It’s time once again for what we like to call Bracketology — college hockey style. It’s a weekly look at how the NCAA tournament might look if the season ended today.
More than that, it’s a look into the thought process behind selecting and seeding the NCAA tournament teams.
This is the second installment of Bracketology, and we’ll be bringing you a new one every week, until we make our final picks just before the field is announced.
Here are the facts:
• Sixteen teams are selected to participate in the national tournament.
• There are four regional sites (East – Worcester, Massachusetts, Northeast – [nl]Amherst, Massachusetts, Midwest – Grand Rapids, Mich., West – Minneapolis, Minn.)
• A host institution which is invited to the tournament plays in the regional for which it is the host, and cannot be moved.
• Seedings will not be switched, as opposed to years past. To avoid undesirable first-round matchups, including intraconference games (see below), teams will be moved among regionals, not reseeded.
Here are the NCAA’s guidelines on the matter, per a meeting of the Championship Committee:
In setting up the tournament, the committee begins with a list of priorities to ensure a successful tournament on all fronts including competitive equity, financial success and likelihood of playoff-type atmosphere at each regional site. For the model, the following is a basic set of priorities:
• The top four teams as ranked by the committee are the four No. 1 seeds and will be placed in the bracket so that if all four teams advance to the Men’s Frozen Four, the No. 1 seed will play the No. 4 seed and the No. 2 seed will play the No. 3 seed in the semifinals.
• Host institutions that qualify will be placed at home.
• No. 1 seeds are placed as close to home as possible in order of their ranking 1-4.
• Conference matchups in first round are avoided, unless five or more teams from one conference are selected, then the integrity of the bracket will be preserved.
• Once the six automatic qualifiers and 10 at-large teams are selected, the next step is to develop four groups from the committee’s ranking of 1-16. The top four teams are the No. 1 seeds. The next four are targeted as No. 2 seeds. The next four are No. 3 seeds and the last four are No. 4 seeds. These groupings will be referred to as “bands”.
Additionally, the NCAA recently clarified its selection criteria to include a bonus factor for “good” nonconference wins.
Given these facts, here are the top 16 teams in the current PairWise Rankings (PWR), and all conference leaders based on winning percentage (Holy Cross, Michigan, Alabama-Huntsville, Colgate, New Hampshire and Colorado College) (through games of January 16, 2005):
1 Colorado College
2t Boston College
2t Minnesota
4 Michigan
5t Boston University
5t Denver
7t Colgate
7t Harvard
9 New Hampshire
10t Mass.-Lowell
10t Cornell
12 Ohio State
13t Wisconsin
13t North Dakota
15t Maine
15t Vermont
— Alabama-Huntsville
— Holy Cross
Step One
From the committee’s report, choose the 16 teams in the tournament.
We break ties in the PWR by looking at the individual comparisons among the tied teams, and add the conference leaders, based on winning percentage.
From there, we can start looking at the bubble in a more detailed fashion.
The bubbles consist of Boston College and Minnesota at No. 2, Boston University and Denver at No. 5, Colgate and Harvard at No. 7, Mass.-Lowell and Cornell at No. 10, and Wisconsin and North Dakota at No. 13.
Breaking ties in the PWR using head-to-head comparisons among the tied teams, the 16 teams in the tournament, in rank order, are:
1 Colorado College
2 Boston College
3 Minnesota
4 Michigan
5 Boston University
6 Denver
7 Harvard
8 Colgate
9 New Hampshire
10 Mass.-Lowell
11 Cornell
12 Ohio State
13 Wisconsin
14 North Dakota
15 Alabama-Huntsville
16 Holy Cross
All ties were broken by individual comparison wins. Alabama-Huntsville is seeded ahead of Holy Cross due to RPI win.
Step Two
Now it’s time to assign the seeds.
No. 1 Seeds — Colorado College, Boston College, Minnesota, Michigan
No. 2 Seeds — Boston University, Denver, Harvard, Colgate
No. 3 Seeds — New Hampshire, Mass.-Lowell, Cornell, Ohio State
No. 4 Seeds — Wisconsin, North Dakota, Alabama-Huntsville, Holy Cross
Step Three
Place the No. 1 seeds in regionals. Because of the fact that Minnesota is hosting a regional, the Gophers are placed first. We then place the other No. 1 seeds in descending order, by proximity to the regional sites.
