Hockey Bracketology: (Almost) Everything You Know Is Wrong Edition

Last night marked the end of regular season play for the ECACHL, CCHA, and Atlantic Hockey (as well as Minnesota State, Alaska-Anchorage, and Bemidji State). Every league leader not named Notre Dame decided to mark the occasion by coughing up points, with St. Lawrence, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and the AHA's RIT/Sacred Heart combo all losing, and Niagara getting tied by BobbyMo at home. I'd like to gloat, but BU, as well as other perennial powers Michigan, Michigan State, Cornell, Wisconsin, Denver, and Colorado College decided to celebrate the occasion by losing as well. I guess the dregs of the NCAA hockey world decided to remind us all that, unless you're RIT or Merrimack, you're still alive for the national title.

That said, not everyone's chances are equal, so let's take a glance at how the tournament would look today if we skipped the whole "Conference Tournament" thing. Everything I said last week about the criteria and whathaveyou still applies, except I partially misstated how the TUCs are determined. Apparently, the "all teams with an RPI over .500, plus conference tournament champions" method was the old way, and the new way is simply "Top 25 RPIs." This change stemmed from Atlantic Hockey almost getting 2 teams in last year's tourney... had Bentley defeated Holy Cross in the title game, Bentley would have become a TUC, and Holy Cross's 4-1 mark against Bentley would have propelled them to an at-large bid and a #3 seed. Basically, the TUC changes whenever a mid-major threatens to or succeeds in obtaining an at-large bid (for reference, TUC criteria switched from Win% to RPI immediately after Niagara made the tourney as an at-large).

Anyways, the current league leaders are:

AHA - RIT won the regular season title, but Sacred Heart is the #1 seed in the tourney.
CCHA - Notre Dame won the regular season title.
CHA - Niagara clinched a share of the regular season title, and even if they lose both games this weekend at Alabama-Huntsville, they own the tiebreaker against the Beavers, so have the 1 seed locked up.
ECACHL - St. Lawrence won the regular season title.
HEA - New Hampshire clinched the regular season title last night, despite their 7-1 beating at the hands of Providence, because BU coughed up yet more points at home to UVM.
WCHA - Minnesota holds a 3 point lead over St. Cloud State with 2 games left apiece. By virtue of a sweep this weekend, the Huskies own the tiebreaker.


Thanks to the folks at USCHO.com, the top of the PWR charts currently looks like this (* denotes league leaders):

1 - Minnesota *
2 - New Hampshire *
3 - Notre Dame *
4 - St. Cloud State
5 - Clarkson
6 - Boston University
7 - Maine
8 - Denver
9 - North Dakota
10 - Michigan
11 - Boston College
11 - Miami of Ohio
13 - Colorado College
13 - Michigan Tech
13 - Vermont
16 - St. Lawrence *
21 - Niagara *
NR - Sacred Heart * (they were briefly in the top-25 earlier this weekend)

So we have 2 ties to break:

Miami RedHawks win their comparison with BC, and get the 11 seed.

Colorado College wins comparisons with both Michigan Tech and Vermont, and gets the 13 seed. Vermont would edge out Michigan Tech for the 14th spot, but with 3 autobids rated lower, both the Catamounts and the Huskies get squeezed out of the field.

The biggest change since my last bracketology column is that Miami of Ohio is now in at the expense of Michigan State, who has alot of work to do to fight their way back in the field. Both teams have next weekend off for earning byes in the CCHA tournament.

