Keith Instone <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Was this a seed-by-the-numbers year or did the committee juggle a lot?

If you do overall strength of brackets, you get:

1 MSU - 9 Wisconsin / 10 Providence
2 BC - 7 Minnesota / 8 Maine
3 SCSU - 5 Michigan / 11 Mrcy
4 UND - 6 CC / 12 SLU

===========

I'm going with "seed-by-the-numbers".
If you start with seed-by-the-numbers you get:
1 MSU - 8 Maine / 9 Wisconsin
2 BC - 7 Minnesota / 10 Providence
3 SCSU - 6 CC / 11 Mrcy
4 UND - 5 Mich / 12 SLU

SCSU gets #2West, UND #2East, but for attendance purposes, keep Michigan West.  This requires swapping 5 and 6.

1 MSU - 8 Maine / 9 Wisconsin           West
2 BC - 7 Minnesota / 10 Providence      East
3 SCSU - 6 Mich / 11 Mrcy               West
4 UND - 5 CC / 12 SLU                   East

These would be my seedings.  (You could argue whether Mrcy and SLU should swap with their brackets.)  The committee, however, also switched Maine and Providence.

The only reason I can see for doing that is attendance.  They must have determined that Maine was a bigger draw in Worcester than Providence.  Switching Maine with Minn creates two first-round intraconference match-ups.  Switching the entire pairing would move Wisconsin out of the West, where they are close enough to bring some fans to Grand Rapids, whereas Minn probably isn't.  So the committee decided it was worth having two second-four seeds play each other to keep Maine East instead of Providence.

-Pam Sweeney