No. 3 Minnesota is placed in the West Regional in Minneapolis.
No. 1 Colorado College is then placed in the Midwest Regional in Grand Rapids.
No. 2 Boston College is placed in the Northeast Regional in Amherst. I’ve done this for reasons you will see later. Even though BC is closer to Worcester, I’m going to make the change now to Amherst because I know that I will probably want to separate BC and BU for attendance purposes later on. If it works, that’s great — if not, we’re back to the drawing board.
No. 4 Michigan is placed in the East Regional in Worcester.
Step Four
Now we place the other 12 teams so as to avoid intra-conference matchups if possible.
Begin by filling in each bracket by banding groups. Remember that teams are not assigned to the regional closest to their campus sites by ranking order within the banding (unless you are a host school, in which case you must be assigned to your home regional).
If this is the case, as it was last year, then the committee should seed so that the four regional championships would be played by No. 1 v. No. 8, No. 2 v. No. 7, No. 3 v. No. 6 and No. 4 v. No. 5.
Therefore:
No. 2 Seeds
No. 5 Boston University, as the host, is placed in the East Regional, which is No. 4 Michigan’s Regional — so far, so good.
No. 6 Denver is placed in No. 3 Minnesota’s regional, the West.
No. 7 Harvard is placed in No. 2 Boston College’s regional, the Northeast.
No. 8 Colgate is placed in No. 1 Colorado College’s regional, the Midwest.
No. 3 Seeds
Our bracketing system should ideally have one regional containing seeds 1, 8, 9, and 16, another with 2, 7, 10, 15, another with 3, 6, 11, 14 and another with 4, 5, 12 and 13.
Therefore:
No. 9 New Hampshire is placed in No. 8 Colgate’s regional, the Midwest.
No. 10 Mass.-Lowell is placed in No. 7 Harvard’s regional, the Northeast.
No. 11 Cornell is placed in No. 6 Denver’s regional, the West.
No. 12 Ohio State is placed in No. 5 Boston University’s regional, the East.
No. 4 Seeds
One more time, taking No. 16 v. No. 1, No. 15 v. No. 2, etc.
No. 16 Holy Cross is sent to Colorado College’s regional, the Midwest.
No. 15 Alabama-Hunstville is sent to Boston College’s regional, the Northeast.
No. 14 North Dakota is sent to Minnesota’s regional, the West.
No. 13 Wisconsin is sent to Michigan’s regional, the East.
The brackets as we have set them up:
West Regional:
North Dakota vs. Minnesota
Cornell vs. Denver
Midwest Regional:
Holy Cross vs. Colorado College
New Hampshire vs. Colgate
East Regional:
Wisconsin vs. Michigan
Ohio State vs. Boston University
Northeast Regional:
Alabama-Huntsville vs. Boston College
Mass.-Lowell vs. Harvard
Our first concern is avoiding intra-conference matchups. We have one conflict, which is North Dakota playing Minnesota. Minnesota as host must stay in the West, so we switch out North Dakota. The Fighting Sioux can’t switch with Wisconsin, since that causes another WCHA-WCHA matchup, so they swap with the overall No. 15 team, Alabama-Huntsville.
We also have now justified moving BC to Amherst to begin with.
So our new brackets are:
West Regional:
Alabama-Huntsville vs. Minnesota
Cornell vs. Denver
Midwest Regional:
Holy Cross vs. Colorado College
New Hampshire vs. Colgate
East Regional:
Wisconsin vs. Michigan
Ohio State vs. Boston University
Northeast Regional:
North Dakota vs. Boston College
Mass.-Lowell vs. Harvard
The tournament is now set.
In terms of a first-round matchup, the number-two overall team, Boston College, gets the short end of the stick here — just as Cornell did two years ago. But that’s unavoidable given the committee’s matchup priorities.
