TBRW Predictions: 2003

This is the overview for the 2002-03 TBRW ECAC Predictions.  For the full statistical details, see: Never Apologize, Never Explain.

For the second consecutive season, Cornell was runner-up in the ECAC championship game, this time losing a heart-breaker to Harvard in double overtime.  The hext weekend, Cornell dismembered Quinnipiac 6-1 and held the #1 team in the nation, UNH, to a 3-3 tie until the closing minutes of the third period, before falling by a single goal.

When it was all over, Cornell had garnered great praise en route to a 25-8-2 overall record and a 17-3-2 RS title.  Add that Cornell returns virtually its entire offense and defense, including Hobey Baker Finalist Doug Murray and sophomore goaltending sensation David LeNeveu, and all the preseason polls had Cornell at or near the top of the ECAC.  To these we contribute our own rating, the TBRW? Predictions!

The Bottom Line

Methodology: Everything Old is New, Again

Sometimes we make changes to our predictive indicators.  Either we're learning, or we're always re-fighting the last war.  But this time we return the entire apparatus from last year's successful, and simplified, Predictions!  That means the following decisions, made before last season, still apply:

• We dispensed with the higher math, normalizing modifiers, and complex weighting.  Instead we simply ranked teams as better (+1), same, or worse (-1) than the league average for each modifier.
• We diminished the regression to the mean obtained by averaging in the teams' historical performance.  This was  pushed back to 25%, and the historical interval has shifted, from the whole history of the league to just the last ten seasons.
• We restricted the measures of returning strength to "Team Leaders."  A team's leaders are last season's top nine forwards in points, top four defensemen in points, and top two goaltenders in wins.  Only these fifteen performers were considered from each squad.  We included the team-by-team breakdown of these modifiers.

Early Departures

This year, we know of just two significant early departures among the Leading Forwards, Defensemen, or Goalies:

• Marc Cavosie, F, RPI
• Patrick Sharp, F, Vermont

In all other cases, each player is assumed to be returning unless he was listed as a senior or graduate student on last season's roster.

Prediction History

TBRW? beat the Coaches Poll for predicting the 2002 RS. Read our Predictions! articles from previous seasons: