https://youtu.be/XfJDBG3cnKw?
Welcome back to Bracketology.
We’re working off the updated NPI after the weekend’s games, and 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 take the top AHA team as the conference representative. This week, that’s Bentley (25th in the NPI).
So our 16-team field, using overall seeds 1–16, is: Michigan State, Michigan, North Dakota, Western Michigan, Penn State, Providence, Quinnipiac, Minnesota Duluth, Denver, Cornell, Dartmouth, Boston College, Wisconsin, Connecticut, St. Thomas, 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 Minnesota Duluth / 9 Denver / 16 Bentley
2 Michigan / 7 Quinnipiac / 10 Cornell / 15 St. Thomas
3 North Dakota / 6 Providence / 11 Dartmouth / 14 Connecticut
4 Western Michigan / 5 Penn State / 12 Boston College / 13 Wisconsin
Then we ask the first question the committee asks: do we have any same-conference first-round matchups? And yes — two of them.
In the 1-8-9-16 pod, Minnesota Duluth and Denver would meet in the opening round, and both are NCHC teams. And in the 2-7-10-15 pod, Quinnipiac and Cornell would play, 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 one that doesn’t create a new problem somewhere else.
The cleanest move is a swap inside the 9–12 band: switch Denver (9) with Cornell (10). That move does double duty: it breaks up the NCHC first-round matchup (Duluth/Denver) and it also breaks up the ECAC first-round matchup (Quinnipiac/Cornell), all while staying inside the band and keeping the rest of the bracket intact.
After that swap, our pods become:
1 Michigan State / 8 Minnesota Duluth / 10 Cornell / 16 Bentley
2 Michigan / 7 Quinnipiac / 9 Denver / 15 St. Thomas
3 North Dakota / 6 Providence / 11 Dartmouth / 14 Connecticut
4 Western Michigan / 5 Penn State / 12 Boston College / 13 Wisconsin
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 one true hard lock: if Denver is in the field, the committee is going to work hard to keep them in Loveland. So the pod with Denver goes to Loveland:
Loveland Region
Michigan (2), Quinnipiac, Denver, St. Thomas
From there, here’s the key idea: on the first placement, North Dakota’s pod with three eastern teams makes most sense in Worcester. We won’t put North Dakota in Sioux Falls, at least to start. Providence, Dartmouth and Connecticut are simply cleaner fits for an eastern regional, and Worcester is the easiest place to make that pod work without forcing weird travel.
So on the initial placement pass, we have:
Worcester: North Dakota, Providence, Dartmouth, Connecticut
Sioux Falls: Western Michigan, Penn State, Boston College, Wisconsin
Albany then becomes the natural landing spot for the remaining pod, especially with Union hosting and Cornell sitting in that group:
Albany: Michigan State, Minnesota Duluth, Cornell, Bentley
But once we do that, there’s a simple committee tweak that improves the geography without breaking the bracket: a 1–4 band swap. North Dakota and Western Michigan are the No. 3 and No. 4 overall seeds, so flipping them is a minimal integrity hit — exactly the kind of small adjustment the committee will make when it makes the overall bracket make more sense.
So the bracket this week looks like this:
Worcester Region
1 Western Michigan (4)
2 Providence
3 Dartmouth
4 Connecticut
Albany Region
1 Michigan State (1)
2 Minnesota Duluth
3 Cornell
4 Bentley (AHA)
Sioux Falls Region
1 North Dakota (3)
2 Penn State
3 Boston College
4 Wisconsin
Loveland Region
1 Michigan (2)
2 Quinnipiac
3 Denver
4 St. Thomas
Last in: Connecticut
Last out: Minnesota State
We’ll dig deeper into this week’s bracket and the move we made here to keep attendance strong in this week’s Bracketology Xtra podcast on Thursday.