As I write this, all games but the MAAC final (Mercyhurst/Quinnipiac)
are complete.  Even without the "good win" secret ingredient, the NCAA
committee appears to have a number of decision to make and a number of
reasonable outcomes, given what we know of the process.

First, here is the USCHO.com participant ranking

 1. CR (Cornell)
 2. CC (Colorado College)
 3. MN (Minnesota)
 4. NH (New Hampshire)

 5. BU (Boston University)
 6. ME (Maine)
 7. FS (Ferris State)
 8. BC (Boston College)

 9. MI (Michigan)
10. ND (North Dakota)
11. OS (Ohio State)
12. HA (Harvard)

13. MS (Minnesota State - Mankato)
14. SC (St. Cloud State)
15. MH (Mercyhurst)  *
16. WS (Wayne State) *

Note: (*) If Quinnipiac beats MH Sunday, then WS moves to 15 and
          Q would be #16. My final brackets are unaffected by this
          game.  Of course, the NCAA Committee may not be smart
          enough to match my selections. ;-)

Next, we drop these teams into the regionals.  We'll do this by each
band of 4. Teams cannot move from their band.  Where a team is a host
team (MN, BU, MI), they are placed in the region they host.

The 1st band teams are called "seeds" by the NCAA and they go into their
closest regional, in order of placement.  And here is my first problem:

   Will Cornell's regional be Worcester or Providence?

I think the NCAA will view this as a tie and place CR in Providence for
revenue reasons: #4 NH would then go to Worcester.  (If you reverse
this, then simply reverse the band #3&#4 eastern teams).  Out west, since
#3 MN hosts, #2 CC goes to Ann Arbor.  So my #1 seeds look like this:

      MN  Minneapolis
      CC  Ann Arbor
      NH  Worcester
      CR  Providence

Now on to band #2 - BU/ME/FS/BC.  BU hosts Worcester.  ME gets
Providence.  FS should go to Ann Arbor, but because that would lead to a
1st round matchup with fellow CCHA member and host MI, FS gets
Minneapolis and BC settles for Ann Arbor.  So my #2 band teams look like
this:

      FS  Minneapolis
      BC  Ann Arbor
      BU  Worcester
      ME  Providence

Now on to band #3 - MI/ND/OS/HA.  MI hosts Ann Arbor.  ND stays close to
home in Minneapolis.  OS and HA get the eastern regions.  This is a
tossup for me;  I'll put OS in Worcester and HA in Providence, since
this (to me) balances eastern region attendence potentials.  So my #3
band teams look like this:

      ND  Minneapolis
      MI  Ann Arbor
      OS  Worcester
      HA  Providence

Finally in bad #3 we have MS/SC/MH/WS. We'd normally place MS and SC
in the western regions, but that would mean WCHA 1st round matchups.
So they must move east. #1 CR should play the lower ranked team, so
we place SC in Providence and MS in Worcester.  In the western regionals,
we have the MAAC team and WS. We place Detriot's WS in Ann Arbor,
making my #4 band teams look like this:

      MH/Q  Minneapolis
      WS  Ann Arbor
      MS  Worcester
      SC  Providence

This gives the following brackets:

#1 -  Providence (East Region)

      Harvard at Maine
      St. Cloud State at Cornell

#2 -  Ann Arbor (Midwest Region)

      Michigan at Boston College
      Wayne State at Colorado College

#3 -  Minneapolis (West Region)

      North Dakota at Ferris State
      Mercyhurst/Quinnipiac at Minnesota

#4 -  Worcester (East Region)

      Ohio State at Boston University
      Minnesota State at New Hampshire

In case that isn't going out on a long-enough limb, I'll venture to
guess that the higher seed wins all the way to the Frozen Four, at which
point every lower seed wins.(!)       :-)

cheers, wayne

Wayne T. Smith
[log in to unmask]                          Old Town Landing
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