So here's the final field:

1 - Minnesota
2 - New Hampshire
3 - Notre Dame
4 - St. Cloud State
5 - Clarkson
6 - Boston University
7 - Maine
8 - Denver
9 - North Dakota
10 - Michigan
11 - Miami of Ohio
12 - Boston College
13 - Colorado College
14 - St. Lawrence
15 - Niagara
16 - Sacred Heart

So who plays where? First, the hosts play at home, which sends UNH to Manchester, and DU to Denver. With the 8 seed in Denver, there's a desire to place overall #1 Minnesota in Denver to maintain bracket integrity. This should mean we have the same 4 #1 seeds in the same 4 cities as we did 2 weeks ago, even though their standing relative to each other has shifted a bit. Here's how the bracket looks without any reshifting due to conference affiliations:

WEST REGIONAL (DENVER): 1 v. 16 / 8 v. 9
1 - Minnesota
2 - Denver
3 - North Dakota
4 - Sacred Heart

NORTHEAST REGIONAL (MANCHESTER): 2 v. 15 / 7 v. 10
1 - New Hampshire
2 - Maine
3 - Michigan
4 - Niagara

EAST REGIONAL (ROCHESTER): 3 v. 14 / 6 v. 11
1 - Notre Dame
2 - Boston University
3 - Miami of Ohio
4 - Saint Lawrence

MIDWEST REGIONAL (GRAND RAPIDS): 4 v. 12 / 5 v. 13
1 - Saint Cloud State
2 - Clarkson
3 - Boston College
4 - Colorado College

This creates 2 all-WCHA first round matches, which can't happen. The first switch is easy, Denver U. can't be moved out of Denver, so NoDak has to be switched out, and a trade for Manchester-bound Michigan causes limited harm to the integrity of the bracket. Similar logic should move CC to Rochester to avoid a round 1 matchup with SCSU, but losing Saint Lawrence could be a real hit to Rochester's gate. BU travels well, but Notre Dame and Miami of Ohio are untested in that regard, and the folks at Blue Cross Arena might be left hoping for a big local turnout. As it stands now, I think sending CC to Manchester, the only other option, is too big of an unearned penalty for UNH for the committee to allow it to happen. So our final brackets would be:

WEST REGIONAL (DENVER): 1 v. 16 / 8 v. 10
1 - Minnesota
2 - Denver
3 - Michigan
4 - Sacred Heart

NORTHEAST REGIONAL (MANCHESTER): 2 v. 15 / 7 v. 9
1 - New Hampshire
2 - Maine
3 - North Dakota
4 - Niagara

EAST REGIONAL (ROCHESTER): 3 v. 13 / 6 v. 11
1 - Notre Dame
2 - Boston University
3 - Miami of Ohio
4 - Colorado College

MIDWEST REGIONAL (GRAND RAPIDS): 4 v. 14 / 5 v. 12
1 - Saint Cloud State
2 - Clarkson
3 - Boston College
4 - Saint Lawrence

In St. Louis, West v. Midwest and Northeast v. East would play in the Frozen Four.

Hockey Bracketology: Pre-Beanpot Final Edition

Well, in an effort to resurrect this sorry blog, and to burn some time that should be spent on academic pursuits, I figure it's about time for some hockey bracketology. Now, as I've explained before, hockey bracketology is far more objective than the ever subjective committee system used by the hoops people.

The formula, known as Pairwise Rankings (PWR) compares all teams over .500 in the RPI (which is 25% win percentage, 50% opponents' win percentage, and 25% opponents'-opponents' win percentage, plus a mysterious bonus for wins on the road versus high RPI non-conference opponents) against all other such teams by 4 comparison criteria, with each team scoring one point based on having a higher RPI, Win % versus TUCs (teams with a RPI over .500), and Win % versus common opponents, plus one point for every Head-to-Head (H2H) win. The 6 conference champs and next 10 in PWR make the field.

So who's in right now? The six conference champs, if the season ended today, assuming current leaders win their conferences tournaments:

AHA: Sacred Heart (since current leader RIT isn't eligible for the NCAAs until next season)
CCHA: Notre Dame
CHA: Niagara (Bemidji State has 1 more point, but has played 2 more games, so I'm going with the higher Win %)
ECACHL: Saint Lawrence
HEA: New Hampshire
WCHA: Minnesota

Add in the next 10 in PWR - assuming that the mysterious RPI bonus is about .003 for non-conference, quality road wins, and the field looks like this (courtesy of www.uscho.com's PWR predictor):

1 - New Hampshire*
2 - Minnesota*
3 - Maine
3 - Notre Dame*
3 - Saint Cloud State
6 - Clarkson
6 - Denver
8 - North Dakota
9 - Boston University
10 - Colorado College
10 - Michigan
10 - Michigan State
13 - Boston College
16 - Niagara*
16 - Saint Lawrence*
NR - Sacred Heart*

(14 & 15 - would be Vermont and Miami of Ohio, who get bumped by the automatic bids, as denoted by the asterisks*. Sorry guys.)

