I agree with those commending the selection committee on a fine choice this year. It makes even more sense if you look at the seeds by pairs. To wit: #1 seed: CC, BU No surprise here. #2 seed: Michigan, Vermont Not really a surprise with Vermont getting the east 2 bye, from what we have heard. But was anyone else amazed at what the eastern teams did to avoid getting the bye? :-) #3 seed: Minnesota, LSSU Clearly the next highest in the rankings. Who goes where? To avoid conference matchups, LSSU goes east. Also, this could be seen as "punishment" on Minn for having a rough February. Good call -- Lake State deserves the easier path. #4 seed: Mass-Lowell, Western Michigan Again, the two highest remaining seeds (not counting Maine). Who goes where? Again, to avoid conference match-ups, WMU east, UML west. After 1994, it might sting for UML fans to go west again, but they managed to play well then, and I don't see why they can't do it again. They get an easier path this way, if you ask me. #5 seed: Michigan State, Clarkson Okay, according to the PWR, Michigan St. is tied with UML. Not that it matters in a 4-5 game who is seeded higher. State stays home, Clarkson stays east. #6 seed: Providence, Cornell The two lowest ranked teams. Providence has the lower ranking, and so deserves the tougher path, so they go west. Cornell, with their large fan base, stays east. Actually, before anyone jumps on me about it, it looks as though there is a discrepancy here. According to the final PWR, located at http://www.math.umn.edu/~urton/chockey/articles/pwr.html it could have been (depending on tie-breaker) #4 seed: Michigan State, Western Michigan Michigan State stays home, Western Michigan goes east. Easy call. #5 seed: Mass Lowell, Clarkson Mass Lowell deserves the easiest path, which is in the east. Clarkson, with the bigger fan support, stays home. This also has the advantage of avoiding a match-up with UML and BU if UML wins. Makes sense either way. With Lowell and State tied, either could be 4-5, since they still play each other. By being bumped west, they deserve the higher seed (and presumably last change on the ice that goes with it). On Mon, 18 Mar 1996, Robin Lock wrote: > Would Lowell really prefer to swap places with Cornell and face LSSU in > the first round and then BU? IMHO, that's the toughest route to the Cincy. Right sentiment, wrong facts. Lowell, I would think, has to be pretty happy with their draw. As it is, they face a slumping Michigan State and post-season dud Colorado College. If they had stayed east, they would have played Western Michigan and then BU (who has beaten them twice, soundly, in their last two meetings). If they switched with Cornell, they have to play LSSU, and if they beat them, Vermont. If I were them, I would be pretty happy with what they got. By the way, if any bracket contained both Lake State and BU, as Robin suggests, it *would* be the toughest route to Cinci. But no path goes that way. For my money, the Providence-Minnesota-Michigan bracket is the toughest. The only fault I can find with the choices the selection committee has made was in the selection of Vermont as the #2 bye in the east. Especially with Vermont splitting the weekend (and losing to sub-.500 Harvard!), UML losing twice, Clarkson losing twice, and underdogs Providence and Cornell, with no shot at the bye, winning two games each. Looks bad, guys. I was all ready to give Vermont the bye if they won their tournament after gaining the regular season title... But there were at least two teams that performed well enough to deserve it more. So what if these teams happen to be in the west? The only justification I can see for this is that Vermont will almost guarantee attendance on the second day of games in Albany. -Lee-nerd [log in to unmask] "It is not written in the stars that I will always understand what is going on - a truism that I often find damnably annoying." -Robert Heinlein HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.