The NCAA selection committee (Ron Grahame-DU, Ian McCaw-NU, Jack McDonald-Q and Bill Wilkinson-WS) have made their decisions and the NCAA tournament field is set. (The following report and comments come from the final selections as reported by several news outlets including http://uscho.com/ -- you should know that I have not seen the ESPN2 selection show, so if it explains some of the "unexplainables" below, please set the record straight). First, everyone picked the contestants. USCHO's PWR predicted the selections perfectly, as expected. Here's the field in PWR order: 1. * MSU (Michigan State) 2. * BC (Boston College) 3. * StC (St. Cloud) 4. ND (North Dakota) 5. Mi (Michigan) 6. CC (Colorado College) 7. Mn (Minnesota) 8. Me (Maine) 9. Wi (Wisconsin) 10. PC (Providence) 12. * Mh (Mercyhurst) 14. * StL (St. Lawrence) * == Conference tournament champion and auto-bid. The four byes were chosen from the top four teams, as expected. The committee looks at the comparisons of these 4 teams which gives us an order same as overall PWR, in this case. The top seed gets it's own region (MSU 1W), setting the position of the other 3 (BC 1E, StC 2W, ND 2E). Most everyone that does such predictions had this much right. From here on, the committee apparently chose a new path for this year. Instead of considering teams east/west, it apparently ranked the remaining 8 teams in a single ranking. However, the same method as with byes was *not* used. None of PWR, all-12 IPWR nor all-8 IPWR explains what the committee did. If you know or can guess, please let us know! In the meantime, I'll speculate with the following .... All-12 IPWR matches the PWR order; All-8 IPWR switched Mi and CC. We might guess that PWR or All-12 IPWR was used since Mi was placed 3W and CC 3E, but if All-8 IPWR was used, the committee might have switched 3W/3E since Michigan would be expected to have a significant Grand Rapids, MI draw. So far, so good. Next, we might have expected 4W Mn 4E Me 5W Wi 5E PC by the West-then-East formula. But that didn't happen. We might have expected the committee to minimize 2nd round in-conference matchups, but that didn't happen. One way of looking at what did happen is that the top 2 teams were moved east and the latter 2 west. The brings an additional WCHA team East, but "loads" the eastern regional. It does avoid 1st round conference matchups. But that could have been done in a number of ways. Another way of looking at what did happen is that Mn and PC switched region, thus pushing Me down from 4E to 5E and pulling Wi up from 5W to 4W. Switching 5W/5E would have made more sense to me, but maybe there's another consideration. Other moves also appear to be "better" than the actual selection. Finally, 6W and 6E goes to Mh and StL, as expected by this (speculated) process. This gives the following brackets: Worcester, MA 3E CC 6E StL 2E ND 4E Mn 5E Me 1E BC Grand Rapids, MI 3W Mi 6W Mh 2W StC 4W Wi 5W PC 1W MSU Hopefully we'll learn how and why the teams were seeded the way they were! Your ideas? Best of luck to all teams. Go Maine! :-) cheers, wayne Wayne T. Smith [log in to unmask] Old Town Landing The College Hockey lists: Hockey-L and Hockey3 at http://lists.Maine.edu/