Saturday Night / Sunday Morning Bracketology: UND Made It (Barely)

Now that the dust has settled, let me tell you who is "in" and who is "out" of the NCAA Tournament.

As you remember, there were just a few teams left fighting for the remaining spots in the 16-team field.  North Dakota needed a win and some help in order to reach the tournament, and they got just that, beating Western Michigan 5-0 in the NCHC 3rd Place Game before sweating out a UMass-Lowell triumph over UNH and a thrilling 5-4 overtime win for Wisconsin.  The UW and UML wins gave North Dakota the last At Large bid.

Minnesota State was another team fighting for a spot, and they secured it by winning the WCHA Championship against Ferris State by a 4-1 score.

Denver bested Miami (OH) 4-3 to claim the NCHC's autobid and reach the tournament.  Same for Robert Morris, who beat Canisius 7-4 to win the Atlantic Hockey championship.

So, the NCAA Tournament field is set:

1 Minnesota

2 BC

3 Union

4 Wisconsin

5 Ferris State

6 Quinnipiac

7 UMass-Lowell

8 Notre Dame

9 St. Cloud State

10 Minnesota State

11 Providence

12 Colgate

13 Vermont

14 North Dakota

15 Denver

16 Robert Morris

So, let's go through the bracketology here.  First order of business, place host teams in their own regionals.  Minnesota is the only host team that made the field, so they are placed in St. Paul.  Next, place the remaining 1-band seeds (teams 1-4) starting with the highest-ranked team, as close to home as possible.  BC gets placed in Worcester, Union in Bridgeport, Wisconsin in Cincinnati.

Now we place the teams so that the seedings follow bracket integrity: the #1 overall seed should have #s 8, 9, and 16 in their region; #2 overall should have 7, 10, 15; #3 should have 6, 11, 14; and the #4 seed's region should contain 5, 12, and 13.

Therefore, our "preliminary" brackets look like this:

St. Paul

1 Minnesota vs 16 Robert Morris

8 Notre Dame vs 9 St. Cloud State

Worcester

2 BC vs 15 Denver

7 UMass-Lowell vs 10 Minnesota State

Bridgeport

3 Union vs 14 North Dakota

6 Quinnipiac vs 11 Providence

Cincinnati

4 Wisconsin vs 13 Vermont

5 Ferris State vs 12 Colgate

At this point, we look to see if we have any first round interconference matchups - those need to be avoided as well as possible.  Luckily, though, there are none.

What about attendance?  Can we swap any teams around to help out attendance?  One easy move would be to swap North Dakota with Vermont.  We'd love to swap Minnesota State with Colgate, but that would create an all-WCHA first round matchup with Ferris State so we can't do that.

St. Paul

1 Minnesota vs 16 Robert Morris

8 Notre Dame vs 9 St. Cloud State

Worcester

2 BC vs 15 Denver

7 UMass-Lowell vs 10 Minnesota State

Bridgeport

3 Union vs 13 Vermont

6 Quinnipiac vs 11 Providence

Cincinnati

4 Wisconsin vs 14 North Dakota

5 Ferris State vs 12 Colgate

This bracket looks pretty good.  This is the same thing that USCHO's Jayson Moy came up with tonight.  I could foresee one more potential change, though: Denver to St. Paul and Robert Morris to Worcester.  The committee has usually tried to "protect the #1 overall seed" by making sure they play the #16 overall seed, but in this case the #15 and #16 seeds are both autobid teams from outside the top 16 in the PairWise Rankings.  I could see the committee maybe thinking that because both Denver and Robert Morris came from outside the top 16 that they could tweak those matchups for attendance purposes as well.  I still think the above brackets are the ones we'll end up with, but if it's anything different than the above, I have to wager the only change will be DU to St. Paul and Robert Morris to Worcester.