11 teams have NCAA tournament spots locked up; 11 others still have a shot

The NCAA championship trophy sits in a case in Tampa, Fla., before the 2023 Frozen Four (photo: Jim Rosvold).

With 12 conference tournament games left to be played before selection Sunday for the 2024 NCAA Division I men’s hockey tournament, there are 4,096 possible scenarios left for how the PairWise Rankings and automatic bids will shake out.

You can go through the possibilities on our PairWise Predictor.

Here’s what we know after games of Sunday, March 17:

• Eleven teams are guaranteed spots in the field: Boston College, Boston University, North Dakota, Denver, Michigan State, Maine, Quinnipiac, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Omaha.

• Seven teams can only get in by winning their conference tournament: RIT or American International in Atlantic Hockey; Bemidji State or Michigan Tech in the CCHA; and Cornell, Dartmouth and St. Lawrence in ECAC Hockey.

• Two teams can get in either through winning their conference tournament or by getting an at-large bid: UMass in Hockey East and St. Cloud State in the NCHC.

• Two teams can get in only as at-large teams after they were eliminated from the NCHC tournament on Sunday: Western Michigan and Colorado College.

• Boston College has secured the No. 1 overall seed and Boston University will be No. 2.

The table below shows the percentage of remaining scenarios that result in teams finishing in the tournament and at what overall seed. These scenarios are not weighted by likelihood of happening.