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College Hockey Rankings Round-Up: Are We Overlooking the WCHA?

The human polls don't give much love to the WCHA, while the computers are more friendly.

By Chris Dilks
Kim Klement-US PRESSWIRE

Here is this week's big board of college hockey rankings:

Rk SB Nation USA Today USCHO Buccigross Pairwise KRACH
1 Minnesota Minnesota Minnesota Minnesota Minnesota Minnesota
2 Providence St. Cloud St. Cloud Providence St. Cloud St. Cloud
3 St. Cloud Providence Providence St. Cloud Providence Providence
4 Quinnipiac Quinnipiac Quinnipiac Michigan Quinnipiac Quinnipiac
5 Michigan Michigan Michigan Miami Ferris State Boston College
6 Miami Notre Dame Notre Dame Quinnipiac Michigan Miami
7 Boston College Boston College Boston College Boston College Boston College Michigan
8 Notre Dame Miami Miami Yale Notre Dame Ferris State
9 Union Yale Yale Notre Dame Miami Notre Dame
10 Ferris State Clarkson Ferris State Clarkson Wisconsin Wisconsin
11
UMass-Lowell Clarkson
Lake Superior Colgate
12
Wisconsin Wisconsin
Clarkson Yale
13
Ferris State UMass-Lowell
Union Union
14
North Dakota RPI
Bowling Green UMass-Lowell
15
Union North Dakota
UMass-Lowell Lake Superior
16

Lake Superior
Yale Bowling Green
17

Union
New Hampshire New Hampshire
18

Cornell
Ohio State St. Lawrence
19

Minnesota-Duluth
RPI North Dakota
20

New Hampshire
Cornell Cornell

If there's one trend this week when it comes to comparing human voters with the computer polls, it's that the computers have a much higher estimation of the re-formed WCHA than human voters do. The human polls seem to be just starting to recognize how good 8-2-1 Ferris State is, while the Pairwise says Ferris State belongs right in the middle of the conversation with the best teams in the country.

In addition, the Pairwise has two more WCHA teams in Lake Superior and Bowling Green within the NCAA tournament field. Lake Superior barely cracks USCHO's top 20, but otherwise, nobody paid those two much mind.

So who has it right? Is the WCHA as bad as everyone thinks? Or is everyone just not appreciating how good those teams are?