NCAA Tournament field thoughts; Ranking Hobey Top 10; CCHA controversy examined

Plus: New junior league coming to American West, Gascon's historic game and more

The NCAA Tournament Field is set and it’s one of the stronger groups of 16 you could ask for based on the season we just had. AIC and Harvard were the only two teams from outside the Pairwise Top 16 that ended up making the tournament, though Harvard and AIC are both Top 20 in the Pairwise, so not terribly far off.

Harvard winning the ECAC in OT knocked Ohio State out of the tournament, while the crazy finish in the CCHA saw Northeastern’s tournament hopes stay alive… twice. But now we know where everyone is going. Here’s the official tournament bracket:

Some quick general thoughts on the field….

Michigan’s path to No. 1 overall

I know one of the things that stood out to people was Michigan getting the No. 1 overall seed, leap-frogging Minnesota State. The win over Minnesota in the Big Ten championship game sealed the Wolverines into the No. 1 overall.

The answer, as it always is this time of year as to why that happened is: MATH.

The Pairwise takes subjectivity out of the equation and based on that, the Wolverines had the same Pairwise comparisons won as Minnesota State at 57, but the tie was broken because Michigan had an adjusted Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) that was .0007 better than the CCHA champions’.

That means the Wolverines get the benefit of playing in the nearest regional — which is Allentown — not especially close as it is still a flight. However, now the Wolverines will get to play AIC, the Atlantic Hockey champion and lowest-seeded team in the tournament.

Also in the Allentown Regional is Quinnipiac and St. Cloud State, neither of which would be pushovers, but both represent the No. 8 and No. 10 ranked teams in the tournament. I think this tournament has often proven that seeding is irrelevant when you get to this stage. Since there are only 16 teams in it, nothing is guaranteed. While Michigan should easily handle AIC based on everything we’ve seen from both teams this year, the next step isn’t a gimme. Still, being the No. 1 overall seed has its advantages.

One thing that immediately popped into my mind when I saw how slim the margin was between Michigan and Minnesota State, was Michigan’s game against Western Michigan that was never played, even though it was scheduled.

At the time, head coach Mel Pearson said the decision was solely that of the school’s medical personnel, though open records obtained by TechHockeyGuide would later show that Pearson recommended to Sport Administrator Josh Richelew that the games against both Michigan Tech and Western Michigan be cancelled. Michigan was missing multiple players to the World Juniors, injury and COVID protocol. Though many across the coaching community and certainly many more on social media were highly critical of Michigan’s decision not to play those games given that they had above the minimum required to play.

In the end, the Wolverines played Michigan Tech with 18 skaters available, but did not play Western Michigan which was a top-five team in the country at the time. They announced the cancellation of the second of those two games before either was played, which sent college hockey Twitter into a frenzy. I also heard from many sources among college coaches and even some Wolverine alumni who expressed outrage at the optics of ducking an opponent because the top players were gone. Even though Michigan maintained this decision was based on health and safety of the players, there were more than a few outside of the program who cried foul.

No matter how we got there, the game was never played. We can never know what the result of that game would have been. If Michigan won it, this would all be moot. But since it was never played and the RPI difference between No. 1 and No. 2 overall was infinitesimal, this instance stands out.

Take nothing away from Michigan. They’ve been one of the best teams in college hockey this year. They absolutely dominated Minnesota in the Big Ten championship game. They deserve a high ranking based on their performance, but that little game in December that never happened certainly seems like it looms awfully large now.

I have a feeling the coaches gatherings at the end of the season and the NCAA competition committee may have a lot of conversations about such scenarios in the future. In the COVID era, health and safety protocols had to be front and center, but as things get back to normal more, there’s going to be less wiggle room for things like what happened in December.

The top matchup of the first round is…