NCAA Hockey Bracketology: Selection Sunday Edition
· Yahoo Sports
A wild conference tournament weekend in college hockey has finally concluded. Penn State has been locked into a berth in the NCAA Tournament since its win over Minnesota in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament, but the Nittany Lions’ seed, opponent, and location have been dependent on the outcomes of conference tournaments across the country.
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Minnesota State won the CCHA Tournament for the second straight season and the fourth time in the last five seasons with a 4-1 win over St. Thomas. The Tommies were poised to make their first appearance in the NCAA Tournament under head coach Rico Blasi, but the team sputtered down the stretch and ultimately fell short in the title game.
Merrimack stole a bid by winning the Hockey East Tournament with a 2-1 win over UConn on Saturday. Regular season champion Providence had already secured a bid to the NCAA Tournament. UConn secured the final at-large bid with the cutoff falling at No. 14 in the NPI this season.
Princeton took Dartmouth to overtime in the ECAC final and had a chance to make their first NCAA tournament bid since 2018, but Tim Busconi scored the game-winning goal for the Big Green to secure the program’s first conference tournament championship since 1949.
Michigan steamrolled Ohio State 7-3 in the Big Ten final to put a stamp on the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament. In the final game of the night, Denver outlasted Minnesota-Duluth 4-3 in overtime to win the NCHC Tournament.
My final projected bracket looks like this:
Albany
- Michigan vs. Bentley
- Dartmouth vs. Penn State
Loveland
- Western Michigan vs. Minnesota State
- Denver vs. Wisconsin
Sioux Falls
- North Dakota vs. Merrimack
- Minnesota-Duluth vs. Cornell
Worcester
- Michigan State vs. UConn
- Providence vs. Quinnipiac
My projection follows the 1-16 seeding model (used by the NCAA basketball tournaments) with two changes:
- I switched Providence and Dartmouth to avoid an ECAC intra-conference matchup in the first round. The Friars and Big Green are in the two northeastern regionals, so swapping the two teams should not have a significant impact on travel.
- Quinnipiac moved to the Worcester regional, switching places with Cornell. The Bobcats won the regular season ECAC title and rank one spot ahead of the Big Red in the NPI.
This is just a projection, so don’t start booking tickets and travel accommodations just yet. The official bracket will be revealed at 3pm today on ESPNU.