John Whelan writes:
 
>If Quinnipiac is excluded from a tournament seeded with the current
>numbers and without extra auto-bids, the field contains seven Western
>and five Eastern teams; if we assume BU, RPI, MSU and NoDak win the
>conference tournaments, the at-large bids go to Maine, CC, DU, BC,
>SLU, and either Quinnipiac or Michigan, depending on whether the MAAC
>is excluded.  (So the question there is whether the East has seven or
>eight teams.)
>
>This was determined (naturally) using my "You Are The Committee" script
>http://www.slack.net/~whelan/cgi-bin/tbrw.cgi?tourney
 
...and the committee would be obligated to select Michigan due to the
"unwritten agreement" that a minimum of two teams will be selected
from each automatic conference (CCHA, ECAC, HEA, WCHA).
 
Of course, in 2 years when the MAAC meets the standard for an automatic
bid, we will probably have a situation where there are 5 automatic bids
(only 1 per conference) & 7 at large bids distributed by the PWR, with
the byes distributed by PWR also.  The automatic bid for the MAAC will
make it hard to justify the "Colorado College Rule", the "Clarkson
Rule", and the "Unwritten Agreement".
 
 
Alton
 
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