Updated Boston College Men’s Hockey Tournament Scenarios

Boston College’s path to the NCAA tournament got a lot more complicated after yesterday’s Big Ten quarterfinals. We really would have benefited from either Ohio State or Penn State losing. Unfortunately, the Michigan hockey teams* are very bad and couldn’t muster up a win for us.

(*by that I mean Michigan and Michigan State. Western Michigan is good. Go figure.)

According to College Hockey News’ Pairwise Probability Matrix, BC’s chances of making the tournament dipped from 22% to ~17%, with less than a 1% chance of making it in as an at-large.

The most straightforward path obviously is still winning the Hockey East championship.

The convoluted path involves Ohio State and Penn State both winning tonight in the Big Ten semifinals, with Ohio State topping Penn State in the final.

This scenario also apparently requires North Dakota to win at some point this weekend, be it in either today’s NCHC semifinal against Denver, or tomorrow in the NCHC consolation game.

Air Force needs to win the Atlantic Hockey title, and no teams can sneak up and win a conference title from outside the top 16 other than in the WCHA.

Last but not least, it appears that Lowell over BU in the Hockey East final would knock BC out, but any other Hockey East championship game result would be OK.

Feel free to play around with the You Are The Committee calculator and tell me if you’ve found any other path to the NCAAs for the Eagles.

Let’s hope for a win tonight to keep the straightforward path alive.