NCAA Ice Hockey Bracketology: February 8th

The defending champion, Minnesota Gophers are looking to repeat (Gopher Athletics)

This season is just a few weeks away from conference tournaments getting underway and if your a fan of college hockey you are watching scoreboards, reading game recaps and checking if your team has any chance of playing in St. Louis for the NCAA Frozen Four.

Last week, we put together our second NCAA Ice Hockey Bracketology with many of the teams remaining the same position as the original bracketology we released. The bracket has pretty easy to fill in with the NCAA Criteria and using the Pairwise the match ups made sense. Well this week we saw a lot of craziness go on in the ECAC and some very interesting match ups across the other conferences.

On Friday, the ECAC and Hockey East had some of their top teams in some very competitive games that maybe some would say they shouldn't have been in. Starting with Boston College, UConn has been a much improved program this year but for the third consecutive year the Eagles struggled against the Huskies. BC made up two three goal deficits to earn a 4-4 tie against UConn and in doing so claimed the Hockey East regular season title. In the ECAC, a surging Princeton team suffered a set back, 3-1 loss to Yale on home ice and St. Lawrence was locked in a battle with Harvard, holding off a late rally to win 2-1. The Crimson did turn in a great performance Saturday, earning a 2-2 draw against #3 Clarkson.

Well that leads us to a little mix up in the bottom half of our bracket but the top teams have continued to take care of business so we can't penalize them for that right? Clarkson's tie to Harvard is understandable, the Crimson aren't as bad as there record shows, they have a ton of one goal losses and a pretty underrated offense. Just ask Boston University. Boston College continues to set up this "trap" game against UConn and it actually has helped them minus the loss in 2014.

The WCHA is competitive from top to bottom, Wisconsin has been steady all season and are the clear favorites to earn the #1 seed as long as they take care of business. Minnesota-Duluth has the most potent and experience offense (Yes, Wisconsin is #1 statistically) but this Duluth team can hang with anytime and this weekend against Wisconsin will show us a lot about both teams. Minnesota has been a dominating force on the college scene and with there playoff experience its hard to envision them going out early. That being said a few years ago, Minnesota visited Boston College in an NCAA Quarterfinal match up and lost. They are behind BC on the pairwise and will need to make up some ground in order to earn home ice.

As a reminder here is the criteria for women’s college hockey.

The top four teams according to the selection criteria will be seeded 1-4 at the time of the selection call. The remaining four teams will be placed in the bracket based on relative strength as long as these pairings do not result in additional flights. These teams will not be reseeded and the committee will not change the bracket once the tournament has begun.
Assuming it meets the committee’s hosting criteria, the highest seeded team will be given the opportunity to host the quarterfinal game.
Pairings in the quarterfinal round shall be based primarily on the teams’ geographical proximity to one another, regardless of their region, in order to avoid air travel in quarterfinal-round games whenever possible. Teams’ relative strength, according to the committee’s selection criteria, shall be considered when establishing pairings if such pairings do not result in air travel that otherwise could be avoided.

In women's hockey only the top 4 of 8 teams earn a seed, with the primary consideration being minimizing flights between opponents and bracket integrity the second consideration. The following are projections based on current standings and selection committee criteria. AUTOBIDS: (CHA, ECAC, WCHA, WHEA)

#1 Wisconsin (WCHA)

#2 Clarkson (ECAC)

#3 Boston College (WHEA)

#4 Robert Morris (CHA) --> Watch Out Syracuse is right there!

Now lets get the next four teams using the current Pairwise Rankings

#1 Wisconsin (WCHA)

#2 St. Lawrence

#3 Minn-Duluth

#4 Boston College (WHEA)

Minnesota, Clarkson (ECAC), Cornell, Robert Morris (CHA)

The straight bracket would look something like this:

Robert Morris v. #1 Wisconsin