Bracketology: 2004-2005 NCAA Men's Ice Hockey Tournament

WARNING: This is the most complicated post I've ever written for this blog. Proceed at your own risk.

I figure I'll try my hand at being Joe Lunardi, and play Bracketology with the NCAA Men's Hockey field, which will be announced Sunday morning at 11AM on ESPN2.

The easy part:

6 Automatic Bids - The Conference Champions
Atlantic Hockey Association - Mercyhurst
Central Collegiate Hockey Association - Michigan
College Hockey America - Bemidji State
Eastern College Athletic Conference - Cornell
Hockey East Association - Boston College
Western Collegiate Hockey Association - Denver

The slightly tougher part is my 10 at-large bids to round out the NCAA field of 16 teams. These were determined using the Pairwise Rankings (PWR) found at www.uscho.com and I have predicted that the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) bonus for "good non-conference wins" will be .001 at home, .002 at neutral sites, and .003 on the road. Other people predict it will be .001, .003. and .005, and this is the part of the selection process on which we have the least to go by in making our predictions.

10 At-Large Bids
Colorado College
Minnesota
North Dakota
New Hampshire
Harvard
Ohio State
Wisconsin
Boston University
Maine
Colgate

The following are therefore the bubble teams who have had their bubbles (likely) burst over the last few days:

Better Luck Next Year
Dartmouth
Michigan State
Vermont
Massachusetts-Lowell

The next part is ranking the teams. Even though there are 4 regions ranked 1-4, it is easier to just rank them 1-16 through straight pairwise, at first, since the committee has put serpentine bracket integrity above attendance concerns in the last two years.

Preliminary Seeding
1) Boston College
2) Colorado College
3) Denver
4) Minnesota
5) Cornell
6) Michigan
7) North Dakota
7) New Hampshire
9) Harvard
10) Ohio State
11) Wisconsin
11) Boston University
11) Maine
14) Colgate
15) Bemidji State
16) Mercyhurst

There are two ties to break, and I'm not 100% sure how they should be broken, whether through a head to head pairwise comparison, or through highest RPI. In the case of UND and UNH, UND wins on pairwise and UNH on RPI. The difference might not matter too much if they base regional placement on attendance and travel rather than pure bracket integrity, since they will both be 2 seeds either way, but that seems unlikely to be the case. Just for the sake of making a decison, I'll base it on pairwise and make UND #7 and UNH #8. In the case of the three way tie, the method we choose makes less of a difference. Either way, Maine comes in at #13, which would make them a 4 seed and BU and Wisconsin 3 seeds, and since BU is already locked into the Northeast Regional as host it might not matter if BU and Wisconsin have their tie broken by RPI (putting BU at #11) or head to head pairwise (putting Wisconsin at #11). For the sake of consistency, we'll go with the latter.

Now, we're on to placing the teams in the appropriate regionals. The regionals take place in Worcester (Northeast), Amherst (East), Grand Rapids (Midwest) and Minneapolis (West) and are hosted by BU, Massachusetts, Western Michigan, and Minnesota, respectively. Hosts are required to attend that regional if they make the tournament, meaning the exclusion of UMass and WMU makes this process much easier.

First, the 1 seeds: BC, Colorado College, Denver, and Minnesota. As host, Minnesota will head to the West regional. After the hosts are placed, priority goes to giving the top seed left the least travel possible, which will place BC in the Northeast, Colorado College in the Midwest, and poor Denver in the East.

Now, the 2 seeds: To make a serpentine bracket, Cornell will head West to play Minnesota in a potential second round matchup (like a 4 v. 5 game). Michigan heads to the East (potentially a 3 v. 6). North Dakota joins CC in the Midwest (2 v. 7). Finally, New Hampshire joins conference-mate BC in the Northeast.

On to the 3s: First off, BU heads to the Northeast as host. This does two bad things, 1) It shreds bracket integrity by rewarding the lowest 2 seed (New Hampshire) with the lowest possible 3 seed, and 2) it creates an in conference first round matchup, which is a big "no-no" in this and most other NCAA tournaments. This means I will need to do a big overhaul after my initial placements. For now, following the rules I have laid out, Harvard goes to the Midwest, Ohio State to the East (creating another in conference matchup for the first round, versus Michigan), and Wisconsin heads to the West.

Finally, the 4s: Maine will head to the West, Colgate to the East, Bemidji State to the Midwest, and lastly, Mercyhurst to the Northeast.

What do we have so far (with seeding preceeding the school name, but my pairwise "rank" listed afterwards)?

NORTHEAST (Worcester)
1) Boston College (1)
2) New Hampshire (8)
3) Boston University (12)
4) Mercyhurst (16)

MIDWEST (Grand Rapids)
1) Colorado College (2)
2) North Dakota (7)
3) Harvard (9)
4) Bemidji State (15)

EAST (Amherst)
1) Denver (3)
2) Michigan (6)
3) Ohio State (10)
4) Colgate (14)

WEST (Minneapolis)
1) Minnesota (4)
2) Cornell (5)
3) Wisconsin (11)
4) Maine (13)

The trouble spots? We have to eliminate the UNH v. BU and Michigan v. Ohio State games in the first round, without moving BU out of Worcester. The easiest way to do this is to swap UNH and Michigan. This would hurt bracket integrity significantly, however, so UND will also be moved in a 3 way swap. This still hurts bracket integrity, as it seems to unfairly benefit Denver at the expense of Colorado College, but it is better than benefitting Denver at the expense of overall #1, BC. I also feels that this is most likely because underneath the "bracket integrity" aims, I still believe the committee will salivate at the opportunity to make some extra revenue by leaving Michigan in state and UNH in New England (let the conspiracy theorists begin to speculate).

FINAL BRACKET

NORTHEAST (Worcester)
1) Boston College (1)
2) North Dakota (7)
3) Boston University (12)
4) Mercyhurst (16)

MIDWEST (Grand Rapids)
1) Colorado College (2)
2) Michigan (6)
3) Harvard (9)
4) Bemidji State (15)

EAST (Amherst)
1) Denver (3)
2) New Hampshire (8)
3) Ohio State (10)
4) Colgate (14)

WEST (Minneapolis)
1) Minnesota (4)
2) Cornell (5)
3) Wisconsin (11)
4) Maine (13)

That's it, my sixteen team field. In order to place brackets 1-4 based on the highest seed, I would assume (if these brackets are correct) that the Northeast winner will play the West winner, and Midwest will play East at the Frozen Four in Columbus.