Final Pairwise Natterings Comment Count

Brian

Bad news first: we aren't going to Grand Rapids. Thanks, CCHA!

Now, the good news: Duluth won last night and Minnesota's chances of making the tournament are extremely slim. Even better, the two last teams in the tourney in some scenarios are Miami and Ohio State. Unless the committee does something unprecedented like seed-switching or scheduling intraconference first-round games, they'd be forced to hand Michigan a first-round matchup against a small-conference autobid. Even even better, the two-seed in Michigan's bracket in virtually all scenarios is Yale. Yale's had a great year but ECAC teams rarely reach the Frozen Four.

This seems to be what we're looking at if all favorites win:

1. Michigan (#4 overall)
4. Air Force (#15 overall)

2. Yale (#5 overall)
3. Minnesota Duluth (#12 overall)

No offense to any of those teams, but that's a great draw.

Now… there are some nasty combinations, like Duluth winning the WCHA and Cornell the ECAC and the consolation games going right, that slide Minnesota into the tournament. If Air Force wins the CHA, these have the Gophers the #15 team with Air Force in front of them, at which point the committee has a difficult decision between listening to the silly pairwise and giving ND a game at Minnesota or flipping the seeds and shipping Michigan. Which they'd probably do.

I'm sorry to report that Michigan has virtually no control over its fate at this point. Unless there's some wack combination out there I haven't come across Michigan is going to be the last #1 seed no matter what happens against Notre Dame. And it appears that Yale is locked in at #5. There will be considerable jitter in the three and four seeds in Michigan's regional, though.

So:

  • Michigan is almost definitely the last #1.
  • Yale is almost definitely their #2.
  • Grand Rapids is gone.
  • Wack stuff can happen at 3 and 4.

Comments

lhglrkwg

March 21st, 2009 at 12:16 PM ^

if that's our draw then great. sucks that we can't be in GR but whatever at this point. also, air force is not in the CHA. they are...atlantic hockey i think? if not that then it's EZAC (as yostbuilt put it)
edit: on that note, (this is going to be mostly rhetorical), why the f is air force playing in an east coast league. the air force academy is in colorado or wyoming right?

Blue Bennie

March 21st, 2009 at 2:18 PM ^

The academy is in Colorado, but they probably had to join an east coast conference because the WCHA is full. I think that is the same reason that Alaska Fairbanks joined the CCHA.

The conference structure is frustrating, but at the same time, rivalries have been created over the years that I wouldn't want to lose.