It’s time once again to do what we like to call Bracketology — College Hockey Style, a weekly look at how the NCAA tournament would shake out if the season ended today, and a look into the thought process behind selecting and seeding the NCAA tournament teams.
We’ll be bringing you a new one every week until we make our final picks before the field is announced in March.
Here are the facts:
Here are the NCAA’s guidelines on the matter, per a meeting of the Championship Committee:
In setting up the tournament, the committee begins with a list of priorities to ensure a successful tournament on all fronts including competitive equity, financial success and likelihood of playoff-type atmosphere at each regional site. For the model, the following is a basic set of priorities:
• The top four teams as ranked by the committee are the four No. 1 seeds and will be placed in the bracket so that if all four teams advance to the Men’s Frozen Four, the No. 1 seed will play the No. 4 seed and the No. 2 seed will play the No. 3 seed in the semifinals.
• Host institutions that qualify will be placed at home.
• No. 1 seeds are placed as close to home as possible in order of their ranking 1-4.
• Conference matchups in first round are avoided, unless five or more teams from one conference are selected, then the integrity of the bracket will be preserved.
• Once the six automatic qualifiers and 10 at-large teams are selected, the next step is to develop four groups from the committee’s ranking of 1-16. The top four teams are the No. 1 seeds. The next four are targeted as No. 2 seeds. The next four are No. 3 seeds and the last four are No. 4 seeds. These groupings will be referred to as “bands”.
Additionally, the NCAA includes a bonus factor for “good” nonconference wins. The exact amount of the bonus is kept secret, but experience in previous seasons has given us some idea as to how large it must be.
Because of this bonus factor, we won’t even talk about the PairWise Rankings (PWR) without an added bonus. We know that the bonus is at least .003 for a quality road win, .002 for a quality neutral-site win and .001 for a quality home win. So everything that we do will reference the 3-2-1 bonus as a base.
Given these facts, here are the top 16 of the current PairWise Rankings (PWR), with a 3-2-1 bonus, plus any other teams that are currently leading their conferences, but are not in the top 16 (through all games of February 14, 2006):
1 Wisconsin
2 Minnesota
3 Miami
4 Boston University
5 Nebraska-Omaha
6 Boston College
7 Colorado College
8t Michigan
8t Michigan State
10 Cornell
11 Harvard
12t Ohio State
12t Providence
14 Denver
15 Maine
16t St. Cloud State
16t St. Lawrence
25t Holy Cross
— Alabama-Huntsville
Let’s take something into account at this point in time. Alabama-Huntsville is currently not a TUC, but if given the autobid, it would be a TUC. So let’s take that into account and make UAH a TUC.
Adding in UAH in the PairWise, we now get a Top 16, plus teams that are currently leading their conferences, giving us:
1 Wisconsin
2 Minnesota
3 Miami
4t Nebraska-Omaha
4t Boston University
6t Colorado College
6t Boston College
8t Michigan
8t Michigan State
10 Cornell
11 Harvard
12 Providence
13t Maine
13t Denver
13t Ohio State
16 St. Cloud State
25t Holy Cross
31 Alabama-Huntsville
As you can see, adding in UAH as a TUC has changed around our ranking, notably because Ohio State has lost and tied to UAH and UNO has beaten UAH.
Step One
From the committee’s report, choose the 16 teams in the tournament.
We break ties in the PWR by looking at the individual comparisons among the tied teams, and add in Holy Cross and Alabama-Huntsville.
Now let’s break the ties.
Nebraska-Omaha wins the individual comparison with Boston University. Colorado College wins the individual comparison with Boston College. Michigan wins the individual comparison with Michigan State. Maine wins the comparisons with Denver and Ohio State while Denver wins the comparison with Ohio State.
The 16 teams in the tournament, in rank order, are:
1 Wisconsin
2 Minnesota
3 Miami
4 Nebraska-Omaha
5 Boston University
6 Colorado College
7 Boston College
8 Michigan
9 Michigan State
10 Cornell
11 Harvard
12 Providence
13 Maine
14 Denver
15 Holy Cross
16 Alabama-Huntsville
Step Two
Now it’s time to assign the seeds.
No. 1 Seeds – Wisconsin, Minnesota, Miami, Nebraska-Omaha
No. 2 Seeds – Boston University, Colorado College, Boston College, Michigan
No. 3 Seeds – Michigan State, Cornell, Harvard, Providence
No. 4 Seeds – Maine, Denver, Holy Cross, Alabama-Huntsville
Step Three
Place the No. 1 seeds in regionals. Following the guidelines, there are no host teams in this grouping, so that rule does not need to be enforced.
No. 1 Wisconsin is placed in the Midwest Regional in Green Bay.
No. 2 Minnesota is placed in the West Regional in Grand Forks.
