Welcome back to Bracketology.
Between now and March 22 — Selection Sunday for the men’s Division I NCAA Ice Hockey Championship — we’ll provide in this space an up-to-date prediction of the 16-team NCAA field, seeded into regionals according to the guidelines set out by the NCAA Division I Men’s Ice Hockey Committee.
As a reminder, we’re doing this using the NCAA Power Index (NPI), not the PairWise.
For the purposes of this exercise, we’ll keep things simple and use the top of the NPI as our backbone — but with the same wrinkle we dealt with last week: every conference needs representation. If we simply take the top 16 teams in the NPI, we do not get an Atlantic Hockey America team. So, just like last week, we’ll take the highest-rated AHA team as our conference representative.
Right now, that team is Bentley.
So our field, using overall seeds (NPI ranks), is: 1 Michigan, 2 North Dakota, 3 Wisconsin, 4 Minnesota Duluth, 5 Western Michigan, 6 Michigan State, 7 Penn State, 8 Dartmouth, 9 Cornell, 10 Quinnipiac, 11 Denver, 12 Augustana, 13 Providence, 14 St. Thomas, 15 Princeton, and 16 Bentley.
We next must seed the bracket using bracket integrity. In other words, those 1-through-16 overall seeds matter. We start by putting teams into the four pods in the order the bracket demands: 1-8-9-16, 2-7-10-15, 3-6-11-14, and 4-5-12-13.
So initially, that’s:
1 Michigan, 8 Dartmouth, 9 Cornell, 16 Bentley.
2 North Dakota, 7 Penn State, 10 Quinnipiac, 15 Princeton.
3 Wisconsin, 6 Michigan State, 11 Denver, 14 St. Thomas.
4 Minnesota Duluth, 5 Western Michigan, 12 Augustana, 13 Providence.
The highest seed in each region plays the lowest and the two middle seeds plays in the first round.
Now we ask the first question the committee always asks: do we have any same-conference first-round matchups? And right away we do. In that first pod, 8 Dartmouth would play 9 Cornell, and that’s an ECAC vs. ECAC first-round game.
So we fix it — but we fix it the right way. We keep everyone in their seed band, and we only swap within that band if it solves the problem and doesn’t create a new one somewhere else.
In this case, the cleanest move is to swap within the 5–8 band: move 6 Michigan State into the 8 spot and move 8 Dartmouth into the 6 spot. The overall seed numbers stay with the teams; what changes is which pod they fall into.
After that switch, the pods become:
1 Michigan, 6 Michigan State, 9 Cornell, 16 Bentley.
2 North Dakota, 7 Penn State, 10 Quinnipiac, 15 Princeton.
3 Wisconsin, 8 Dartmouth, 11 Denver, 14 St. Thomas.
4 Minnesota Duluth, 5 Western Michigan, 12 Augustana, 13 Providence.
Now we’ve cleaned up the conference conflict without breaking bracket integrity. No same-conference first-round games, and we’re still building off the proper pod structure.
Next question: hosts. As we discussed last week, the first thing you do when assigning sites is determine whether any regional hosts are in the field. If so, that team is tied to its site.
This year’s regional hosts are Holy Cross in Worcester, Union in Albany, Omaha in Sioux Falls, and Denver in Loveland. Only one of those is in our field: Denver. So we have exactly one hard lock: wherever Denver goes, that pod goes to Loveland.
Denver is the 11 overall seed, and it’s sitting in the pod with 3 Wisconsin, 8 Dartmouth and 14 St. Thomas. So that pod goes to Loveland. No questions asked.
Now we have three pods left and three sites left: Worcester, Albany, and Sioux Falls.
We need to ask ourselves the next question the committee always asks: can we improve attendance without compromising the criteria?
And that immediately leads to the biggest attendance question on the board this week:
Can we get Augustana and/or North Dakota into Sioux Falls?
Because Augustana isn’t just “closer” to Sioux Falls — they’re in Sioux Falls. If you can put Augustana in that building, you’re not guessing about attendance.
So, can we do it? If we want both teams there, it requires some movement.
Augustana is the 12 overall seed, which means if we’re going to move them, we can only swap them within the 9–12 band. Those seeds are 9 Cornell, 10 Quinnipiac, 11 Denver, and 12 Augustana. But Denver is host-locked to Loveland, so we’re not touching 11.
That leaves two realistic options: swap Augustana with Cornell or swap Augustana with Quinnipiac. Cornell is actually useful for the eastern sites — Albany in particular — because Cornell can bring people. So the cleanest, most committee-friendly move is to swap Augustana with Quinnipiac: 12 Augustana for 10 Quinnipiac. Same band, no host conflict, and it doesn’t create any same-conference first-round matchup.
So we do it.
Now the pods are:
1 Michigan, 6 Michigan State, 9 Cornell, 16 Bentley.
2 North Dakota, 7 Penn State, 10 Augustana, 15 Princeton.
3 Wisconsin, 8 Dartmouth, 11 Denver, 14 St. Thomas.
4 Minnesota Duluth, 5 Western Michigan, 12 Quinnipiac, 13 Providence.
Now that we’ve gotten Augustana into the 2-7-10-15 pod, we can do exactly what the committee would love to do: place that pod in Sioux Falls.
Think about what that accomplishes for attendance. North Dakota is one of the strongest travel fanbases in the sport. And now you’ve got Augustana playing in its home building. If anything, we might be creating too much demand for tickets.
Regardless, Sioux Falls becomes: 2 North Dakota, 7 Penn State, 10 Augustana, 15 Princeton.
Loveland is already locked as: 3 Wisconsin, 8 Dartmouth, 11 Denver, 14 St. Thomas.
Now we assign the two remaining pods to Worcester and Albany, and at this point, it becomes a geography and attendance puzzle.
The 4-5-12-13 pod — 4 Minnesota Duluth, 5 Western Michigan, 12 Quinnipiac, 13 Providence — makes sense in Worcester, because Quinnipiac and Providence are logical drivers for a New England site. Worcester won’t fill itself on name value alone, but those two schools help give you something in-region.
That puts Worcester as: 4 Minnesota Duluth, 5 Western Michigan, 12 Quinnipiac, 13 Providence.
And that leaves Albany with the remaining pod: 1 Michigan, 6 Michigan State, 9 Cornell, 16 Bentley.
Is that perfect from a pure geographic standpoint? No. But it has two things working in its favor: Cornell is close enough to bring a crowd, and Bentley is at least in the Northeast footprint. And more importantly, once you’ve used your best attendance lever — getting Augustana to Sioux Falls — you’re not going to start breaking the bracket just to fine-tune Albany.
So, with everything locked in, here is the final bracket:
And now, the last question — how do we feel about attendance?
Loveland should be strong because Denver anchors it as the host. Sioux Falls should be excellent because North Dakota travels and Augustana is local. Worcester should be solid with Providence and Quinnipiac. Albany is the weakest of the four on paper, but Cornell helps more than people think, and Bentley is at least not a cross-country outlier.
And that’s this week’s Bracketology.
Last in: Princeton, Last out: Boston College.