, and I think 4 are against Bucky.

I think Bucky is now on the last in slots of the tourney. If they drop in NPI because of their crappy performance they might be on the outside looking in.

Hopefully, Crease Creature can turn my frown upside down.

Read a little. Doubt, even Crease can find a silver lining
 
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Keg Man said:
Pittiful Performance against OSU. AT HOME!!!!! OSU has what 13 wins this year, and I think 4 are against Bucky.

I think Bucky is now on the last in slots of the tourney. If they drop in NPI because of their crappy performance they might be on the outside looking in.

Hopefully, Crease Creature can turn my frown upside down.

Read a little. Doubt, even Crease can find a silver lining
Click to expand...

Still pretty safely at 12, still at 99+% to make the field even after last night, still a chance to stay on the 3-line (85% to be 12 or higher), and will have to look at some other scenarios, but we should be fairly safe from any bid-stealers.

But it doesn't change the fact that last night was dreadful in every aspect and that there's no reason Ohio State should keep doing this to us over and over. I'm pretty sure since joining the B1G, the Buckeyes have ended our conference tournament run the most often.
 
I agree with you.

In fact, I've only personally seen 2 victories over Ohio State:

1) Lambeau (Thank Vince)
2) A long time ago in the Big 10 Tournament Championship Game in overtime

From what I've read it was a totally Wisconsin- we've read the press clippings and we're waltzing through this that devolved into stupidness and petty whiny penalties. I'm glad I couldn't watch it.

It is so sad how bad Wisconsin Men's Hockey has become.

Thank goodness that NPI is not subjective. I disagree we're a 99% lock. But, I'm not rooting for any underdogs
 
Keg Man said:
I agree with you.

In fact, I've only personally seen 2 victories over Ohio State:

1) Lambeau (Thank Vince)
2) A long time ago in the Big 10 Tournament Championship Game in overtime

From what I've read it was a totally Wisconsin- we've read the press clippings and we're waltzing through this that devolved into stupidness and petty whiny penalties. I'm glad I couldn't watch it.

It is so sad how bad Wisconsin Men's Hockey has become.

Thank goodness that NPI is not subjective. I disagree we're a 99% lock. But, I'm not rooting for any underdogs
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Looks like per the math the lowest we could end up falling would be 13th, and my guy says since 2002 the 13 overall has only missed the field twice.

Realistically, we'd need three unlikely teams to win their conferences AQ spot for us to fall out, and while that could happen it would be pretty wild for that to occur. We'll have to see how seeding works out, but there's a high chance we get a first round draw against North Dakota or Western Michigan.
 
If we had been struggling to get to our spot, I'd be completely with you.

It's just the horrible recent fall that has me doom and gloom. I'll be watching this weekend and hoping there are no upsets.

And, wow, North Dakota or Western Michigan. If we do get in, I'm not going to say it's one and done, because we'll probably beat them soundly. Then face some other team that won by an upset but that we are heavily favored over and take another dump.
 
Wisconsin is ranked 12 in NPI today. I don't know if yesterday's debacle was included. We could drop to 13 by selections. Hopefully not lower.

Possible Bid Thieves - Automatic Bid for Tournament Champion going to a team ranked below Wisconsin:

ECAC:
Princeton, St. Lawrence, Brown, Union, Yale, Colgate

HOCKEY EAST:
Connecticut, Massachusetts, Boston College, Maine, Northeastern, Boston University, Merrimack, UMass Lowell, New Hampshire, Vermont

CCHA:
All of them.

BIG TEN:
Them Ohio State,

NCHC:
None. All 4 remaining teams are already locked in to their NCAA slots and were ranked hire than Wisconsin.


16 teams get in:

CCHA:
Is taking 1 spot. leaving 15.

BIG TEN:
We need Michigan State to beat Ohio State Saturday 3/14. Actually, just need Ohio State to lose over the weekend, but I'd like to get it over with.

ECAC:
We need Quinnipiac, Cornell, or Dartmouth to win the Tourney.

HOCKEY EAST:
We need Providence to win the tourney.

We're probably going to need Providence to with Hockey East, and Quinnipiac, Cornell, or Dartmouth to win ECAC to be safely in.

It's a tough roller coaster ride when you're not even involved.
 
Here's a combo of what Grok and ChatGPT have to say about the 0.7% chance that we don't make it. I could not find anyone else doing this specifically for Wisconsin so hence the turning to the data analysis.

Why the miss probability is so low — and what the failing scenarios look likeWisconsin has no remaining games, so its base NPI is essentially locked (minor indirect effects can occur via opponents' records/strength-of-schedule adjustments in the NPI formula). The model shows it almost always stays high enough in the rankings for an at-large spot unless two rare things align in the same simulation:
  1. Tournament results shift the final NPI just enough that Wisconsin ends up ranked exactly 11th (occurs in 11% of all sims) or 12th (0.3% of sims). This requires specific outcomes affecting ratings calculations (e.g., certain bubble teams winning games or top teams losing in ways that tweak SOS metrics).
  2. Too few of the teams ranked higher than Wisconsin win their conference tournaments (i.e., claim AQ bids).
    • Wisconsin (always non-AQ) misses if there are ≥10 higher-NPI non-AQ teams (filling the 10 at-large spots ahead of it).
    • If it finishes #11 overall: This only happens if 0 of the top 10 win AQs.
    • If it finishes #12 overall: This happens if 0 or 1 of the top 11 win AQs.
These combinations are extremely rare because most top-NPI teams (from NCHC, Big Ten, Hockey East, ECAC, etc.) are strong favorites in their conferences. The simulations heavily weight outcomes toward "chalk" results.

