With Friday night’s conference playoffs complete and one champion, Michigan Tech, crowned, we can confidently say that 15 of the 16 spots in the NCAA tournament have been filed.
In order:
1. Boston College*
2. Boston University*
3. Denver*
4. Michigan State*
5. North Dakota
6. Maine
7. Minnesota*
8. Wisconsin*
9. Quinnipiac*
10. Michigan
11. Omaha
12. Western Michigan
16. Michigan Tech (CCHA champion – 33rd in current PairWise)
Other spots will be claimed by the Atlantic Hockey champion, either AIC or RIT and by the ECAC champion, either Cornell or St. Lawrence.
Teams that have the asterisks above are locked into that exact spot, thus we know that Boston College, Boston University, Denver and Michigan State, in that order, will be the No. 1 seeds.
Quinnipiac losing in the ECAC semifinals throws a massive wrench in the at-large bids and crushed some hopes. But when all is said and done, there are only two teams bidding for the final at-large bid: Colorado College and UMass.
Had St. Cloud State advance on Friday past Denver (the Huskies never trailed and lost 5-4 in overtime), the final spot would be either St. Cloud or Colorado College. That would’ve been based on a single game result.
Often times when we get to championship Saturday, it’s that simple, and we can reference “if X wins this game, team A gets in; if X losses, team B gets in.”
In what has already been an incredibly complicated year for Bracketology, shocking that this won’t be anywhere near that clean.
UMass and Colorado College, when all is said and done, will likely be separated by less than .0004 percentage points in the RPI, which will be the final ties breaker. It is actually possible that the math will have to go past the typical fourth decimal place, i.e. we could be talking about the separation by .00001 or even .000001. How is that for close?
Entering Saturday, there are 32 total scenarios left. In 20 of those scenarios (63%) Colorado College will earn the final spot. In 12 of them (37%) UMass will take the final spot.
I’ve tried to identify the 12 scenarios UMass needs to make the tournament (easier than identifying the 20 for CC). Here is what I’ve come up with. I am going to reference the term “favorite often.” That always refers to the higher seed among the two teams playing, so on Saturday, it refers to RIT, Cornell, Boston College, Michigan State and Denver.
- All favorites win
- All favorites except Boston College win
- All favorites except Michigan State win
- All favorites except RIT win
- All favorites except RIT and Cornell win
- All favorites except RIT, Michigan and Boston College win
- All favorites except RIT and Michigan State win
- All favorites except Cornell, RIT and Michigan State win
- All favorites except Denver, RIT and Michigan State win
- All favorites except Cornell win
I really thought I had all of the scenarios but am only at 10. If anyone finds the final two, or if somehow my jargon above as duplicated something, please place a comment below.
Basically, UMass is rooting for the top remaining seeds to win but can also benefit from wins by both AIC and Michigan teams UMass beat earlier this season. Colorado College is really rooting for Omaha, but even the Mavericks first NCHC title wouldn’t always been enough to lock things in for the Tigers.
I’m not going to get into the brackets, yet. Once we know the 16 teams and which team finishes where – Saturday night around midnight barring a long overtime – I’ll share my final bracket prediction.
