College Hockey:
NCAA D-I women’s field set with Minnesota the top seed

USCHO Staff Report • March 10, 2013

Two teams from the WCHA, winners of the last 13 national championships, make up the eight-team field of the 2013 NCAA women’s Division I tournament.

NCAA tournament page with bracket

Printable bracket (PDF)

Defending national champion, 2012-13 WCHA regular-season champion and No. 1 overall seed Minnesota will host North Dakota in a WCHA Final Faceoff rematch in the quarterfinals on Saturday at 5 p.m. EST at Ridder Arena in Minneapolis.

The other pairings have No. 2-seeded Cornell hosting Mercyhurst, No. 3 Boston University hosting Clarkson and Harvard playing at No. 4 Boston College.

The quarterfinal winners will advance to the Frozen Four on Friday, March 22 and Sunday, March 24, also at Ridder Arena.

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http://www.facebook.com/PEJZ2PRUCKA Pejz Prucka
north dakota over wisconsin? thats more krach then pairwise
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Robert-Earle/100000991724239 Robert Earle
  I’m a pretty big Wisconsin fan, and I can see a good argument for why ND is in and UW is out (of course, I can argue it the other way, too :-).
  For non-conference, both teams played Lindenwood (sweeps), and then ND played RIT while Wisconsin played New Hampshire (sweeps of fairly comparable teams). For reasons unknown to me, ND then had one more non-conference series, a split with Clarkson, while Wisconsin had none. Then the two played to a draw in their conference schedules. That win against ‘team under consideration’ Clarkson gave ND’s RPI and pairwise comparison against Wisconsin a boost that the Badgers were fighting to overcome the rest of the year. Had they won on Friday, Wisconsin would have overcome it, won the pairwise with ND, and be in the tournament. But ND beat ‘em.
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1021561994 Paula Goodwin Gibbons
    Minnesota actually wanted to play Wisconsin in the final for the WCHA tournament. But when they played UND it seemed they just rolled over and played dead. I’m not sure what happened and felt pretty bad for them.
Jason
While it’s so awesome to see the Gophers do well and go unbeaten it’s really unfortunate that the WCHA really suffered from it. In my mind Wisconsin deserves to be in the tournament ahead instead of Harvard or Clarkson.
- pevan52
  I’m tired of hearing that the WCHA was weak because Mn. could easily dominate. It’s not that the league was weak, the Gophers are that strong. The only question that remains is will Kessel score more goals than Raty gives up?
  - Jason
    I think you misunderstood me. First, I am a huge Gopher fan so I agree that they are indeed quite strong and the league is not weak. What I am saying is that with the Gophers winning every game this year it added up the losses for other teams in the WCHA,skewing their record and eventually pushing Wisco out of the tournament.
    In terms of the second question, Kessel has 1 G and 2 A in the past 5 games in which the gophers won 23-0 combined, so I don’t think lack of depth is an issue.
    - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1021561994 Paula Goodwin Gibbons
      Actually, Kessel has only played the last 2 games as she took of a couple of week-ends to recover from some injuries. Since she has come back into the last 2 games, she’s gone without scoring or racking up any points. Not that she won’t start up again. We have every confidence in her. But with the so called depth they have, they can easily win without her scoring again this season.
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1021561994 Paula Goodwin Gibbons
    I love your thinking! Notice my profile picture.
- Joseph Crowley
  Harvard played a non-conference slate of 2 games against BU, 1 against Northeastern, BC, Providence, UConn and UNH. Harvard got to the ECAC finals. They will play Boston College. Harvard plays less non-conference games because the Ivy League does not play during finals.
  Clarkson played a non-conference slate of 2 @ Mercyhurst, 2 @ North Dakota, 1 with BC, Vermont and Northeastern. Clarkson got to the ECAC semifinals, to be knocked off by Harvard. They will play BU.
  Most of those non-conference games were against TUC/Top Twelve pairwise, excluding UConn, UNH, Vermont and Providence. However, ECAC teams scheduling a lot of Hockey East teams is done precisely to increase RPI.
  Nobody is as good as Minnesota this year, but I find no compelling reason to list Harvard, Clarkson, Northeastern, Mercyhurst, North Dakota or Wisconsin as far superior to any other team in that group.There were 6 roughly equal teams vying for 4 road slots. It was also a good thing for these teams that got at large bids that the three autobids went chalk.
Joseph Crowley
Given how dominant Minnesota has been this year, one wonders if this is ironically the year ECAC, CHA or HE breaks the WCHA lock on NCAA titles. One and done tournaments have a strange way of working out, especially when the stars seemed aligned like the Gophers three games to the title all being played on home ice.
I think Minnesota rolls to the title, but one never knows.

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