Women's Bracketology: Mar. 3, 2012

by Josh Carey

Welcome to our look at what the Women's Division III tournament field would look like if the season ended today. We'll update this analysis once more on Sunday as conference titles are decided. If you're not sure how we do things here at Bracketology, check out our most recent column for the men, or our explanation of how the selection process works for the men. The process is the same for the women save for one notable difference that is new this season, but we'll get to that a bit later on.

THE TOURNAMENT

• The 2012 Women's Division III Ice Hockey Championship will consist of 8 teams.

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

• 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 nine 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.

Previously Ranked Teams

West: St. Scholastica

Analysis: There's really nothing too surprising here. The only significant move is Concordia-Moorehead leaping over UW-River Falls. That puts the Cobbers squarely in the discussion for at-large consideration, as we'll see below.

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 five Pool A eligible conferences as our automatic qualifiers.  Thus, the five Pool A bids go to:

Pool C

Now we compare the best remaining teams from the East and West to decide who will receive at-large selections.

East: Amherst, Elmira, Plattsburgh

West: Concordia-Moorhead, UW-Superior, St. Thomas

We need to at least consider the secondary criteria, however. They are:

• Win-loss percentage against all Division-III teams

• Results against common non-Division-III opponents

• Results against all Division-III ranked teams

• Overall win-loss percentage (includes Division-II teams)

• Results against all common opponents

• Overall Division-III strength of schedule

•  Win-loss percentage during the last 25% of the season (roughly 6-8 games). 

Here, the secondary criteria won't provide us with any assistance so we need to make our call strictly from the comparison above. While Elmira's advantage in SOS is relatively small, the fact they do currently win the comparison tips the scale in their favor, in my estimation. That leaves one last chance for the Cobbers, and it comes against Plattsburgh State:

Here, however, we are left with a brutally difficult decision. WIN is nearly identical, leaving us to consider SOS and RNK. I'm going to lean towards SOS as a more important indicator (since it involves more teams) and advance Plattsburgh.

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

Quarterfinals

6E Plattsburgh State @ E1 RIT

5E Elmira @ E2 Norwich

4E Middlebury @ E3 Amherst

W2 UW-River Falls @ W1 Gustavus Adolphus

Analysis: The previous bracket is right in line with the regional seedings and there is nothing inherently wrong with it.  However, the women's selection process has an element to it that we do not see from the men.  Namely, some flexibilty is officially allowed when it comes to trying to avoid first round games between teams from the same conference.  Stated directly in this season's championship handbook under "Pairings" is the following:

"Teams from the same conference shall not be paired in the first round so long as geographical proximity is maintained"

As such, we have the flexibility to "fix" a few things as we currently have two quarterfinals that pit teams from the same conference against each other.  The first thing we'll do is break up RIT and Plattsburgh and give the top-seeded Tigers the lowest seed possible that isn't from the ECAC West, which is Middlebury.  Then, since Norwich is the next highest-seed we'll have the Cadets host Plattsburgh, which then leaves a final East Region quarterfinal of Amherst and Elmira.

Note: There are a variety of ways teams could be juggled around to avoid the conference match-ups, but we're going to stick with the above outlined for now as it not only avoids the conference pairings, but also maintains as much seed integrity as possible and all falls easily within allowable travel parameters.

Thus, our final pairings are:

Quarterfinals

4E Middlebury @ E1 RIT

6E Plattsburgh State @ E2 Norwich

5E Elmira @ E3 Amherst

W2 UW-River Falls @ W1 Gustavus Adolphus

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