Pity no one (else) is foolish enough to predict the entrants and
seedings. :-)
Here are my predictions (actual seedings in 12 hours from the NCAA!)
West East
(Madison, WI) (Worcester, MA)
-------------------+--------------------
NoDak 1 UNH
Michigan St 2 Clarkson
CC 3 Maine
Denver 4 BC
St Law 5 Michigan
NMU 6 OSU
-------------------+--------------------
In each region, #4vs#5 & #3vs#6 w/winners vs #1 & #2, respectively.
Those 4 winners go to the Frozen Four.
Comments:
The top 4 positions in each region are by the book, with Clarkson
gaining a bye due to winning both the ECAC regular season and post-season
tournament. I've seeded UNH ahead of Clarkson due to their PWR.
At this point, the Selection Committee apparently looks at "teams on the
bubble" and calculates new PWR-like comparisons amongst these bubble teams.
Now it appears that the selection committee will make the MAAC teams
ineligible for the tournament due to their low conference RPI. Assuming
this being the case, Quinnipiac is eliminated from consideration as well
as Holy Cross and Connecticut. (Quinnipiac would otherwise make the
field of 12).
So the other 4 teams would appear to be St. Lawrence, Michigan, Ohio
State and Northern Michigan. Since there would be 7 West and 5 East
teams, NMU would be moved East.
Then, the 5th & 6th West is exchanged with 5th & 6th East.
Finally, 1st round, and sometimes 2nd round matchups are adjusted to
keep same-conference games to a minimum. In this case, no adjustments
would be necessary.
Again, to see what really happens, see the ESPN2 Selection Show at 12:30
today. Then we'll see what "mistakes" the NCAA Ice Hockey Selection
Committee makes ;-)
cheers, wayne
Wayne T. Smith
[log in to unmask] Old Town Landing
Co-owner of the College Hockey lists - Hockey-L and Hockey3
P.S. BC beat UNH 5-4 in OT for the HEA Championship. Great game.
P.P.S. To avoid conference matchups, I suppose the committee could
exchange the #4 East/West seeds, meaning the Frozen Four teams
*could* be UNH vs BC and MSU vs Maine :-)
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