Hockey bracketology!
First off, Michigan was in both ESPN's and CBSs projected tourney before today, and not on the bubble from what I can tell. Anyway here's the hockey tournament if it ended today.
Michigan-AIC Duluth-UMass Allentown, PA
Minn State -UConn Quinnipiac-SCSU Albany, NY
Denver-BU No Dak-Notre Dame (I know, battle of the NDs) Loveland, CO
WMU-OSU (should be juicy) Minnesota-Tech (another good one) Worcester, MA
Denver has to be in Loveland, Quinnipiac in Albany. Anyway this is a good draw for UM.
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February 20th, 2022 at 8:11 PM ^
Really sucks that there is no Midwest location for a region this year. That almost never happens.
February 20th, 2022 at 9:49 PM ^
... no Midwest location for a region this year. That happens all the time now because the people who choose the NCAA tournament format are idiots
FTFY
February 21st, 2022 at 8:34 AM ^
Hockey regionals are dumb
February 21st, 2022 at 9:45 AM ^
One or two of the 1 seeds are gonna get screwed playing de facto road games vs New England teams in New England. Worst case scenario is playing a hot BU team out there
February 20th, 2022 at 8:15 PM ^
Are we the number one overall seed? It's got to be either us or Minnesota State.
February 20th, 2022 at 8:28 PM ^
Yes, Michigan is #1 currently in RPI which would mean the top tournament seed… thus the reason bracketology has a regional matchup against AIC (#20) and then the winner of UMass/Duluth (RPI #8/9). Frozen four semi would be the WMU regional winner. But this is all likely to change in the next couple of weeks.
February 20th, 2022 at 8:57 PM ^
February 21st, 2022 at 5:15 AM ^
Exactly why you want the #1 seed.
They’re the top team in, by far, the worst conference. AIC is American International College. Small D2 school (less than 2k students) in Massachusetts.
February 20th, 2022 at 11:40 PM ^
The committee uses Pairwise, not RPI...which for now is a distinction without a difference because, except for some ties, the two rankings are identical.
They also aren't required to do the s-curve precisely--it doesn't have to be 8 vs 9 for example. "Teams are placed into bands of four, each corresponding with a seed. Teams can be moved freely within those bands, but their seed is rarely changed. The committee can move teams within bands to help out a region for attendance factors, reduce travel costs, avoid second-round intraconference matchups, or any reason it wants."
Not sure any of that comes into play with three of the regions so close together, though maybe they'd swap BU and OSU?
February 20th, 2022 at 9:29 PM ^
Depends on how you feel about Michigan ducking that game against Western Michigan.
February 20th, 2022 at 8:17 PM ^
This looks like a good draw, but I have a bad feeling they're going to get, I don't know, BU and Quinnipiac with their 1 gpg average (which is due to playing absolutely awful teams, but still) and it's going to be stressful.
February 20th, 2022 at 8:21 PM ^
I have tix to the Albany regional and that lineup looks awful
February 20th, 2022 at 8:22 PM ^
What... did they run out of venues to have all four in the East? Who did Loveland sleep with and why didn’t a Midwest town do the same?
February 20th, 2022 at 8:38 PM ^
Up until now, I didn't know three of the four regionals were all within 125-250 miles from each other.
How that makes sense (other than $$$ likely greasing the palms of some certain powers that be) is beyond me.
February 20th, 2022 at 9:52 PM ^
It's not money greasing palms. It's that they won't put regionals on home campuses where they could actually make money, so all these neutral sites in the west try to host a regional and take a bath and decline to bid. Because the people who control the format like empty arenas in the west and arenas that are all within two hours of all the teams in the east, because they don't care about the west.
It's because the people who control this issue are malevolently indifferent to the health of the sport.
February 20th, 2022 at 8:41 PM ^
Too early for hockey bracketology as it will change with the conference tournaments. We should be a lock for the draw and as stated above have the number 1 seed at the moment.
It is getting harder and harder to find hosts for the regionals since they kicked the opening rounds off campus. I went to a first round game in Cincinnati a few years back (with the CCM line) and the arena was empty.
