June 19, 2013
If I were the committee … which I’m not … and the season ended today … which it doesn’t (Week 3)
Posted on February 12, 2013 | in Analysis | by Mike McMahonWeekly Disclaimer:
I don’t like looking ahead and projecting fictional NCAA tournament brackets until after the conference championships are decided in March.
Before then, it doesn’t mean anything. With so many games left in the regular season and then the playoffs, projecting anything with a snapshot as if the season ended today doesn’t accurately “predict” anything. It gives us an idea of what things would look like if the season ended today, but for most teams, there are a month’s worth of regular season games remaining along with as many as five playoff games.
With that being said, I understand a lot of people are interested in weekly snapshots of what the tournament “could” look like, and following the changes week-to-week. So, I’ll try my best to include what I believe the NCAA tournament would look like on a weekly basis “if the season were to end today,” which of course, it doesn’t.
But, to save some time, I’m not going to breakdown the entire process. I’m going to list my bracket below, and if anyone has any specific questions on the process I took to get there, feel free to leave something in the comment section and I’ll be happy to explain. For now, enjoy!
GRAND RAPIDS
2 Minnesota vs. 14 Alaska-Fairbanks
7 Western Michigan vs. 10 Minnesota State
TOLEDO
3 Miami vs. 16 Dartmouth
6 North Dakota vs. 11 Niagara
MANCHESTER
4 Boston College vs. 13. Notre Dame
5 New Hampshire vs. 12 Denver
PROVIDENCE
1 Quinnipiac vs. 15 Boston University
8 Yale vs. 9 St. Cloud State
At this very moment, it would seem Merrimack is the better team than BU, would be nice if that bore out for the rest of the regular season.
Unfortunately for Merrimack fans – if the season were to end today – Merrimack would be out based on the pairwise rankings.
Merrimack could rise up a few spots here. If they keep winning, two games with BC notwithstanding, and manage to go deep in the Hockey East tournament (again, Boston College will be in the HE somewhere, too) … they could make it up to the top 16 and get in.
Remember – next year – Merrimack is going to have to schedule a lot of non-TUC teams with the reduced HE schedule. And they will have to BEAT them to stay alive, short of winning the HE tourney courtesy bid.
Other than Merrimack not currently in the bracket, this is a great bracket. Minnesota and Western make Michigan good attendance wise. In-state Miami and nationally known North Dakota help Toledo. Manchester will be a tough ticket with BC and UNH while Quinny, Yale and BU make Providence attendance strong as well.
The NCAA regionals will likely be poorly attended – and the NCAA might shoot itself in the foot as they did a couple of years ago by sending “local” teams out of the region — they punished Boston College two years ago, and rewarded Merrimack because they wanted to avoid an intraconference meetup in the first game. Duh, just switch seeds to avoid it. And bolster attendance.
Attendance will be horrible – especially at Providence- these games are set for Easter weekend. The Manchester games will be on Good Friday and Easter Saturday — they will do better if UNH gets in (likely right now) but there might be a dingbat situation again where BC ends up a #1 seed and gets sent out to the hinterlands if UNH gets #4 again….
If Merrimack sneaks in, short of winning the HE title, they’ll end up getting sent out west or playing Quinnipiac (bye bye Warriors) in the first game in Providence. Unlikely they’ll burn BC again on the pairings. They have attendance problems at these regionals as it is.
They never change seeds. History has proven that. They only move teams around within their own band. That’s ALWAYS how they’ve done it.