collegehockeynews.com
Most likely scenarios among the 0.7% failures (ranked by relative probability in the model)The most probable paths to a miss (i.e., the ones that occur most often within the failing ~140/20,000 simulations) are those requiring the "least extreme" combination of variance:
  • Wisconsin's final NPI drops to exactly 11th (the larger bucket at 11% base probability) plus a complete sweep of upsets where none of the top 10 NPI teams win their conferences. This crowds the at-large pool with 10+ higher non-AQ teams. (The 0.3% #12 NPI cases contribute less overall, even if they need only 0–1 top teams taking AQ.)
  • These involve correlated upsets or deep runs by current bubble/lower teams (e.g., Augustana ~28% AQ chance in sims, UMass ~16%, UConn ~13%, St. Thomas ~24%, Minnesota State ~24%, Boston College ~11%) in their ongoing tournaments (CCHA, Hockey East, NCHC, ECAC, Atlantic Hockey, and Big Ten semifinals/finals). Such runs can slightly depress relative NPI positioning while preventing top teams from locking in AQs.

    collegehockeynews.com
In practice, this looks like a "perfect storm" of underdogs winning key playoff games across multiple conferences — far beyond typical variance. Nearby bubble teams have much lower make rates overall (e.g., Augustana 71%, UMass 36%, UConn 32%), underscoring how stable Wisconsin's position is.

espn.com
Bottom line: Wisconsin is a near-lock for an at-large bid unless the conference tournaments produce an extraordinary, low-probability cascade of upsets that both nudges its final NPI to the edge and leaves too many higher teams as non-AQs. CHN updates the matrix as games progress, but as of the latest run (post-Wisconsin's elimination), the 0.7% figure holds. The Badgers are overwhelmingly expected to be in the 16-team field when selections are announced.
 
Crease Creature said:
Here's a combo of what Grok and ChatGPT have to say about the 0.7% chance that we don't make it. I could not find anyone else doing this specifically for Wisconsin so hence the turning to the data analysis.

Why the miss probability is so low — and what the failing scenarios look likeWisconsin has no remaining games, so its base NPI is essentially locked (minor indirect effects can occur via opponents' records/strength-of-schedule adjustments in the NPI formula). The model shows it almost always stays high enough in the rankings for an at-large spot unless two rare things align in the same simulation:
  1. Tournament results shift the final NPI just enough that Wisconsin ends up ranked exactly 11th (occurs in 11% of all sims) or 12th (0.3% of sims). This requires specific outcomes affecting ratings calculations (e.g., certain bubble teams winning games or top teams losing in ways that tweak SOS metrics).
  2. Too few of the teams ranked higher than Wisconsin win their conference tournaments (i.e., claim AQ bids).
    • Wisconsin (always non-AQ) misses if there are ≥10 higher-NPI non-AQ teams (filling the 10 at-large spots ahead of it).
    • If it finishes #11 overall: This only happens if 0 of the top 10 win AQs.
    • If it finishes #12 overall: This happens if 0 or 1 of the top 11 win AQs.
These combinations are extremely rare because most top-NPI teams (from NCHC, Big Ten, Hockey East, ECAC, etc.) are strong favorites in their conferences. The simulations heavily weight outcomes toward "chalk" results.

collegehockeynews.com
Most likely scenarios among the 0.7% failures (ranked by relative probability in the model)The most probable paths to a miss (i.e., the ones that occur most often within the failing ~140/20,000 simulations) are those requiring the "least extreme" combination of variance:
  • Wisconsin's final NPI drops to exactly 11th (the larger bucket at 11% base probability) plus a complete sweep of upsets where none of the top 10 NPI teams win their conferences. This crowds the at-large pool with 10+ higher non-AQ teams. (The 0.3% #12 NPI cases contribute less overall, even if they need only 0–1 top teams taking AQ.)
  • These involve correlated upsets or deep runs by current bubble/lower teams (e.g., Augustana ~28% AQ chance in sims, UMass ~16%, UConn ~13%, St. Thomas ~24%, Minnesota State ~24%, Boston College ~11%) in their ongoing tournaments (CCHA, Hockey East, NCHC, ECAC, Atlantic Hockey, and Big Ten semifinals/finals). Such runs can slightly depress relative NPI positioning while preventing top teams from locking in AQs.

    collegehockeynews.com
In practice, this looks like a "perfect storm" of underdogs winning key playoff games across multiple conferences — far beyond typical variance. Nearby bubble teams have much lower make rates overall (e.g., Augustana 71%, UMass 36%, UConn 32%), underscoring how stable Wisconsin's position is.

espn.com
Bottom line: Wisconsin is a near-lock for an at-large bid unless the conference tournaments produce an extraordinary, low-probability cascade of upsets that both nudges its final NPI to the edge and leaves too many higher teams as non-AQs. CHN updates the matrix as games progress, but as of the latest run (post-Wisconsin's elimination), the 0.7% figure holds. The Badgers are overwhelmingly expected to be in the 16-team field when selections are announced.
Click to expand...

So you think you're convincing an old no mask wearing neanderthal with your ChatGP AI BS and Gronk? Gronk?

Ha Ha.

Hope you're right. I appreciate the efforts to ease my worries. It ain't happenin'
 
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