Bracketology: March 3rd!

Sorry folks for dropping the ball on bracketology but conference playoffs start this weekend and their has been a lot of movement. To recape you can read here on how the pairwise works.

A couple things to refresh our memories is that their are 16 teams in the tournament and all 6 conferences get automatic bids, leaving us with 10 at large bids. The committee also likes to avoid inter-conference matchups in the first round and also tries to eliminate flights for #1 seeds.

With that said here is how our rankings look:

1 Denver
2 Miami
3 Wisconsin
4 St. Cloud State
5 Bemidji State
6 Boston College
7 North Dakota
8 Yale
9 Alaska
10 New Hampshire
11 Cornell
12 Michigan State
13 Vermont
14 Minnesota-Duluth
15 Ferris State
16 Northern Michigan
17 Maine
18 Nebraska-Omaha
19 Union
20 Colorado College
21 Northeastern
22 Mass.-Lowell
23 Boston University
24 Minnesota
25 Michigan


Our current conference leaders/champions are as follows.

CCHA- Miami
ECAC- Yale
WCHA- Denver
Atlantic hockey- RIT
CHA- Bemidji st.
Hockey East- UNH

Since RIT isn't in the top 16 they will occupie the 16th spot and we will take the top 15 in their order.

With that said our regionals look like this:

Ft. Wayne- Midwest Regional

1. Miami v 4. Ferris st.
2. North Dakota v 3. Cornell

St. Paul- West Regional

1. Denver v 4. RIT
2. Yale v 3. Michigan St.

Worcester- Northeast Regional

1. Wisconsin v 4. Minnesota-Duluth
2. Boston College v 3. New Hampshier

Albany- East Regional

1. St. Cloud State v 4. Vermont
2. Bemidji St. v 3 Alaska

Now first things first is do we have inter conference matchups and the answer is yes. We have Miami v Ferris, Wisconsin v UMD, and BC v UNH. So we need to move those around. Only thing we can do is switch Ferris St. with Minnesota-Duluth so we will do that. We can also switch New Hampshier and Michigan st.

So our new bracket looks like this:

Ft. Wayne- Midwest Regional

1. Miami v 4. Minnesota-Duluth
2. North Dakota v 3. Cornell

St. Paul- West Regional

1. Denver v 4. RIT
2. Yale v 3. New Hampshier

Worcester- Northeast Regional

1. Wisconsin v 4. Ferris St.
2. Boston College v 3. Michigan St.

Albany- East Regional

1. St. Cloud State v 4. Vermont
2. Bemidji St. v 3 Alaska

Now we need to look at eliminating the flights for our #1 seeds. No matter where Denver goes they will have to fly so we will move their pod with St. Cloud state and the East Regional. We also have too look at attendance issues and we wont have any with Miami in Ft. wayne and North Dakota there as well. In the west we will have Bemidji and SCSU so that looks fantastic. In the northeast we look great with Boston College there and in the East with UNH and Yale we look great.

So our final bracket looks like this:

Ft. Wayne- Midwest Regional

1. Miami v 4. Minnesota-Duluth
2. North Dakota v 3. Cornell

Albany- East Regional

1. Denver v 4. RIT
2. Yale v 3. New Hampshier

Worcester- Northeast Regional

1. Wisconsin v 4. Ferris St.
2. Boston College v 3. Michigan St.

St. Paul- West Regional

1. St. Cloud State v 4. Vermont
2. Bemidji St. v 3 Alaska

So thats where I will hang my hat this week. Also check out College Hockey News to play their simulation game call "you are the committee".