No. 3 Miami is placed in the East Regional in Albany.
No. 4 Nebraska-Omaha is placed in the Northeast Regional in Worcester.
Step Four
Now we place the other 12 teams so as to avoid intraconference matchups if possible.
Begin by filling in each bracket by banding groups. Remember that teams are not assigned to the regional closest to their campus sites by ranking order within the banding (unless you are a host school, in which case you must be assigned to your home regional).
If this is the case, as it was last year, then the committee should seed so that the quarterfinals are seeded such that the four regional championships are played by No. 1 v. No. 8, No. 2 v. No. 7, No. 3 v. No. 6 and No. 4 v. No. 5.
So therefore:
No. 2 Seeds
No. 5 Boston University, as the host team, is placed in No. 4 Nebraska-Omaha’s Regional, the Northeast Regional.
No. 6 Colorado College is placed in No. 3 Miami’s Regional, the East Regional.
No. 7 Boston College is placed in No. 2 Minnesota’s Regional, the West Regional.
No. 8 Michigan is placed in No. 1 Wisconsin’s Regional, the Midwest Regional.
No. 3 Seeds
Our bracketing system has one Regional containing seeds 1, 8, 9, and 16, another with 2, 7, 10, 15, another with 3, 6, 11, 14 and another with 4, 5, 12 and 13.
Therefore:
No. 9 Michigan State is placed in No. 8 Michigan’s Regional, the Midwest Regional.
No. 10 Cornell is placed in No. 7 Boston College’s Regional, the West Regional.
No. 11 Harvard is placed in No. 6 Colorado College’s Regional, the East Regional.
No. 12 Providence is placed in No. 5 Boston University’s Regional, the Northeast Regional.
No. 4 Seeds
One more time, taking No. 16 v. No. 1, No. 15 v. No. 2, etc.
No. 16 Alabama-Huntsville is sent to Wisconsin’s Regional, the Midwest Regional.
No. 15 Holy Cross is sent to Minnesota’s Regional, the West Regional.
No. 14 Denver is sent to Miami’s Regional, the East Regional.
No. 13 Maine is sent to Nebraska-Omaha’s Regional, the Northeast Regional.
The brackets as we have set them up:
West Regional:
Holy Cross vs. Minnesota
Cornell vs. Boston College
Midwest Regional:
Alabama-Huntsville vs. Wisconsin
Michigan State vs. Michigan
Northeast Regional:
Maine vs. Nebraska-Omaha
Providence vs. Boston University
East Regional:
Denver vs. Miami
Harvard vs. Colorado College
Our first concern is avoiding intraconference matchups. We have a few, including Michigan State vs. Michigan and Providence vs. Boston University.
These matchups all take place in the second and third bands, so let’s redo the third band.
No. 3 Seeds
We place them in order, considering the seeding.
Therefore:
No. 9 Michigan State cannot be placed in No. 8 Michigan’s Regional, so the Spartans are placed in No. 7 Boston College’s Regional, the West Regional.
No. 10 Cornell is placed in No. 8 Michigan’s Regional, the Midwest Regional.
No. 11 Harvard is placed in No. 6 Colorado College’s Regional, the East Regional.
No. 12 Providence is placed in No. 5 Boston University’s Regional, the Northeast Regional.
We now have one remaining intraconference matchup, Providence vs. Boston University. We switch Providence with seed right next to it, in this case, No. 11 Harvard.
This now gives us:
West Regional:
Holy Cross vs. Minnesota
Michigan State vs. Boston College
Midwest Regional:
Alabama-Huntsville vs. Wisconsin
Cornell vs. Michigan
Northeast Regional:
Maine vs. Nebraska-Omaha
Harvard vs. Boston University
East Regional:
Denver vs. Miami
Providence vs. Colorado College
Perfect as it can be.
Bracketing the Frozen Four, if all four number-one seeds advance, then the top overall seed plays the No. 4 overall, and No. 2 plays No. 3. Therefore, the winners of the Midwest and Northeast Regionals face each other in one semifinal (Wisconsin and Nebraska-Omaha’s brackets), while the winners of the East and West Regionals (Miami and Minnesota’s brackets) play the other semifinal.
Bonus Time
We know there is a bonus component to the criteria, the NCAA’s tweak to the system which rewards “good” nonconference wins. We’ve determined that it is at least .003 for a good road win, .002 for a good neutral win and .001 for a good home win.
We also know that it’s not as high as .005 for a good road win, .003 for a good neutral win and .001 for a good home win.
So let’s find a medium here. Let’s take .004 for a good road win, .0025 for a good neutral win and .001 for a good home win.
Does anything change?
Nope.
Two weeks to go in the CCHA and ECACHL regular seasons, three weeks everywhere else. Who hangs in? Who doesn’t?
