It’s a Monday, and it’s now time to formally start the process known as Bracketology—predicting the teams that will make up March’s NCAA Tournament field.
Here are the facts:
• Sixteen teams are selected to participate in the national tournament.
• There are four regional sites (East — Providence, R.I.; Northeast — Manchester, N.H.; Midwest — Toledo, Ohio; West — Grand Rapids, Mich.).
• A host institution which is invited to the tournament plays in the regional for which it is the host and cannot be moved. There are four host institutions this year: Brown in Providence, New Hampshire in Manchester, Bowling Green in Toledo and Michigan in Grand Rapids.
• Seedings will not be switched, as opposed to years past. To avoid undesirable first-round matchups, including inter-conference games (see below), teams will be moved among regionals, not reseeded.
Knowing those, let’s give you the top twenty teams in the latest iteration of the Pairwise rankings. They are, in order: Quinnipiac, Minnesota, Miami-Ohio, New Hampshire, Boston College, North Dakota, Minnesota State, Western Michigan, St. Cloud State, Niagara, Denver, Yale, Boston University, UMass-Lowell, Notre Dame, Union, RPI (Rensselaer), Merrimack, Dartmouth, and Nebraska-Omaha.
We first do a check to see if all five conference leaders are located in the top sixteen of the Pairwise rankings, and each one is in, and this week, they are, so the top sixteen from those twenty: Quinnipiac, Minnesota, Miami-Ohio, New Hampshire, Boston College, North Dakota, Minnesota State, Western Michigan, St. Cloud State, Niagara, Denver, Yale, Boston University, UMass-Lowell, Notre Dame, and Union.
Let’s assign the seeds, in groups:
1 Seeds: Quinnipiac, Minnesota, Miami-Ohio, New Hampshire
2 Seeds: Boston College, North Dakota, Minnesota State, Western Michigan
3 Seeds: St. Cloud State, Niagara, Denver, Yale
4 Seeds: Boston University, UMass-Lowell, Notre Dame, Union
Remember that our bracketing system requires one regional with the 1, 8, 9, and 16 seeds. Our second regional sees teams 2, 7, 10, and 15 in a group. The third regional consists of seeds 3, 6, 11, and 14 while our fourth regional consists of seeds 4, 5, 12, and 13.
With regards to region, let’s place the top seeds. Since they are a host team, we place #4 New Hampshire first, and they go to the Manchester regional. #1 Quinnipiac goes to the Providence regional, while #2 Minnesota goes to the Grand Rapids regional. #3 Miami-Ohio goes to the Toledo regional. Easy, eh?
Let’s place the two seeds. #5 Boston College goes into the Manchester regional alongside #4 New Hampshire. #6 North Dakota goes to the Toledo regional with #3 Miami-Ohio. #7 Minnesota State goes to the Grand Rapids regional alongside #2 Minnesota, while #8 Western Michigan goes to the Providence regional with #1 Quinnipiac.
Let’s place the three seeds, starting with #9 St. Cloud State being placed in #1 Quinnipiac’s Providence regional. #10 Niagara is placed in the Grand Rapids regional with #2 Minnesota. #11 Denver is placed in #3 Miami-Ohio’s Toledo regional while #12 Yale is sent to Manchester alongside #4 New Hampshire.
The four seeds are easy to fill in, so let’s do it. #16 Union goes to #1 Quinnipiac’s Providence regional while #15 Notre Dame is sent to Grand Rapids with #2 Minnesota. #14 UMass-Lowell is placed in #3 Miami-Ohio’s Toledo regional while #13 Boston University is going to be placed in Manchester with #4 New Hampshire.
The bracket looks like this:
East Regional
#1 Quinnipiac vs. #16 Union
#8 Western Michigan vs. #9 St. Cloud State
Midwest Regional
#3 Miami-Ohio vs. #14 UMass-Lowell
#6 North Dakota vs. #11 Denver
Northeast Regional
#4 New Hampshire vs. #13 Boston University
#5 Boston College vs. #12 Yale
West Regional
#2 Minnesota vs. #15 Notre Dame
#7 Minnesota State vs. #10 Niagara
We have two inter-conference games we must avoid, and we’ll get to those, but I see an immediate switch we can make to boost attendance. Let’s switch the #7-#10 game with the #8-#9 game. That puts Niagara in Providence along with Minnesota State. Now, we’ll axe the inter-conference games. Let’s switch #13 Boston University with #16 Union, bringing BU to Providence and Union to Manchester. Let’s move #11 DU from Toledo, and switch them out with #12 Yale, putting DU in Manchester and Yale in Toledo. Finally, that leaves a move of #6 UND to Providence, moving Western Michigan to Toledo. Let’s finally move WMU to Grand Rapids from Toledo, bringing Minnesota State in its place. That gives you the following bracket:
East Regional
#1 Quinnipiac vs. #16 Boston University
#8 North Dakota vs. #9 Niagara
Midwest Regional
#3 Miami-Ohio vs. #14 UMass-Lowell
#6 Minnesota State vs. #11 Yale
Northeast Regional
#4 New Hampshire vs. #13 Union
#5 Boston College vs. #12 Denver
West Regional
#2 Minnesota vs. #15 Notre Dame
#7 Western Michigan vs. #10 St. Cloud State
That leaves no inter-conference games, so we’re good there. Attendance-wise, there really isn’t much more I can do without creating an inter-conference game that I’m trying to rid of, so I like the way this bracket locks in. For those folks wanting to move North Dakota to Grand Rapids, we would create a WCHA game with SCSU, which is forbidden. I could see other brackets with UND in Toledo and Minnesota State in Providence, but that's up to the pundit. Anyway, we’ll see you next week for another edition of Bracketology.
Geoff Discher is Examiner.com's National College Hockey Examiner as well as the Minnesota Golden Gophers Hockey Examiner. Leave a comment below, or feel free to reach him at Disch61@hotmail.com with comments, story ideas, or any general talk surrounding college hockey. You can find him on Facebook as well by clicking here and here, joining the conversation from the social media side as well. He's always chock full of fact and opinion.
Until next time, I’ll see you at the rink!
Comments