The field for the NCAA Division I men’s hockey tournament officially will be announced at 5:30 p.m. Sunday in ESPNU. Through Friday’s action, though, 15 of the 16 spots were filled, leaving only Colorado College and Massachusetts as candidates for the final at-large bid.
And whether that bid went to the Tigers or Minutemen played out in St. Paul on Saturday night when Denver defeated Nebraska Omaha 4-1 to win the NCHC Frozen Faceoff championship. The Pioneers’ win sent UMass into the NCAA tournament, while Colorado College dropped out of contention.
The 16-team NCAA field will feature the conference tournament champions of the six Division I leagues: Atlantic Hockey (Rochester Institute of Technology), Big Ten (Michigan State), CCHA (Michigan Tech), ECAC (Cornell), Hockey East (Boston College) and NCHC (Denver).
The other 10 spots will be filled by at-large teams based on their PairWise Ratings, a computer comparison formula that the NCAA hockey selection committee uses. They are: Boston University, Maine, North Dakota, the Gophers, Wisconsin, Quinnipiac, Michigan, Nebraska Omaha, Western Michigan and Massachusetts.
Where will the Gophers end up? They’ll be one of the four No. 2 regional seeds, and the Sioux Falls Regional is the frontrunner to be their destination. They would play host team Nebraska Omaha if they land in South Dakota.
When assigning teams to the four regionals — Providence, R.I.; Springfield, Mass.; Sioux Falls; and Maryland Heights, Mo. — the selection committee will try to keep the bracket as balanced as possible by using No. 1 vs. No. 16, No. 2 vs. No. 15, No. 3 vs. No. 14, etc.
There are exceptions. Intraconference first-round matchups are to be avoided, and the host of the regional, should it make the tournament field, must be placed in that regional. Also, the committee can use attendance or travel reasons to move teams around within their seeding band (Nos. 1- 4, Nos. 5-8, Nos. 9-12 and Nos. 13-16) but not outside of their seeding band. If there are five or more teams from one conference, the committee may have a first-round intraconference matchup but isn’t required to do so.
Here’s what the bracket could look like using only the balanced approach and before eliminating any host or intraconference matchup issues:
