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, Boston College, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Minnesota State, Niagara, Western Michigan, St. Cloud, State, UMass-Lowell, Yale, Denver, Notre Dame, Dartmouth, Rensselaer (RPI), Wisconsin, St. Lawrence, Alaska-Fairbanks, 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, Boston College, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Minnesota State, Niagara, Western Michigan, St. Cloud State, UMass-Lowell, Yale, Denver, Notre Dame, Dartmouth, and Rensselaer (RPI).
Let’s assign the seeds, in groups:
1 Seeds: Quinnipiac, Minnesota, Miami-Ohio, Boston College
2 Seeds: New Hampshire, North Dakota, Minnesota State, Niagara
3 Seeds: Western Michigan, St. Cloud State, UMass-Lowell, Yale
4 Seeds: Denver, Notre Dame, Dartmouth, RPI
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.
Let’s now get busy placing the top seeds in our default bracket. #1 Quinnipiac goes to the Providence regional while #2 Minnesota heads to Grand Rapids. #3 Miami-Ohio fills in the spot in Toledo while #4 Boston College takes the final spot in Manchester.
Because #5 New Hampshire is hosting the regional in Manchester, we must put them directly in their matchup with #4 Boston College. That couldn’t have worked better. #6 North Dakota is placed in #3 Miami-Ohio’s regional in Toledo. #7 Minnesota State is placed in #2 Minnesota’s regional in Grand Rapids while #8 Niagara is placed in Providence along with #1 Quinnipiac.
Let’s now place the three seeds. #9 Western Michigan is placed in #1 Quinnipiac’s regional in Providence. #10 St. Cloud State goes to #2 Minnesota’s regional in Grand Rapids. #11 UMass-Lowell heads to #3 Miami-Ohio’s regional in Toledo while #12 Yale goes to #4 Boston College’s regional in Manchester.
Let’s finally place the four seeds. #16 RPI heads to #1 Quinnipiac’s regional in Providence. #15 Dartmouth is placed in #2 Minnesota’s regional in Grand Rapids. #14 Notre Dame is placed in #3 Miami-Ohio’s regional in Toledo while #13 Denver heads to #4 Boston College’s regional in Manchester.
The bracket, as it sets up, looks like this:
East Regional
#1 Quinnipiac vs. #16 RPI
#8 Niagara vs. #9 Western Michigan
Midwest Regional
#3 Miami-Ohio vs. #14 Notre Dame
#6 North Dakota vs. #11 UMass-Lowell
Northeast Regional
#4 Boston College vs. #13 Denver
#5 New Hampshire vs. #12 Yale
West Regional
#2 Minnesota vs. #15 Dartmouth
#7 Minnesota State vs. #10 St. Cloud State
We have two first round inter-conference games to avoid, so we first switch #9 Western Michigan out of Providence with #10 St. Cloud State, moving the Broncos to the West region. We then move #15 Dartmouth from Grand Rapids and replace them with #14 Notre Dame. That gives you a bracket looking like this:
East Regional
#1 Quinnipiac vs. #16 RPI
#8 Niagara vs. #9 St. Cloud State
Midwest Regional
#3 Miami-Ohio vs. #14 Dartmouth
#6 North Dakota vs. #11 UMass-Lowell
Northeast Regional
#4 Boston College vs. #13 Denver
#5 New Hampshire vs. #12 Yale
West Regional
#2 Minnesota vs. #15 Notre Dame
#7 Minnesota State vs. #10 Western Michigan
Inter-conference games: squashed. Can we make attendance better? In Grand Rapids, that’s tough to do. We’re good. In Manchester, tough to do, so we’re good. In Providence, we could move RPI out of Providence and put them in Manchester, replacing Denver, but that would “dumb down” the Manchester regional in my mind, so we won’t. Toledo is the best it could be as well with balance between east and west. In other words, this is my final bracket for the week:
East Regional
#1 Quinnipiac vs. #16 RPI
#8 Niagara vs. #9 St. Cloud State
Midwest Regional
#3 Miami-Ohio vs. #14 Dartmouth
#6 North Dakota vs. #11 UMass-Lowell
Northeast Regional
#4 Boston College vs. #13 Denver
#5 New Hampshire vs. #12 Yale
West Regional
#2 Minnesota vs. #15 Notre Dame
#7 Minnesota State vs. #10 Western Michigan
See you guys next week for another edition of Bracketology, and the first one of the month of March.
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!
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