Welcome back to Bracketology.
This week we’re working off the updated NPI snapshot in the tracker, with results through Sunday, and we’re sticking with the same framework: use 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 take the top AHA team as the conference representative. This week, that’s Bentley. 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, Quinnipiac, Providence, Denver, Minnesota Duluth, Cornell, Dartmouth, Connecticut, St. Thomas, Boston College, Wisconsin, and Bentley.
Now we seed the bracket by bracket integrity. 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 Denver / 9 Minnesota Duluth / 16 Bentley
2 Michigan / 7 Providence / 10 Cornell / 15 Wisconsin
3 North Dakota / 6 Quinnipiac / 11 Dartmouth / 14 Boston College
4 Western Michigan / 5 Penn State / 12 Connecticut / 13 St. Thomas
Then we ask the first question the committee asks: do we have any same-conference first-round matchups? And we have three: Denver-Minnesota Duluth, Quinnipiac-Dartmouth and Michigan-Wisconsin
Problem No. 1: In the 3-6-11-14 pod, Quinnipiac vs. Dartmouth would be an ECAC first-round matchup. The committee hates that, so we fix it using the committee’s standard method: swap within a band. The cleanest move is inside the 9–12 band — switch Minnesota Duluth (9) with Dartmouth (11). That breaks up both the ECAC and the NCHC first-round matchups.
After that swap, the pods become:
1 Michigan State / 8 Denver / 11 Dartmouth / 16 Bentley
2 Michigan / 7 Providence / 10 Cornell / 15 Wisconsin
3 North Dakota / 6 Quinnipiac / 9 Minnesota Duluth/ 14 Boston College
4 Western Michigan / 5 Penn State / 12 Connecticut / 13 St. Thomas
Problem No. 2: In the 2-7-10-15 pod, we’ve got Michigan vs. Wisconsin, a Big Ten first-round matchup. Same rule: fix it with a band swap. Wisconsin is in the 13–16 band, so the simplest legal correction is to swap Wisconsin (15) with St. Thomas (13) — still inside the same band, and it removes the intra-conference game immediately.
Now the bracket is clean from a conference-rematch standpoint, and our pods look like this:
1 Michigan State / 8 Denver / 11 Minnesota Duluth / 16 Bentley
2 Michigan / 7 Providence / 10 Cornell / 13 St. Thomas
3 North Dakota / 6 Quinnipiac / 9 Dartmouth / 14 Boston College
4 Western Michigan / 5 Penn State / 12 Connecticut / 15 Wisconsin
Now we go 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: Denver goes to Loveland. That puts the Michigan State pod in Loveland:
Loveland Region
Michigan State (1), Denver, Dartmouth, Bentley
From there, this becomes the familiar eastern attendance puzzle. If we simply place the remaining pods “as seeded,” we’d wind up with Boston College out in Sioux Falls — and if you’re trying to make Worcester and Albany look like real regionals, that’s leaving a big lever unused.
So here’s the attendance-driven committee move we’re making this week: we keep the overall structure intact, but we swap within the 13–16 band to improve the buildings. Specifically, we flip Boston College and Wisconsin across the remaining pods — BC comes east, and Wisconsin goes west.
That produces a final site layout that’s logical and protects attendance:
Worcester Region
Western Michigan (4), Penn State, Connecticut, Boston College
Albany Region
Michigan (2), Providence, Cornell, St. Thomas
Sioux Falls Region
North Dakota (3), Quinnipiac, Minnesota Duluth, Wisconsin
And putting it all together, the bracket this week looks like this:
Loveland Region
1 Michigan State (1)
2 Denver
3 Dartmouth
4 Bentley
Worcester Region
1 Western Michigan (4)
2 Penn State
3 Connecticut
4 Boston College
Albany Region
1 Michigan (2)
2 Providence
3 Cornell
4 St. Thomas
Sioux Falls Region
1 North Dakota (3)
2 Quinnipiac
3 Minnesota Duluth
4 Wisconsin
Last in: Wisconsin
Last out: Minnesota State