The NCAA hopefuls, from top to bottom

[USCHO Newsbot]

On Sunday, 16 teams will find themselves in the NCAA tournament, which means that for 42 the season will officially be over. Some of those 16 are obvious without using any mathematical skill or PairWise predictor tools, and so are some of the 42. It’s the ones in between that are interesting — and among [...]

More at uscho.com/blogs ... (http://www.uscho.com/blogs/bracketology/scott/20090317/the-ncaa-hopefuls-from-top-to-bottom.html)

[WCHAReigns]

One point you may have overlooked in the selection process is the host team issue, specifically, the West regional at Mariucci Arena, Minneapolis. It is highly doubtful that the selection committee would overlook UM-Mpls for the regional based upon this and their storied laurels. Regardless of whether or not the Gophers lose the Thursday night play-in game, they will be selected to fill up the arena because, as mentioned previously, economics is one of the underlying considerations of the selection committee. Coincidentally, a Twin Cities based organization like the USCHO might be tempted to manipulate the Pairwise to make sure the UM-Mpls is in the top 12 in order to make the decision a little more straightforward. Not only do the Gophers have a huge advantage of home ice in the annual WCHA Frozen Five tournament but having a home-USCHO advantage could possible tip the ice further in the Gophers favor. Looking forward to a UND win of the Broadmoor to bring the WCHA Champions to Mariucci and insure an SRO arena! THIS is what the playoffs are all about! Let UM-Duluth, WI, and Denver represent the WCHA in Bridgeport, Manchester and Grand Rapids. Then I hope for an All-WCHA final like in 2005!

[editstaff]

1. Attendance is a consideration in bracketing teams, not in selecting them. There's plenty of history to confirm this, including just two years ago when Denver hosted the West Regional. The Pioneers missed the NCAA tournament by the smallest of margins in the PairWise and stayed home. The committee did not rig the process then, and I highly, highly doubt they will now.

2. While I'm sure we at USCHO would love it if we had this kind of power, we do not. The committee does not get the PairWise from us. They have their own people and their own numbers -- all we do is reproduce the criteria and publish them.

-- Scott Brown