NCAA Men's Hockey Bracketology: March 5, 2015

With every league except for the Big Ten heading into conference playoffs this weekend, now's a good time to take a quick look at the NCAA tournament picture with this week's Bracketology.

Step 1: Select the field of 16 teams

As a reminder: while the NCAA hockey tournament does have a selection committee, there is no "smoke-filled room." The 16 teams are selected and seeded through the Pairwise rankings, with the highest ranked at-large teams joining the conference champions.

Assuming the teams that finished first in the regular season go on to win their conference tournaments, this would be your 16 team field as of today:

1. North Dakota (NCHC Champion)
2. Minnesota State (WCHA Champion)
3. Minnesota Duluth
4. Miami
5. Nebraska-Omaha
6. BU (Hockey East Champion)
7. Michigan Tech
8. Denver
9. Providence
10. Boston College
11. Minnesota 
12. Quinnipiac (ECAC Champion)
13. Yale
14. Bowling Green
15. Michigan (B1G Champion) 
16. Robert Morris (AHC Champion)

Robert Morris is the bracket buster here—they sit at #25 in the PWR, the highest ranked AHC team—so one of them will definitely squeeze out #16 in the PWR. There's potential for other tournament upsets as well, which will make more bubble teams sweat.

PlayoffStatus.com says that BC right now has a 90% chance of making the NCAA tournament. Things can change in a hurry in college hockey, but it does look like teams from BC on up are in pretty decent shape. BC has a decent little gap over Minnesota right now, but behind the Gophers is a huge quagmire with pretty slim margins all the way down to #20 Northeastern.

Step 2: Assign the seeds

1 seeds: NoDak, Minnesota State, Duluth, Miami
2 seeds: Omaha, BU, MichTech, DU
3 seeds: PC, BC, Minnesota, QU
4 seeds: Yale, Bowling Green, Michigan, RMU

Step 3: Place host teams into regionals

This year's four regional hosts are Brown (East in Providence), New Hampshire (Northeast in Manchester), Notre Dame (Midwest in South Bend) and North Dakota (West in Fargo). Only one of those programs, North Dakota, is safely in the tournament field at this point, so North Dakota will be slotted into the West Regional.

Step 4: Assign #1 seeds to regionals based on proximity to regional site

This part is a giant cluster because all 4 seeds are out west right now.

#1 North Dakota goes to Fargo.
#2 Minnesota State goes to South Bend
#3 Duluth goes to, I guess, Manchester?
$4 Miami goes to Providence

There's not really a good way for the committee to do this. There'd be something logical about Miami going to South Bend, but technically as a higher rated team Minnesota State is supposed to get priority for staying west, so that's probably what will happen.

Step 5: Assign the other 12 teams, avoiding in-conference first round matchups

The Committee tries for bracket integrity where possible; straight bracket integrity would give us:

Fargo

1. North Dakota (NCHC)
16. Robert Morris (AHC)

8.  Denver (NCHC)
9. Providence (HEA)

South Bend

2. Minnesota State (WCHA)
15. Michigan (B1G)

7. Michigan Tech (WCHA)
10. BC (HEA)

Manchester

3. Duluth (NCHC)
14. Bowling Green (WCHA)

6. BU (HEA)
11. Minnesota (B1G)

Providence

4. Miami (NCHC)
13. Yale (ECAC)

5. Omaha (NCHC)
12. Quinnipiac (ECAC)

Great job everyone! No in-conference matchups! Perfect bracket integrity! See you next year! Right?

Er, not so much.

These brackets would be possibly problematic for attendance. The Committee has always had a mandate to move teams around within their seeding bands (i.e., swapping team #5 with 6, 7, or 8, but not with #4) to improve attendance. This has become an even greater point of emphasis in recent years as Regionals attendance has slipped and there has been much hand-wringing about how to fix it.

In theory, the Fargo regional should be OK with North Dakota in it, so we'll leave that alone for now.

South Bend actually looks OK too. South Bend being in the middle of nowhere and all, it's not easy for anyone to get to, but Michigan and Michigan Tech are reasonably close, and Minnesota State's strong season should bring out their fans.

The problem is back east. In an ideal world, BC, BU and Providence could all be slotted in to the two eastern regionals. But the way it's looking, that's not going to be able to happen. BU is likely to be a 2 seed and BC and PC are likely to be 3 seeds, so there's no way to bring them all East without creating an in-conference matchup.

Sadly, I think BC would lose the game of musical chairs here and stay west. I foresee the Committee moving Providence to the Providence regional (makes sense) and leaving Manchester alone, counting on BU to anchor attendance there.

PC gets the nod for two reasons: first of all, because they're in Providence, obviously—though it could be argued BC might sell more tickets, even in Providence. No offense to the Friars or their fanbase, of course, but PC is more of a basketball school and BC is a bigger draw. But I can't see the Committee stiffing PC here while the Friars are still ahead of BC in the PWR (#9 vs. #10). If BC jumps past Providence you can bet(/hope) that Brad Bates will be doing a sell job on BC's ticket selling ability similar to what he did for the Pinstripe Bowl in order to keep BC east.

The best way to arrange the brackets in this case while preserving some semblance of bracket integrity would be to slot PC in against UNO, slide QU in to Manchester, where they hould also bring some fans, and move Minnesota to Fargo:

Fargo

1. North Dakota (NCHC)
16. Robert Morris (AHC)

8.  Denver (NCHC) 
11. Minnesota (B1G)

South Bend

2. Minnesota State (WCHA)
15. Michigan (B1G)

7. Michigan Tech (WCHA)
10. BC (HEA)

Manchester

3. Duluth (NCHC)
14. Bowling Green (WCHA)

6. BU (HEA)
12. Quinnipiac (ECAC)

Providence

4. Miami (NCHC)
13. Yale (ECAC)

5. Omaha (NCHC)
9. Providence (HEA)

The biggest problem with this bracket is that Omaha sort of gets stiffed as the #5 overall playing against a strong #9 at home in PC. But it wouldn't be the NCAA tournament without some western team feeling aggrieved by the Committee doing what they're mandated to do. So that's probably what would happen. The only way to avoid this would be to fudge with who goes where as a #1 seed, which is, as far as I can tell, written pretty clearly into the rulebook. So that won't happen.

I think this would be your bracket if the season ended today, but there's obviously time for a lot to change. I think if BC wants to stay east in the NCAA's they're going to have to leapfrog Providence or hope BU surges to a #1 seed. Let's see what happens.

Who's your Frozen Four from this bracket? I'll take: North Dakota; BC; BU; Miami, setting up a BC-BU semifinal at the Frozen Four in Boston. It's fate, right?