Men's Bracketology - Mar. 1, 2012

by Josh Carey

Some significant upsets over the weekend have shaken up this week's projections for the NCAA Tournament field. The news is again not good for the West Region, while one team finds itself in the dance with a SOS far below what would normally be required for at-large consideration. Can that hold up past the weekend? We'll take a rare look forward to try and answer that question.

The Tournament

• The 2012 Men's Division III Ice Hockey Championship will consist of 11 teams.

• Eight conference playoff champions will receive automatic qualifying bids (Pool A) to the tournament. Those conferences are the: ECAC East, ECAC Northeast, MASCAC, MCHA, MIAC, NCHA, NESCAC & SUNYAC.

• Three teams that do not receive Pool A bids will receive at-large (Pool C) bids into the tournament. Every team that did not receive a Pool A bid is eligible for a Pool C bid.

• For the purpose of Pool C selection, as well as team comparisons for regional ranking purposes, the NCAA committee will rely mainly on what it refers to as its Primary Criteria, which are as follows:

- Win-loss percentage against regional opponents (WIN)

- Strength of schedule against regional opponents (SOS)

SOS is comprised of 2/3 Opponents' Average Winning Percentage (OWP) and 1/3 Opponents' Opponents' Average Winning Percentage (OOWP)

- Head-to-head competition (H2H)

- Results against common in-region opponents (COP)

- Results against in-region ranked teams in NCAA rankings (RNK)

Regional Rankings

• The NCAA regional committees will release three editions of regional rankings prior to tournament selection, with the release dates being February 14, 21 and 28. A fourth will be generated on Selection Sunday, but those are not released to the public.

• The East Region rankings will contain 15 teams, the West Region seven.

• For the sake of RNK, the NCAA considers a team ranked once it appears in its respective regional rankings, even if it should fall out at a later date.

NCAA Regional Rankings - February 28

Previously Ranked Teams

East: Fredonia State, Wesleyan

West: UW-Eau Claire

Analysis

Some of the more significant upsets that occured last weekend won't really have as drastic an impact on the field as we might have expected. The biggest takeaway is the drop of St. Scholastica and St. Thomas in the West, which effectively takes both teams out of Pool C consideration after their losses Saturday.

Utica and Manhattanville also fall from Pool C contention with their losses last week, allowing Bowdoin and Neumann to slide up. Hobart jumps up four spots as well. Could the Knights or Statesmen have a shot at Pool C if they win the ECAC West and Bowdoin falters in the NESCAC? The Polar Bears' position between Elmira and Neumann currently means we can get a pretty fair estimation of what it would take for Bowdoin to fall down the rankings.

Here, Bowdoin holds a .094 edge in WIN, loses SOS by .065, loses COP by half a game, and wins RNK by .032.

Here, Bowdoin holds a .083 edge in WIN, loses SOS by .046, ties in COP, and wins RNK by .111.

Considering Neumann has a both a lower WIN disadvantage and SOS edge, we can look at COP and RNK as the real culprits here. It's not possible for Bowdoin and Neumann to have any common opponents in the regular season, but could the Knights close the gap on RNK enough to get ahead of the Polar Bears? We try not to speculate much in this space, but let's take a closer look at that question.

 A win over Hobart would push Neumann's RNK to 8-7-3, or .528. A loss to Middlebury would drop Bowdoin to 5-4-1, or .550. That's a .022 difference – or less than the current deficit between Elmira and Bowdoin. It's difficult to say for sure, but the SOS impact on each team should be roughly equal, while Neumann would close the WIN difference to .040 in such a scenario.

I'll spare you the math, but the analysis is similar for Hobart (the main differences being that the Statesmen have a lower WIN but a COP edge over Bowdoin).

What does all this mean? Barring any further tournament upsets, Bowdoin could be in excellent position to make the tournament as long as they are in the NESCAC final. A semifinal loss, however, could very well the winner of the ECAC West championship game into that spot. With that said, let's continue looking at the field as it currently stands.

Pool Selection

• Pool A:  As Bracketology assumes this would be the tournament field were the season to end today, we will use the teams leading the eight Pool A eligible conferences as our automatic qualifiers.  Thus, the eight Pool A bids go to:

• Pool C:

We now must consider what teams will get at-large bids to the tournament. That requires looking at the highest ranked teams in the regional rankings that are not projected to win Pool A, and those are:

East: Plattsburgh, Elmira, Bowdoin

West: UW-Stevens Point, St. Scholastica, St. Thomas

We start by comparing the top teams in each region, using the numbers provided by the NCAA:

While the Pointers claim the edge in strength of schedule, Plattsburgh has a commanding enough lead elsewhere to easily advance to the tournament. Next up: Elmira.

The case against Stevens Point is probably even stronger here. Elmira easily receives the second Pool C bid and advances to the tournament . That gives the Pointers one final chance, and it's against Bowdoin:

Here, Stevens Point does have a significant SOS advantage to rely on, but Bowdoin's wins in the other criteria are significant enough to make me believe the Polar Bears would currently claim the final Pool C spot and be the final team in the tournament.

Setting the Field

• Thus, our full tournament field consists of:

Seeding the Field

• Now the field must be seeded by region.  Using this week's regional rankings, it would look something like this:

Setting the Bracket

First Round

5E Elmira @ 3W Adrian

8E Plymouth State @ 4E Plattsburgh State

7E Wentworth @ 6E Bowdoin

Quarterfinals

Elmira/Adrian @ 1E Oswego State

Plymouth/Plattsburgh @ 3E Amherst

Bowdoin/Wentworth @ 2E Norwich

2W Gustavus Adolphus @ 1W St. Norbert

Analysis:  

Once again, Adrian's unique travel situation locks them into games against East Region opponents, giving the other two Western teams byes into the Quarterfinals. The rest of the East lines up in a bracket with significant integrity once those other teams are slotted into games they are forced to play due to their geography.

Thoughts?

Questions, comments, you think we're nuts or anything else on your mind?  No problem, we'd love to hear from you.  Feel free to jump with your own ideas in Josh's Definitive Tournament Speculation Thread over on the D3sports forums.

~