February 20th, 2022 at 9:20 PM ^
Old enough to remember when the NCAA Tournament consisted of two eastern (ECAC) and two western (WCHA) teams. I went to the "Frozen Four" (which it wasn't called in those years) in 1971 in Syracuse and 1972, 1973 and 1974 in Boston. That was the last time when any one city would host the "Frozen Four" in consecutive years.
As a college hockey fan, that was a good time to be studying at Denver or at the Boston area "Beanpot schools". Denver was in it in 71, 72 and 73; Harvard and BU were in it in 71 and 74; BU was in it in 72; BC was in it in 73.
Although the field is likely to be scrambled a lot before Selection Sunday, in a season when currently there would be only five eastern teams in the tournament and only one of them among the top eight seeds, but three of the four opening round sites are in Allentown, Albany and Worcester, here’s when the NCAA might want to rethink the hockey tournament and consider:
1st Thursday/Friday/Saturday/Sunday: Opening round at home rink of higher seed. Two games per night. Weekend of NCAA Men’s Basketball Sweet Sixteen/Elite Eight.
2nd Saturday/Sunday: Top 4 remaining seeds host at home rinks. Two games per night. Friday/Sunday of NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four.
Rotate Frozen Four among four permanent, regional sites that would host twice every decade (Saint Paul, Denver, Boston, New York/New Jersey) and maybe four other NHL cities that each would host once a decade on Friday/Sunday after NCAA men’s basketball championship game.
February 20th, 2022 at 9:41 PM ^
Did they make a mistake and place games within driving distance of campuses?
Go Blue!
February 20th, 2022 at 10:01 PM ^
Most people know this, but some ask every year: The NCAA hockey tournament field is selected by a completely transparent numerical process that is simulated by the pairwise rankings, which can be found both at collegehockeynews.com and uscho.com. Michigan is currently the #1 team in the pairwise; this can fluctuate a bit at the end of the season, but Michigan is a lock for a tournament bid and it would take a pretty serious disaster to miss out on a #1 seed.
The hockey tournament is chaotic and the regional locations are unfair, so anything could happen. I wouldn't be a huge fan of drawing the winner of UMass and UMD, both of whom we have thumped this year but who are excellent teams that can make things really hairy in a single-elimination tournament. But it's not like there are a bunch of easy teams to get stuck with; it's the tournament, and you're going to play good teams.
Michigan, Minnesota State, and Denver are the clear top three, with Western a pretty solid #4. Pairwise is mostly an RPI rating with some other ratings that can matter in certain conditions, particularly between conference teams or teams that play each other and a lot of the same opponents.
Michigan's non-conference wins have been absolutely gigantic for our rating and for the whole conference. The IceBreaker tournament was a lifetime event for me and also a pretty crucial set of results that matter today.
I think the ideal situation would be to get the #1 seed and get paired with a team like Quinnipiac. I'd rather avoid a hot North Dakota team, for example, and playing quality teams like SCSU and UMD makes me very nervous.
But it's the tournament. I'd get nervous if the first round was just the guys playing Score-O.
February 20th, 2022 at 10:26 PM ^
So if we are not #1 overall, Mel Pearson will have to punch... a computer??
February 20th, 2022 at 10:38 PM ^
Another surprisingly hot team is Boston University. Since losing to Cornell at Madison Square Garden on Thanksgiving weekend, they're 13-1-1, after starting the season 4-9-2.
They might not make the NCAA tournament field because their final four regular-season games are against teams ranked much lower than them in the Pairwise comparison (Boston College - 33 in the Pairwise and Maine - 52 in the Pairwise), so they're unlikely to improve their Pairwise ranking of 14 before the Hockey East Tournament, and this seems like a down year for Hockey East teams.
They lost only player to the Olympics -- goalie Drew Commesso who won two games in net for Team USA in the opening round of the Olympics.
February 21st, 2022 at 7:56 AM ^
Hopefully they don't make it in. The Terriers would be a terrifying opening matchup.
February 20th, 2022 at 11:01 PM ^
Maybe I don't understand college hockey well enough. How on earth could we be on the bubble?
February 20th, 2022 at 11:29 PM ^
We're not. We could lose out and we'd still probably be a #1 (though it would include an embarrassing sweep at the hands of MSU).
