Welcome back to Bracketology.
We’re working off the updated NPI after Tuesday’s games, and for purposes of this exercise we’re keeping the same framework we’ve used recently: start with the NPI as the backbone, but make sure every conference is represented. Once again, the top 16 in the NPI does not include an Atlantic Hockey America team, so we’ll take the top AHA team as the conference representative. This week, that’s Bentley. That means Bentley comes into the field, and the lowest team in the top 16 gets squeezed out.
So our 16-team field, using overall seeds 1–16, is: Michigan State, Michigan, North Dakota, Western Michigan, Penn State, Providence, Dartmouth, Cornell, Quinnipiac, Minnesota Duluth, Denver, Boston College, St. Thomas, Wisconsin, Connecticut, and Bentley.
Now we seed the bracket according to bracket integrity (1 vs. 16, 2 vs. 15, etc.). The initial four pods are 1-8-9-16, 2-7-10-15, 3-6-11-14 and 4-5-12-13.
On the first pass, that gives us:
1 Michigan State / 8 Cornell / 9 Quinnipiac / 16 Bentley
2 Michigan / 7 Dartmouth / 10 Minnesota Duluth / 15 Connecticut
3 North Dakota / 6 Providence / 11 Denver / 14 Wisconsin
4 Western Michigan / 5 Penn State / 12 Boston College / 13 St. Thomas.
Then we ask the first question the committee asks: do we have any same-conference first-round matchups? And yes — right away — in the 1-8-9-16 pod, Cornell and Quinnipiac would meet in the opening round, and both are ECAC teams. The committee will do almost anything it can to avoid intra-conference first-round games, so we need a fix, and we need a fix that doesn’t create a new problem elsewhere.
The cleanest move is a swap inside the 9–12 band: switch Quinnipiac (9) with Denver (11). That breaks up the ECAC-first-round issue immediately. And it also keeps the rest of the process clean because Denver is a regional host in Loveland. So that’s the one true hard lock this week — Denver must play in Loveland — so getting Denver into a pod we can simply assign there without drama is a win.
After that swap, our pods become:
1 Michigan State / 8 Cornell / 11 Denver / 16 Bentley
2 Michigan / 7 Dartmouth / 10 Minnesota Duluth / 15 Connecticut
3 North Dakota / 6 Providence / 9 Quinnipiac / 14 Wisconsin
4 Western Michigan / 5 Penn State / 12 Boston College / 13 St. Thomas.
Now we move to site placement. The hosts are Holy Cross in Worcester, Union in Albany, Omaha in Sioux Falls, and Denver in Loveland. Only Denver is in the field, so we have exactly one hard lock: the pod with Denver goes to Loveland. That gives Loveland: Michigan State, Cornell, Denver and Bentley.
From there, the next principle I want to stick to is one we’ve talked about a lot: reward the higher seed when you can. Sioux Falls is the most natural landing spot for the North Dakota pod, and I’m not going to overthink that. So we place North Dakota, Providence, Quinnipiac and Wisconsin in Sioux Falls. It’s a clean reward for the higher seed and it keeps the bracket logic intact without forcing anything.
That leaves two pods and two eastern sites. Worcester and Albany are always the attendance puzzle, and this is where having Hockey East teams in the field matters. Connecticut and Boston College are the two biggest levers we have this week for making the eastern buildings look like real regionals. So I’ll place Michigan, Dartmouth, Minnesota Duluth and Connecticut in Worcester, and Western Michigan, Penn State, Boston College and St. Thomas in Albany.
So the bracket this week looks like this:
Loveland Region
1 Michigan State (1)
2 Cornell
3 Denver
4 Bentley
Albany Region
1 Western Michigan (4)
2 Penn State
3 Boston College
4 St. Thomas
Worcester Region
1 Michigan (2)
2 Dartmouth
3 Minnesota Duluth
4 Connecticut
Sioux Falls Region
1 North Dakota (3)
2 Providence
3 Quinnipiac
4 Wisconsin
Last in: Connecticut
Last out: Minnesota State
Do I have attendance concerns in Worcester and Albany? Yes, big ones. Could we make a switch to help? Tune into Bracketology Xtra on Thursday.