As I write this, all games but the MAAC final (Mercyhurst/Quinnipiac) are complete. Even without the "good win" secret ingredient, the NCAA committee appears to have a number of decision to make and a number of reasonable outcomes, given what we know of the process. First, here is the USCHO.com participant ranking 1. CR (Cornell) 2. CC (Colorado College) 3. MN (Minnesota) 4. NH (New Hampshire) 5. BU (Boston University) 6. ME (Maine) 7. FS (Ferris State) 8. BC (Boston College) 9. MI (Michigan) 10. ND (North Dakota) 11. OS (Ohio State) 12. HA (Harvard) 13. MS (Minnesota State - Mankato) 14. SC (St. Cloud State) 15. MH (Mercyhurst) * 16. WS (Wayne State) * Note: (*) If Quinnipiac beats MH Sunday, then WS moves to 15 and Q would be #16. My final brackets are unaffected by this game. Of course, the NCAA Committee may not be smart enough to match my selections. ;-) Next, we drop these teams into the regionals. We'll do this by each band of 4. Teams cannot move from their band. Where a team is a host team (MN, BU, MI), they are placed in the region they host. The 1st band teams are called "seeds" by the NCAA and they go into their closest regional, in order of placement. And here is my first problem: Will Cornell's regional be Worcester or Providence? I think the NCAA will view this as a tie and place CR in Providence for revenue reasons: #4 NH would then go to Worcester. (If you reverse this, then simply reverse the band #3 eastern teams). Out west, since #3 MN hosts, #2 CC goes to Ann Arbor. So my #1 seeds look like this: MN Minneapolis CC Ann Arbor NH Worcester CR Providence Now on to band #2 - BU/ME/FS/BC. BU hosts Worcester. ME gets Providence. FS should go to Ann Arbor, but because that would lead to a 1st round matchup with fellow CCHA member and host MI, FS gets Minneapolis and BC settles for Ann Arbor. So my #2 band teams look like this: FS Minneapolis BC Ann Arbor BU Worcester ME Providence Now on to band #3 - MI/ND/OS/HA. MI hosts Ann Arbor. ND stays close to home in Minneapolis. OS and HA get the eastern regions. This is a tossup for me; I'll put OS in Worcester and HA in Providence, since this (to me) balances eastern region attendence potentials. So my #3 band teams look like this: ND Minneapolis MI Ann Arbor OS Worcester HA Providence Finally in bad #3 we have MS/SC/MH/WS. We'd normally place MS and SC in the western regions, but that would mean WCHA 1st round matchups. So they must move east. #1 CR should play the lower ranked team, so we place SC in Providence and MS in Worcester. In the western regionals, we have the MAAC team and WS. We place Detriot's WS in Ann Arbor, making my #4 band teams look like this: MH/Q Minneapolis WS Ann Arbor MS Worcester SC Providence This gives the following brackets: #1 - Providence (East Region) Harvard at Maine St. Cloud State at Cornell #2 - Ann Arbor (Midwest Region) Michigan at Boston College Wayne State at Colorado College #3 - Minneapolis (West Region) North Dakota at Ferris State Mercyhurst/Quinnipiac at Minnesota #4 - Worcester (East Region) Ohio State at Boston University Minnesota State at New Hampshire In case that isn't going out on a long-enough limb, I'll venture to guess that the higher seed wins all the way to the Frozen Four, at which point every lower seed wins.(!) :-) 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/