Thanks to the efforts of USCHO message board participant ‘Fighting Sioux 23’, USCHO has been running simulations of all of the conference quarterfinal, semifinal and championship that were canceled due to COVID-19.
From that, we created the final PairWise Rankings to produce an NCAA tournament field. And after that, seeded the tournament based on Bracektology, the long-time product of Jayson May and USCHO.
Please note this is just a simulation. These games will never be played. But ‘Fighting Sioux 23’ has agreed to simulate these games and produce results for each of the 15 simulated NCAA tournament games.
Here is the bracket for the simulated Division I NCAA Tournament:
Albany Regional (Sat. & Sun.)
1 North Dakota
8 Clarkson
9 Massachusetts
16 Sacred Heart
Loveland Regional (Sat. & Sun.)
4 Minnesota-Duluth
5 Denver
11 Maine
13 Ohio State
Allentown Regional (Fri. & Sat.)
3 Minnesota State
7 Penn State
10 Mass.-Lowell
14 Western Michigan
Worcester Regional (Fri. & Sat)
2 Cornell
6 Boston College
12 Bemidji State
15 Michigan
If we lay out the brackets with full bracket integrity, here is what we get after making a swap of Maine and Bemidji State in order to avoid an intra-conference matchup.
1 North Dakota
8 Clarkson
9 Massachusetts
16 Sacred Heart
2 Cornell
7 Penn State
10 Mass.-Lowell
15 Michigan
3 Minnesota State
6 Boston College
12 Bemidji State
14 Western Michigan
4 Minnesota-Duluth
5 Denver
11 Maine
13 Ohio State
Now we look at who has to go where. Therefore, we placed Cornell in Allentown because of Penn State and Minnesota-Duluth in Loveland because of Denver. Then North Dakota is sent to Albany and Minnesota State to Worcester.
Albany
1 North Dakota
8 Clarkson
9 Massachusetts
16 Sacred Heart
Allentown
2 Cornell
7 Penn State
10 Mass.-Lowell
15 Michigan
Worcester
3 Minnesota State
6 Boston College
12 Bemidji State
14 Western Michigan
Loveland
4 Minnesota-Duluth
5 Denver
11 Maine
13 Ohio State
Let’s start by looking at some of these placements. Cornell in Allentown is not that bad, it is 180 miles from Ithaca to Allentown. It is only 167 miles to Albany. So not much of a difference there. we can live with that.
But the biggest problem for us is the Worcester regional. It is going to have tremendous attendance problems with Boston College being the only team close to this regional.
But it ís also part of the fact that there isn’t much else you can do to pull in closer teams to this regional, with all Hockey East schools in the third band except for Boston College.
So what do we do?
The easiest thing for me to do would be to switch Cornell and Minnesota State, along with their opponents.
Albany
1 North Dakota
8 Clarkson
9 Massachusetts
16 Sacred Heart
Allentown
3 Minnesota State
7 Penn State
10 Mass.-Lowell
14 Western Michigan
Worcester
2 Cornell
6 Boston College
12 Bemidji State
15 Michigan
Loveland
4 Minnesota-Duluth
5 Denver
11 Maine
13 Ohio State
And there you have it. What we think the simulated NCAA Tournament looks like.
