We’re down to five and a half weeks until selection Sunday, and as things begin to shape up in terms of what teams are getting closer to punching their NCAA tickets, we are also running into some problems on how to best seed the tournament.
First, if you’re new to bracketology, read a quick primer on how the NCAA selects the field and the instructions from their manual on how to seed the 16-team field.
Based on the PairWise Rankings, here are the 16 teams that would make the field:
1. North Dakota
2. Minnesota State
3. Cornell
4. Minnesota Duluth
5. Denver
6. Boston College
7. Massachusetts
8. Penn State
9. Clarkson
10. Arizona State
11. UMass Lowell
12. Northeastern
13. Maine
14. Quinnipiac
15. Michigan State
16. AIC
This list includes six conference tournament winners, which of course we don’t know at this point. This, we include the teams in each conference with the current highest winner percentage. That is why Michigan State currently gets into the tournament over Ohio State, for those who might be confused.
Looking at the above, you’ll see that there are going to be could be some challenges in seeding the field as there are a total of four Hockey East teams between fifth and 12th in the above. That means four Hockey East teams that will be second or third seeds, so we’ll have some difficulty avoiding a first-round conference matchup between those Hockey East teams.
Here, though, are how Jayson and I see this week’s brackets shaking out:
Jim’s bracket
Allentown, Pa. Regional
1. North Dakota (1)
2. Penn State (8)
3. UMass Lowell (11)
4. AIC (16)
Loveland, Colo. Regional
1. Minnesota Duluth (4)
2. Denver (5)
3. Northeastern (12)
4. Quinnipiac (14)
Worcester, Mass. Regional
1. Minnesota State (2)
2. Massachusetts (7)
3. Arizona State (10)
4. Michigan State (15)
Albany, N.Y. Regional
1. Cornell (3)
2. Boston College (6)
3. Clarkson (9)
4. Maine (13)
Jim’s philosophy:
This one was difficult for me. I started by placing hosts Denver and Penn State in their appropriate regions. From there, I needed to make a decision on where to send North Dakota. My first thought was to place them in Worcester just to protect the gate in a region that might be difficult to sell tickets. But when I allowed the rest of the bracket to shake out, there was so little bracket integrity and I thought first-round matchups didn’t create enough perfect matchups (where the sum of the overall seed number is 17, i.e. 1 vs. 16, 7 vs. 10, etc.).
So I came up with the above. There was a requirement to make a number of swaps in the 2-3 seeds in each region. While ideally, I’d like Allentown host Penn State to face Clarkson, that would leave UMass Lowell facing either UMass or Boston College in the first round, something that the committee must avoid, even with five Hockey East teams in the field.
So I swapped UMass Lowell and Clarkson. I also had to swap Quinnipiac and Maine in the 1 vs. 4 bands to avoid Cornell and Quinnipiac having to play in the opening round.
Going back to my point about putting North Dakota in Worcester: I ended up with four regions that would have strong attendance, but I also ended up far too many brackets that completely lacked bracket integrity.
I don’t love my final bracket this week, but it would be acceptbale.
Jayson’s bracket
Worcester, Mass. Regional
1. North Dakota (1)
2. UMass (7)
3. Clarkson (9)
4. AIC (16)
Loveland, Colo. Regional
1. Minnesota Duluth (4)
2. Denver (5)
3. Northeastern (12)
4. Quinnipiac (14)
Allentown, Pa. Regional
1. Minnesota State (2)
2. Penn State (8)
3. UMass Lowell (11)
4. Michigan State (15)
Albany, N.Y. Regional
1. Cornell (3)
2. Boston College (6)
3. Arizona State (10)
4. Maine (13)
Jayson’s philosophy:
This week was a complicated one for bracketing. As Jim mentioned, one of the major obstacles is that there are two Hockey East teams in the second band and two in the third band and we can’t have them play each other. In addition, Penn St and Denver, as hosts, are already locked into second band brackets.
I stuck with bracket integrity as much as I could. This starts with placing North Dakota in Worcester, Minnesota State in Allentown and Cornell in Albany.
After that, with Denver and Penn State locked in, we follow integrity to give us the second band.
The third band needs to have the two Hockey East teams face Denver and Penn State. Then we use integrity to place Clarkson and Arizona State.
Quinnipiac can’t play Cornell, so the fourth band is decided.
What to watch for this weekend…
The problem that we have with four Hockey East teams in between fifth and 12th in the PairWise could take care of itself as teams play and either move up with wins or move down with losses. It certainly would be more ideal if a conference like Hockey East, which seems destined to have five teams in the tournament (possibly six if Providence, currently 16th, gets to the right side of the bubble) would have a team in each seeding band.
So when thinking about PairWise implications, consider four of the five Hockey East series – Boston College vs. Merrimack, Connecticut at Maine, Providence at Vermont and UMass Lowell vs. Northeastern – as all having major PairWise implications. Expect to a lot of jumbling across the PairWise as results trickle in from all of these games. (Interestingly, UMass is idle this weekend. Let’s remember what that means to them next week when we see their PairWise position.
Other games to watch include Denver at North Dakota, easily the premiere matchup of the weekend. North Dakota is hardly locked into the number one overall seed and two losses could have some impact on that. Similarly, two wins for Denver could take them from a second seed to a number one seed.
Clarkson at Quinnipiac on Friday could have some major ramifications for the Bobcats. Win and it’s a nice boost to the RPI. Lose and you could be on the wrong side of the PairWise bubble.
Then there is Alaska Anchorage traveling to Arizona State for two games. These feel like must-win games for Arizona State if they hope to hold steady in the PairWise. Understand, the Sun Devils are currently in the home stretch. These two games along with a two-game series in Wisconsin next weekend are all that remains on the ASU slate. There is no postseason tournament for the independent team. Thus, there isn’t a lot of time to solidify their position in the PairWise to lock in that at-large bid.
