The NCAA selection committee (Ron Grahame-DU, Ian McCaw-NU, Jack
McDonald-Q and Bill Wilkinson-WS) have made their decisions and the NCAA
tournament field is set.

   (The following report and comments come from the final selections as
   reported by several news outlets including http://uscho.com/ -- you
   should know that I have not seen the ESPN2 selection show, so if it
   explains some of the "unexplainables" below, please set the record
   straight).

First, everyone picked the contestants.  USCHO's PWR predicted the
selections perfectly, as expected.  Here's the field in PWR order:

 1. * MSU (Michigan State)
 2. * BC  (Boston College)
 3. * StC (St. Cloud)
 4. ND    (North Dakota)
 5. Mi    (Michigan)
 6. CC    (Colorado College)
 7. Mn    (Minnesota)
 8. Me    (Maine)
 9. Wi    (Wisconsin)
10. PC    (Providence)
12. * Mh  (Mercyhurst)
14. * StL (St. Lawrence)

* == Conference tournament champion and auto-bid.

The four byes were chosen from the top four teams, as expected.  The
committee looks at the comparisons of these 4 teams which gives us an
order same as overall PWR, in this case.  The top seed gets it's own
region (MSU 1W), setting the position of the other 3 (BC 1E, StC 2W, ND
2E).

   Most everyone that does such predictions had this much right.  From
   here on, the committee apparently chose a new path for this year.

Instead of considering teams east/west, it apparently ranked the
remaining 8 teams in a single ranking.  However, the same method as with
byes was *not* used.  None of PWR, all-12 IPWR nor all-8 IPWR explains
what the committee did.

   If you know or can guess, please let us know!  In the meantime, I'll
   speculate with the following ....

All-12 IPWR matches the PWR order;  All-8 IPWR switched Mi and CC.  We
might guess that PWR or All-12 IPWR was used since Mi was placed 3W and
CC 3E, but if All-8 IPWR was used, the committee might have switched
3W/3E since Michigan would be expected to have a significant Grand
Rapids, MI draw.  So far, so good.

Next, we might have expected

   4W Mn
   4E Me
   5W Wi
   5E PC

by the West-then-East formula.  But that didn't happen.  We might have
expected the committee to minimize 2nd round in-conference matchups, but
that didn't happen.

One way of looking at what did happen is that the top 2 teams were moved
east and the latter 2 west.  The brings an additional WCHA team East,
but "loads" the eastern regional.  It does avoid 1st round conference
matchups.  But that could have been done in a number of ways.

Another way of looking at what did happen is that Mn and PC switched
region, thus pushing Me down from 4E to 5E and pulling Wi up from 5W to
4W.  Switching 5W/5E would have made more sense to me, but maybe there's
another consideration.  Other moves also appear to be "better" than the
actual selection.

Finally, 6W and 6E goes to Mh and StL, as expected by this (speculated)
process.  This gives the following brackets:


Worcester, MA

 3E CC
 6E StL
            2E ND

 4E Mn
 5E Me
            1E BC

Grand Rapids, MI

 3W Mi
 6W Mh
            2W StC

 4W Wi
 5W PC
            1W MSU


Hopefully we'll learn how and why the teams were seeded the way they
were!  Your ideas?

Best of luck to all teams.  Go Maine!  :-)

cheers, wayne

Wayne T. Smith
[log in to unmask]                          Old Town Landing
The College Hockey lists: Hockey-L and Hockey3 at http://lists.Maine.edu/