It’s time once again to do what we like to call Bracketology — College Hockey Style, a weekly look at how the NCAA tournament would shake out if the season ended today, a look into the thought process behind selecting and seeding the NCAA tournament teams.
This is the first installment of Bracketology, and we’ll be bringing you a new one every week until we make our final picks before the field is announced in March.
Here are the facts:
Here are the NCAA’s guidelines on the matter, per a meeting of the Championship Committee:
In setting up the tournament, the committee begins with a list of priorities to ensure a successful tournament on all fronts including competitive equity, financial success and likelihood of playoff-type atmosphere at each regional site. For the model, the following is a basic set of priorities:
• The top four teams as ranked by the committee are the four No. 1 seeds and will be placed in the bracket so that if all four teams advance to the Men’s Frozen Four, the No. 1 seed will play the No. 4 seed and the No. 2 seed will play the No. 3 seed in the semifinals.
• Host institutions that qualify will be placed at home.
• No. 1 seeds are placed as close to home as possible in order of their ranking 1-4.
• Conference matchups in first round are avoided, unless five or more teams from one conference are selected, then the integrity of the bracket will be preserved.
• Once the six automatic qualifiers and 10 at-large teams are selected, the next step is to develop four groups from the committee’s ranking of 1-16. The top four teams are the No. 1 seeds. The next four are targeted as No. 2 seeds. The next four are No. 3 seeds and the last four are No. 4 seeds. These groupings will be referred to as “bands”.
Additionally, the NCAA includes a bonus factor for “good” nonconference wins. The exact amount of the bonus is kept secret, but experience in previous seasons has given us some idea as to how large it must be.
Because of this bonus factor, we won’t even talk about the PairWise Rankings (PWR) without an added bonus. We know that the bonus is at least .003 for a quality road win, .002 for a quality neutral-site win and .001 for a quality home win. So everything that we do will reference the 3-2-1 bonus as a base.
Given these facts, here are the top 17 of the current PairWise Rankings (PWR), with a 3-2-1 bonus, plus Atlantic Hockey-leading Mercyhurst and the CHA leader (since Bemidji State and Niagara are tied, we’ll just use this generic title to start) (through all games of January 18, 2006):
1 Wisconsin
2 Miami
3 St. Lawrence
4 Colorado College
5 Minnesota
6 Michigan State
7 Boston College
8t Ohio State
8t Michigan
10 North Dakota
11 Harvard
12t Nebraska-Omaha
12t Vermont
12t New Hampshire
15t Northern Michigan
15t Boston University
15t Cornell
— CHA
— Mercyhurst
Step One
From the committee’s report, choose the 16 teams in the tournament.
We break ties in the PWR by looking at the individual comparisons among the tied teams, and add the CHA champion and Mercyhurst.
From there, we can start looking at the bubble in a more detailed fashion.
The bubbles consist of Ohio State and Michigan at No. 8, and UNO, Vermont and UNH at No. 12.
Ohio State wins the individual comparison against Michigan, giving it the No. 8 ranking. UNO wins against Vermont and UNH, and Vermont wins against UNH, making UNO 12, Vermont 13 and UNH 14.
Breaking ties in the PWR using head-to-head comparisons among the tied teams, the 16 teams in the tournament, in rank order, are:
1 Wisconsin
2 Miami
3 St. Lawrence
4 Colorado College
5 Minnesota
6 Michigan State
7 Boston College
8 Ohio State
9 Michigan
10 North Dakota
11 Harvard
12 Nebraska-Omaha
13 Vermont
14 New Hampshire
15 CHA
16 Mercyhurst
Step Two
Now it’s time to assign the seeds.
No. 1 Seeds – Wisconsin, Miami, St. Lawrence, Colorado College
No. 2 Seeds – Minnesota, Michigan State, Boston College, Ohio State
No. 3 Seeds – Michigan, North Dakota, Harvard, Nebraska-Omaha
No. 4 Seeds – Vermont, New Hampshire, CHA, Mercyhurst
Step Three
Place the No. 1 seeds in regionals. Following the guidelines, there are no host teams in this grouping, so that rule does not need to be enforced.
No. 1 Wisconsin is placed in the Midwest Regional in Green Bay.
No. 2 Miami is placed in the West Regional in Grand Forks.
No. 3 St. Lawrence is placed in the Northeast Regional in Albany.
No. 4 Colorado College is placed in the East Regional in Worcester.
Step Four
Now we place the other 12 teams so as to avoid intraconference matchups if possible.
Begin by filling in each bracket by banding groups. Remember that teams are not assigned to the regional closest to their campus sites by ranking order within the banding (unless you are a host school, in which case you must be assigned to your home regional).
If this is the case, as it was last year, then the committee should seed so that the quarterfinals are seeded such that the four regional championships are played by No. 1 v. No. 8, No. 2 v. No. 7, No. 3 v. No. 6 and No. 4 v. No. 5.
So therefore:
No. 2 Seeds
No. 5 Minnesota is placed in No. 4 Colorado College’s Regional, the East Regional.
No. 6 Michigan State is placed in No. 3 St. Lawrence’s Regional, the Northeast Regional.
No. 7 Boston College is placed in No. 2 Miami’s Regional, the West Regional.
No. 8 Ohio State is placed in No. 1 Wisconsin’s Regional, the Midwest Regional.
No. 3 Seeds
Our bracketing system has one Regional containing seeds 1, 8, 9, and 16, another with 2, 7, 10, 15, another with 3, 6, 11, 14 and another with 4, 5, 12 and 13.
But we do have one host school, so we have to place North Dakota first.