Bracketing the Frozen Four, if all four number-one seeds advance, then the top overall seed plays the No. 4 overall, and No. 2 plays No. 3. Therefore, the winners of the Midwest and East Regionals face each other in one semifinal (Colorado College and Michigan’s brackets), while the winners of the West and Northeast Regionals (Minnesota and Boston College’s brackets) play the other semifinal.
But…
Bonus Time
We know there is a bonus component to the criteria, the NCAA’s tweak to the system which rewards “good” nonconference wins.
Without official word on the size of the bonuses, we take these numbers: .003 for a good road win, .002 for a good neutral win and .001 for a good home win.
Does anything change? Absolutely.
North Dakota moves all the way up to No. 9 from No. 14, all by its lonesome. That pushes UNH, UML, Cornell and Ohio State down one spot in the seedings.
Our seedings are now:
1 Colorado College
2 Boston College
3 Minnesota
4 Michigan
5 Boston University
6 Denver
7 Harvard
8 Colgate
9 North Dakota
10 New Hampshire
11 Mass.-Lowell
12 Cornell
13 Ohio State
14 Wisconsin
15 Alabama-Huntsville
16 Holy Cross
So, our brackets, using the same method as above, have a few changes.
West Regional:
Wisconsin vs. Minnesota
Mass.-Lowell vs. Denver
Midwest Regional:
Holy Cross vs. Colorado College
North Dakota vs. Colgate
East Regional:
Ohio State vs. Michigan
Cornell vs. Boston University
Northeast Regional:
Alabama-Huntsville vs. Boston College
New Hampshire vs. Harvard
We have two intra-conference matchups in Wisconsin vs. Minnesota and Ohio State vs. Michigan. It’s easy-peasy as we switch Wisconsin and Ohio State. So our final brackets are:
West Regional:
Ohio State vs. Minnesota
Mass.-Lowell vs. Denver
Midwest Regional:
Holy Cross vs. Colorado College
North Dakota vs. Colgate
East Regional:
Wisconsin vs. Michigan
Cornell vs. Boston University
Northeast Regional:
Alabama-Huntsville vs. Boston College
New Hampshire vs. Harvard
What if we took these numbers: .005 for a good road win, .003 for a good neutral win and .001 for a good home win.
Does anything change? Oh baby, does it ever.
Mass.-Lowell moves up to No. 10, while UNH falls to No. 12, and Cornell moves up to No. 11. But the biggest change is that Michigan State is now No. 14 and Wisconsin is No. 15.
Remember, even though Wisconsin is leading the WCHA in points, I am using winning percentage as my barometer for the league leaders, and at this point in time, that gives the autobid to Colorado College, not Wisconsin.
Therefore, Wisconsin, in this scenario, is out.
Here are my 16 teams in the tournament:
1 Colorado College
2 Boston College
3 Minnesota
4 Michigan
5 Boston University
6 Denver
7 Harvard
8 Colgate
9 North Dakota
10 Mass.-Lowell
11 Cornell
12 New Hampshire
13 Ohio State
14 Michigan State
15 Alabama-Huntsville
16 Holy Cross
So our brackets are:
West Regional:
Michigan State vs. Minnesota
Cornell vs. Denver
Midwest Regional:
Holy Cross vs. Colorado College
North Dakota vs. Colgate
East Regional:
Ohio State vs. Michigan
New Hampshire vs. Boston University
Northeast Regional:
Alabama-Huntsville vs. Boston College
Mass.-Lowell vs. Harvard
We now have some intra-conference matchups to worry about here. Let’s take care of the UNH-BU matchup first. No. 12 UNH will just switch with No. 11 Cornell. So that’s taken care of.
Now we turn to Ohio State vs. Michigan. We cannot switch Ohio State with fellow CCHA member Michigan State, so we trade Ohio State with UAH.
Our new brackets are:
West Regional:
Michigan State vs. Minnesota
New Hampshire vs. Denver
Midwest Regional:
Holy Cross vs. Colorado College
North Dakota vs. Colgate
East Regional:
Alabama-Huntsville vs. Michigan
Cornell vs. Boston University
Northeast Regional:
Ohio State vs. Boston College
Mass.-Lowell vs. Harvard
That’s it for this week, but we’ll be back with a fresh analysis next week.