This is the messiest seeding I've ever seen with the PWR, requiring the breaking of 2 two-way, and 2 three-way ties. First, the easy stuff, the two-way ties.

Clarkson v. Denver

Clarkson has the better RPI (.560 to .552), better record versus TUCs (6-4-3 to 10-8-3), and better record versus common opponents (5-2-1 to 9-5-0). Clarkson wins the comparison 3-0.

Niagara v. Saint Lawrence

The battle of the autobids. This comparison is a 2-2 dead heat after SLU gets credited with the better RPI and record against TUCs (although both teams are under .500), while Niagara has the better record against common opponents and a H2H win. In the end, SLU gets the comparison by having a higher RPI, which is the default tiebreaker.

Now the more difficult question, settling three-way ties.

Maine v. Notre Dame v. Saint Cloud State

After running the comparisons, Maine beats SCSU, who beats Notre Dame, who beats Maine. Once again, the default tiebreaker is RPI, which ranks the teams SCSU, Notre Dame, UMO, in that order.

Colorado College v. Michigan v. Michigan State

Like above, Michigan beats CC, who beats State, who beats Michigan. After breaking the tie via RPI, then the order is MSU, UM, then CC.

So now our 16 teams rank as follows:

1 - New Hampshire
2 - Minnesota
3 - Saint Cloud State
4 - Notre Dame
5 - Maine
6 - Clarkson
7 - Denver
8 - North Dakota
9 - Boston University
10 - Michigan State
11 - Michigan
12 - Colorado College
13 - Boston College
14 - Saint Lawrence
15 - Niagara
16 - Sacred Heart

Now the questions are who goes where, and who plays who:

Regional hosts have to play at that regional. This means #1 New Hampshire has to play in the Northeast Regional in Manchester, and #7 Denver has to play in the West Regional in Denver (which makes a mess of things, as I'll explain). East host RIT and Midwest host Western Michigan make it easy on us by missing the field, the former because they can't as they're playing their second probationary year of D-I, and the latter because they're playing sub-.500 hockey this year.

Typically, the NCAA seeds the top 4 seeds based on proximity to the regional site, which would place Minnesota in Grand Rapids and SCSU in Denver. Because DU is guaranteed a slot in Denver, however, the question is whether to send Minnesota further than SCSU in order to maintain bracket integrity, or to keep Twin Cities fans happy by giving them to shorter trip to Michigan. The last few years, the NCAA seems to have shifted from monetary concerns to fairness in seeding, so I'm guessing Minnesota would head to Denver in this situation.

So my preliminatry brackets, with full bracket integrity are as follows:

NORTHEAST REGIONAL (MANCHESTER): 1 v. 16 / 8 v. 9
1 - New Hampshire
2 - North Dakota
3 - Boston University
4 - Sacred Heart

WEST REGIONAL (DENVER): 2 v. 15 / 7 v. 10
1 - Minnesota
2 - Denver
3 - Michigan State
4 - Niagara

MIDWEST REGIONAL (GRAND RAPIDS): 3 v. 14 / 6 v. 11
1 - Saint Cloud State
2 - Clarkson
3 - Michigan
4 - Saint Lawrence

EAST REGIONAL (ROCHESTER): 4 v. 12 / 5 v. 13
1 - Notre Dame
2 - Maine
3 - Colorado College
4 - Boston College

Miraculously, this completely avoids intraconference 1st Round matchups, and provides every regional with at least 1 local draw and multiple teams that draw well (which avoids past concerns about the NCAA shuffling things in order to maximize attendance).

With this bracket, we would have East v. Northeast and West v. Midwest regional champs meet in the Frozen Four in Saint Louis.