yes, i know it is late, but i've gotten my son off on his way back to
school, watched the tape of the selection show, read my non-hockey email
and think the committee has done a fine job.  That's any way you cut it.
 
There are NO repeat NO intra conference matchups
The top 4 teams are in the 4 different brackets
The top two teams in each conference but the ECAC stay in their own regions
In terms of bracketing, if you sum up the finishing order of the three
   teams in the brackets, you get 18 19 20 and 21.  That seems close to me.
The committee seems to have placed the teams where the competition
   dictates, not where the fan base dictates.
The committee has dealt with several serious issues this year (as many
folk have pointed out)
   They made a decision on the Quinnipiac issue.
   They wrestled with the interpretation of "on the bubble"
   They made some great matchups.
 
Did they have any alternatives?? of course they did.  They could have gone
strictly by the numbers (col 1 below) and gotten possibly 3 intra confrence
intra-conference matchups and violating the so called "clarkson" rule
 
They could have evened the regions and just moved the two bottom teams
yielding (col 2) again yielding up to 3 intra conference matchups
 
They could have observed observed that swapping DU and BC eliminates the
two "favorite" intra conference matchups and swapped them. (col 3)
 
Actually, once they do that, if they then reseed the west regional they
invert CC and BC  (col 4) but that adds two second rounders so the
final step is to swap 1 & 2  (done by inverting the other pairs)
yielding what we got.
 
   By numbers           by whatif       swap            reseed          invert
                        script          du-bc           west
 
 1 1w UND               UND             UND             UND             UND
16    bye               bye             bye             bye             bye
 8 4w DU                DU              bc              cc              bc
 9 5w St Law            St Law          St Law          St Law          No.M
 
 4 2e maine             Clarkson        Clarkson        Clarkson        Clarkson
13    bye               bye             bye             bye             bye
 5 3e BC                Maine           Maine           Maine           Maine
12 6e No.M              OSU             OSU             OSU             OSU
 
 3 2w MSU               MSU             MSU             MSU             MSU
14    bye               bye             bye             bye             bye
 6 3w clarkson          CC              CC              BC              CC
11 6w OSU               No.M            No.M            No.M            St Law
 
 2 1e UNH               UNH             UNH             UNH             UNH
15    bye               bye             bye             bye             bye
 7 4e cc                bc              DU              DU              DU
10 5e mich              mich            mich            mich            mich
 
Well done, committee.
 
         charlie shub   University of Colorado at Colorado Springs
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