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.