You could probably do the math (somebody probably has) on what we need to clinch #1 overall. Probably sweep ND and that might be enough.
February 20th, 2022 at 11:58 PM ^
Oh was the bubble moment about basketball?? Looking at it again, maybe but how on earth would we know
February 21st, 2022 at 12:45 AM ^
I meant bubble on basketball, sorry about the confusion.
February 21st, 2022 at 7:43 AM ^
Thanks for clarifying, I was confused as well lol
February 20th, 2022 at 11:50 PM ^
If the NCAA gave a shit about hockey there'd be a regional in one of Detroit, Toledo, Grand Rapids, Chicago, Indianapolis, Columbus, Cleveland, or Minneapolis literally every year. Instead we get this shit where the #1 seed is going to be shipped 8.5 hours away and attendance will suck again.
EDIT: It should just be home sites at the #1 seeds until the Frozen Four which does fine. But Yost was too loud and intimidating in the early aughts, so we couldn't have that anymore.
February 21st, 2022 at 12:20 AM ^
Shouldn't even bother with regionals. Just have the higher seeds host the lower seeds. Home site regionals aren't a bad idea in theory, but in practice you run into a lot of situations where the arenas aren't really built for that.
High-seed-hosts is doable, doesn't cost a whole lot more for travel than regionals, and promises excellent atmospheres in many of the arenas. Who wouldn't be fascinated by a do-or-die game in front of a packed crowd at Lawson? Doesn't Minnesota State, long a sleepy minnow of college hockey before its recent renaissance, deserve to finally play a tournament game within 4 hours of their fans? Can't we agree that the home ice advantage at Yost in NCAA tournament play is both completely unfair and 100% awesome?
February 21st, 2022 at 12:24 AM ^
Well yeah ideally you have best of threes, but that's extending the season another two weeks which the NHL would get pissy about.
February 21st, 2022 at 8:31 AM ^
Remember that the issue with Yost in ‘02 wasn’t just that it was loud and intimidating. It was that U-M was the 4 seed. Denver, the regional 1, wound up in a road game*, which was unfair given its seed.
I totally agree that the current situation is absurd and that there should be a true Midwest venue every year. But there are three ways to do that in a single-weekend format, and they all have issues.
- Neutral sites like Cincinnati and Fort Wayne: Doesn’t work because the arenas don’t want to bid, since they know not enough people will go.
- On-campus sites decided before the season: If the host team is present but isn’t the regional’s top seed, you potentially have the U-M/Denver problem.
- On-campus sites decided after the season: As stephenjrking commented, some arenas might not be capable of hosting a four-team event. (You could get around this by adding a weekend or traveling a second time, but now you’re imposing more costs.)
Personally, I think #2 is the best solution, since vibrant, well-attended games are fun. But if you’re the NCAA and your charge is to organize a fair championship, I can see how you’d consider #2 to be the worst solution, since it affects the competition in an illogical way.
*-U-M incidentally was in this exact same position in ‘95 at Wisconsin, but won.
February 21st, 2022 at 9:56 AM ^
Denver definitely was screwed there but the ncaa looked at the problem and decided the solution should be ‘lets play in front of no one!’ rather than conclude maybe 1 seed Denver shouldve had the advantage instead
February 21st, 2022 at 12:37 AM ^
Wait, there's a regional in Worcester and the Frozen Four is in Boston? Fuck NCAA Hockey.
February 21st, 2022 at 4:46 PM ^
Michigan vs Alice in Chains?
February 26th, 2022 at 12:25 PM ^
update after Friday's games, only because it's a major one, Minnesota is now 4, good for UM, but our favorite team ND is now 9 and in UM's bracket.
UM-AIC Minn Duluth-Notre Dame
Minn State Lowell, Quinn-UMass
Denver-BU, NoDak-SCSU
Minn-OSU, WMU- Tech
They would need to swap OSU with one of BU or Lowell and SCSU with UMass to avoid intraconference matchups.
February 27th, 2022 at 7:06 PM ^
big changes to the bracket - BU is out, Minnesota a 1-seed, UM 2 overall but with Notre Dame in their bracket.