Bracketology: It's time for Fargo

On March 28, the NCAA Tournament will kick off with Regionals in Allentown, Pennsylvania; Fargo, North Dakota; Manchester, New Hampshire; and Toledo, Ohio. Two brackets will begin March 28 while the remaining pair start the following day. Two weeks from then, St. Louis will host the Frozen Four on April 10 and 12.

UConn men’s hockey came back to earth over the weekend, securing two points out of six against Providence with a tie and shootout victory on Friday compounded with a regulation loss on Saturday afternoon in front of a record crowd at XL Center. UConn stands at 14-9-3 with eight regular season games remaining and at least one Hockey East Tournament contest.

Assuming the Huskies beat Alaska Anchorage — the only sub-30 team remaining on the schedule — and lose out in the regular season, the Huskies would be at No. 15 in the Pairwise rankings without accounting for any other results, which would be right around the tournament cut line. However, this would put UConn one game below .500 and a winning record is required to secure an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. The Huskies would have win two games in the Hockey East Playoffs — which would probably push them over the hump anyways. Without a postseason victory, UConn would need to win just one other regular season game to have a winning record and be eligible for a bid.

No matter the regular season opponent against which they win, the Huskies would be well above the NCAA Tournament cut line with a ranking of at least No. 11 in a vacuum, barring a run of stolen bids. This means that unless UConn completely falls off the wagon in the final month, it will reach its first NCAA Tournament in program history.

Bracketology

Unlike most NCAA Tournaments, the hockey committees merely seed the teams and fill the regionals without actually selecting the field, which is done by the Pairwise rankings. The six conference champions are paired with the top 10 teams in the rankings that have not already qualified to fill out the field. This objective measure gives teams a sense of what they need to do at all times while also giving fans a sneak peek at what may be coming down the road.

The top four teams in the 16-team field earn a seed and are placed in one of four regions, which are filled out according to straight bracket integrity, though the committee does adjust first-round matchups within an individual seeding band to reduce travel while also avoiding intra-conference games. Additionally, teams hosting a regional must play within that regional. This year, Penn State is hosting in Allentown, North Dakota is hosting in Fargo, New Hampshire is hosting in Manchester and Bowling Green is hosting in Toledo.

The first six teams in the field are the conference leaders, which are listed below.

Five of the six leaders held on to their perches yet again, but this time it’s Augustana in the driver’s seat in the CCHA, taking over for Minnesota State. The Vikings are in their second season but do not have to follow the waiting period for postseason eligibility because they started their program at the Division I level.

Each conference except for Atlantic Hockey, which has three weekends remaining, has just four weeks to go. The standings in each league are all tight at the top with no runaway winner, which will make for some interesting finishes down the stretch.

The following 10 schools will fill out the bracket.

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