NCAA Pairings

[dave1381]

Harvard at No. 1 New Hampshire
Princeton at Minnesota
Minnesota-Duluth at St. Lawrence
Mercyhurst at No. 2 Wisconsin.

As expected, except the No. 2 seed to Wisconsin -- but whatever, it was totally irrelevant to the formation of the bracket.

[Larry R]

Moving Wisconsin to number 2 made it a whole lot easier to send UMD to SLU.

No shocks at all, let the playoffs begin...

[dave1381]

truth is Wisconsin was close to SLU, and UMD was close to Mercyhurst and Princeton, so seeding mattered not at all... its all semantics.

USCHO column on the selections:
http://www.uscho.com/news/id,12338/DeRemerInitialReactionstotheBrackets.html

[Wanderer]

The seeding matters to Wisconsin in the semifinals when they can now have last change... Not just semantics

truth is Wisconsin was close to SLU, and UMD was close to Mercyhurst and Princeton, so seeding mattered not at all... its all semantics.

USCHO column on the selections:
http://www.uscho.com/news/id,12338/DeRemerInitialReactionstotheBrackets.html

[dave1381]

I see... so how do they work out last change if two unseeded teams play?

[MICZamboni]

I have been picking Wisconsin to be the National Champs since the 3rd week of the season and now they go up against my Mercyhurst Lakers. Just Great!!!!
I hope the Lakers weak schedule the past 3 weeks or so won't hurt them. As Lakersfan said on a different thread they haven't had to play much defense the past month and it could hurt them.

GO LAKERS!!!!

[ARM]

I have been picking Wisconsin to be the National Champs since the 3rd week of the season and now they go up against my Mercyhurst Lakers.That should be an excellent game. Coach Johnson has the Badgers playing very well, but I'm sure that Coach Sisti will have his crew ready also.

It's tempting to drive to Madison to see it, but that means an 8-hour round trip for me with either a late-night return or spending a night in Madison. I've been to the Capitol Ice Arena previously, and it wasn't the easiest place to watch a game -- a lot of glass and metal in the way.

[Larry R]

I see... so how do they work out last change if two unseeded teams play?

I'm going to throw this out there, I have no idea if it is correct, but based on what I can see...

Harvard vs SLU in last years National Semi's... Both would have been unseeded teams.

Harvard appears to have been the home team based on the scoring summary, I would say because they played a home game so they were either the 3/4 seed. The NCAA seeds two teams, throws them at opposite ends and then fills in the brackets, while not releasing seed numbers clearly sets up 1 vs 4 and 2 vs 3 in the National Semi's...

Maybe its just babble, I don't know. :D

[gojackets]

That should be an excellent game. Coach Johnson has the Badgers playing very well, but I'm sure that Coach Sisti will have his crew ready also.

It's tempting to drive to Madison to see it, but that means an 8-hour round trip for me with either a late-night return or spending a night in Madison. I've been to the Capitol Ice Arena previously, and it wasn't the easiest place to watch a game -- a lot of glass and metal in the way.

They don't play in the Kohl Center?

[ARM]

They don't play in the Kohl Center?They usually do. This release makes it sound like Saturday's game won't be -- perhaps it wasn't available?

http://www.uwbadgers.com/sport_news/whky/headlines/full_story.aspx?story_id=2006_03_12_20_01_20_whky

[fantasticfrito]

They usually do. This release makes it sound like Saturday's game won't be -- perhaps it wasn't available?

http://www.uwbadgers.com/sport_news/whky/headlines/full_story.aspx?story_id=2006_03_12_20_01_20_whky

It won't be played at the Kohl Center. It was already booked for the High School Basketball tourney.

[gojackets]

It won't be played at the Kohl Center. It was already booked for the High School Basketball tourney.


Oh yah i forgot about that. I would think it could be at the Alliant Energy Center or the Dane County Colliseum, where they played the high school tourney.

[ARM]

Ranking the teams in the tournament by their record vs the rest of the field:

1) New Hampshire 4-0-0
2) St. Lawrence 5-1-2
3) Wisconsin 6-3-1
4) Minnesota-Duluth 5-5-1
5) Minnesota 6-7-0
6) Princeton 2-3-1
7) Harvard 2-6-1
8) Mercyhurst 1-6-0


There are all manner of ironic winners or combinations that could result from this field. Please don't take any of this as a slight of your team or a prediction of an outcome -- the following are just possibilities based on the field and the brackets.

Last year, Minnesota was the top seed and won while New Hampshire hosted. This season, UNH enters #1 and could win as UM hosts.

Coming into the season, we assumed that the Frozen Four would look radically different because of graduation and the Olympics. Yet it is still possible that we could have three of the FF teams from last year with Wisconsin instead of Dartmouth; i.e., the field we would have had last year had the Badger beaten the Big Green. If that were to happen, it would be the 3rd straight F4 for SLU, the 4th consecutive for Harvard, and the 5th for Minnesota.

For the second year, there are a pair of WCHA vs. ECAC quarters. The ECAC won both last season.

For the last two Frozen Fours, there have been 3 ECAC and 1 WCHA representative, with the lone WCHA team winning. Were that pattern to continue, it is good news for Wisconsin. Of course, we could wind up with a mirror image of 3 WCHA teams, 1 from the ECAC, and the ECAC team wins. If so, contratulations Harvard. Harvard has had some powerful teams since winning the national championship in 1999, but fallen short. It would be strange to say the least if this team, with much lower expectations, should win the NCAA.

Who is the biggest surprise team in this year's field? If you go by the preseason poll, the answer is Princeton, who debuted at #10. In terms of the poll, UNH has made the biggest move, climbing to the top from a #6 start.

With all of the talk about a possible all-HEA or all-WCHA quarterfinal game, the team happiest to avoid an intraconference rival is probably SLU. In fact, the Saints cannot meet another ECAC team (most notably the Crimson) before the final.

The Patty Kazmaier winner has played in the championship game each of the past three season. That's a good sign at this point for UMD, UW, and SLU. Or maybe not -- in 2002, the previous Olympic year, the winner's team didn't make the Frozen Four.

I haven't done any exhaustive research, but it seems fairly obvious that Ali Boe has the most NCAA starts of any goalie in this field (and more than the rest of the field combined.) But which returning player has scored the most NCAA goals? I think it may be Berlinguette of SLU and Ross of Minnesota with 2 goals each.