NCAA Hockey Tourney Prediction Jan 23

Following a week that saw more than it's fair share of upsets and some more moving around within the pairwise, I was left with a tougher job to make a bracket this week than last.

Once again, the only host that made the tourney is Minnesota, so they are the only team automatically put in a regional.

West Regional (St Paul - 18,064)

4 Ohio State 15 Minnesota

5 Michigan 12 Denver

Midwest Regional (Green Bay - 8,709)

2 UM-Duluth 13 Miami

8 Merrimack 10 Northern Michigan

Northeast Regional (Worcester - 12,239)

1 BU 16 Mercyhurst

7 Ferris St 9 BC

East Regional (Bridgeport - 8,412)

3 UMass Lowell 14 Michigan St

6 Notre Dame 11 Cornell

(Bubble Teams: CC, WMU)

Going purely by pairwise, I started by putting Minnesota in St Paul. Then going with the one seeds, I put BU in Worcester, UMass-Lowell in Bridgeport, Duluth in St Paul and Ohio State in Green Bay. That gave us two interconference matchups in the first round, with Miami-OSU and UMD-Minn. That's a simple enough switch, that keeps Duluth in a western regional (in Green Bay) and moves OSU to St Paul.

Now the next group is where it gets brutal because the CCHA has 4 teams, including three of the 2 seeds. Michigan and Notre Dame both match up with nonconference foes and keep bracket integrity, so I left them alone. The question is how do you split the BC-Merrimack and Ferris-NMU matchups. Do I send BC to Green Bay or Merrimack? While keeping BC in Worcester would rock, Merrimack is less likely to travel all the way to Green Bay. On the flip side, I think keeping Northern in Green Bay makes more sense than Ferris. So, I went with BC-Ferris in Worcester and Merrimack-Northern in Green Bay. (Honestly, you could convince me of either configuration, but a possible BU-BC regional final in Worcester was too sexy to pass up)

The only regional there that might struggle in attendance is Bridgeport, but I like that bracket overall. It looks like a very fun and intriguing tourney. Until next week!