Well, after the wildest and craziest ending where Northeastern thought it was in the NCAA tournament, then not sure, then in again, we’ve finally gotten to the point where we can assemble our final bracketology.
You’ll see that in the end, things worked out really simple. Only one small tweak was needed once we put together the full bracket with bracket integrity.
Will there be a bit of griping? Yes. Once Harvard won the ECAC Hockey title in overtime and earned its autobid, four eastern teams — in fact four teams from Massachusetts — are in the fourth seed band. Thus there isn’t a ton you can do to keep eastern teams close to home.
And, if you’ve been reading for the last month, all four No. 1 seeds are from the west, so two (really three) of them will have a lot of travel ahead.
All that said, let’s get one to our final bracket:
Albany
Michigan
Quinnipiac
Notre Dame
American International
Worcester
Minnesota State
North Dakota
Massachusetts
Harvard
Allentown
Western Michigan
Minnesota
St. Cloud State
Northeastern
Loveland
Denver
Minnesota Duluth
Michigan Tech
UMass Lowell
How did we get here? Let’s see:
As usual, let’s start out by putting everyone into bracket integrity. That means:
1 Michigan
8 Quinnipiac
9 Notre Dame
16 AIC
2 Minnesota State
7 North Dakota
10 St Cloud State
15 Harvard
3 Western Michigan
6 Minnesota
11 Massachusetts
14 Northeastern
4 Denver
5 Minnesota Duluth
12 Michigan Tech
13 UMass Lowell
Now let’s will check for intra-conference matchups. We have North Dakota vs. St. Cloud State. We swap St. Cloud State and Massachusetts.
1 Michigan
8 Quinnipiac
9 Notre Dame
16 AIC
2 Minnesota State
7 North Dakota
11 Massachusetts
15 Harvard
3 Western Michigan
6 Minnesota
10 St. Cloud State
14 Northeastern
4 Denver
5 Minnesota Duluth
12 Michigan Tech
13 UMass Lowell
Now I will start placing the brackets into regionals.
Loveland — Denver bracket because Denver is the host.
Albany — Michigan bracket because of Quinnipiac and AIC
Worcester — Minnesota State bracket because of Massachusetts and Harvard
Allentown — Western Michigan bracket
The Allentown attendance could be real tough here. But switching teams from another regional won’t help.
So that’s our bracket. Integrity and maximizing attendance as best as we can.