Therefore:
No. 10 North Dakota is placed in the West Regional with No. 2 Miami and No. 7 Boston College.
No. 9 Michigan is placed in No. 8 Ohio State’s Regional, the Midwest Regional.
No. 11 Harvard is placed in No. 6 Michigan State’s Regional, the Northeast Regional.
No. 12 Nebraska-Omaha is placed in No. 5 Minnesota’s Regional, the East Regional.
No. 4 Seeds
One more time, taking No. 16 v. No. 1, No. 15 v. No. 2, etc.
No. 16 Mercyhurst is sent to Wisconsin’s Regional, the Midwest Regional.
No. 15 The CHA champion is sent to Miami’s Regional, the West Regional.
No. 14 Vermont is sent to St. Lawrence’s Regional, the Northeast Regional.
No. 13 New Hampshire is sent to Colorado College’s Regional, the East Regional.
The brackets as we have set them up:
West Regional:
CHA Champion vs. Miami
North Dakota vs. Boston College
Midwest Regional:
Mercyhurst vs. Wisconsin
Michigan vs. Ohio State
East Regional:
Nebraska-Omaha vs. Minnesota
New Hampshire vs. Colorado College
Northeast Regional:
Harvard vs. Michigan State
Vermont vs. St. Lawrence
Our first concern is avoiding intraconference matchups. We have one in the first round — Michigan vs. Ohio State.
So we have to move one of the two teams. We can’t switch Michigan at all because it would create an intraconference matchup if you switched with UNO or Harvard, and North Dakota can’t be moved. So we have to move Ohio State.
The easiest thing to do is switch Boston College with Ohio State. So we’ll do that.
So it looks like we are all finished with our brackets, and the tournament is now fixed.
West Regional:
CHA Champion vs. Miami
North Dakota vs. Ohio State
Midwest Regional:
Mercyhurst vs. Wisconsin
Michigan vs. Boston College
East Regional:
Nebraska-Omaha vs. Minnesota
New Hampshire vs. Colorado College
Northeast Regional:
Harvard vs. Michigan State
Vermont vs. St. Lawrence
Is there anything else that I would like to change? I would love to move Boston College to Worcester, but I can’t do that, it would screw up the bracket integrity too much. And if attendance is a concern, New Hampshire in Worcester is good enough for me.
Bracketing the Frozen Four, if all four number-one seeds advance, then the top overall seed plays the No. 4 overall, and No. 2 plays No. 3. Therefore, the winners of the Midwest and Northeast Regionals face each other in one semifinal (Wisconsin and Colorado College’s brackets), while the winners of the East and West Regionals (St. Lawrence and Miami’s brackets) play the other semifinal.
But…
Bonus Time
We know there is a bonus component to the criteria, the NCAA’s tweak to the system which rewards “good” nonconference wins. We’ve determined that it is at least .003 for a good road win, .002 for a good neutral win and .001 for a good home win.
We also know, from results in previous seasons and some mathematical manipulations, that it’s not as high as .005 for a good road win, .003 for a good neutral win and .001 for a good home win.
So let’s find a happy medium here. Let’s take .004 for a good road win, .0025 for a good neutral win and .001 for a good home win.
Does anything change? A few things do.
Michigan State pulls into a tie for fifth with Minnesota, and then takes fifth by winning the comparison. How did Michigan State pull into a tie? The extra comparison won is the one it wins over Boston College. By giving Michigan State .0005 extra in the RPI for its win over North Dakota in the Lefty McFadden Tournament, its RPI is now higher than BC’s, therefore changing that comparison.
Michigan is now No. 7 after breaking a three-way tie for that position with BC and Ohio State, BC and Ohio State also move down one spot each.
Another difference is that Boston University is now the 14th team. How did this happen? New Hampshire’s comparison win versus Harvard now becomes a loss because of the extra bonus given to Harvard for its wins. So we now have a four-way tie for the 14th spot and Boston University wins it.
Our new ranking:
1 Wisconsin
2 Miami
3 St. Lawrence
4 Colorado College
5 Michigan State
6 Minnesota
7 Michigan
8 Boston College
9 Ohio State
10 North Dakota
11 Harvard
12 Nebraska-Omaha
13 Vermont
14 Boston University
15 CHA
16 Mercyhurst
So, our new brackets, using bracket-filling like above, shows a few changes.
West Regional:
CHA Champion vs. Miami
North Dakota vs. Michigan
Midwest Regional:
Mercyhurst vs. Wisconsin
Ohio State vs. Boston College
East Regional:
Nebraska-Omaha vs. Michigan State
Boston University vs. Colorado College
Northeast Regional:
Harvard vs. Minnesota
Vermont vs. St. Lawrence
We have a single intraconference matchup existing here as well, the UNO-Michigan State game. So we switch Harvard and UNO.
West Regional:
CHA Champion vs. Miami
North Dakota vs. Michigan
Midwest Regional:
Mercyhurst vs. Wisconsin
Ohio State vs. Boston College
East Regional:
Harvard vs. Michigan State
Boston University vs. Colorado College
Northeast Regional:
Nebraska-Omaha vs. Minnesota
Vermont vs. St. Lawrence
The only differences here are that we have two matchups switching locations (Harvard-MSU is now in Worcester and UNO-Minn is now in Albany), Michigan and Ohio State swap spots and BU is in UNH’s place in Worcester.
There are differences between the two, but I still have to go with 3-2-1 as my bracket for the week, since 3-2-1 has been proven to be at least the bonus.
That’s our first look at Bracketology. Was it what you expected? Was it not?
That’s it for this week, we’ll be back with another analysis next week.
