2021 Bracketology 101: How Many Teams From Each Conference Make The Men's NCAA Hockey Tournament?

In these uncertain times that is the 2020-21 NCAA hockey season, bracketology requires an unknown subjectivity. 

It's not so cut-and-paste. The Pairwise formula, long the staple of deciding who gets in and whose bubble gets burst, will not be used for the 2021 NCAA Tournament. Limited non-conference games due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic take away its usefulness. For the first time in a long time, teams will be compared to one another by the eye test.

Hello, old, smoky backrooms.

Being a bracketologist the past few seasons, this year's NCAA Tournament selection fascinates me. It's less about structured rules or putting teams in the best locations to limit travel and more about answering what the Pairwise tries to do each season. Everything is subjective in 2020-21 college hockey, including ties.

So for this season, rather than dive in and place teams where I think they would best fit, it makes sense to first take a step back. I need to put on another bracketologist hat. I need to get in the mind of the selection committee. I need to be able to answer some major methodology questions in order to get to the fun, flashy picks.

Let's start with the big one: How many teams from each conference make the 16-team men's hockey NCAA Tournament?

In past years, the selection criteria made this easy to answer. Non-conference games gave a clear ranking between teams in different conferences. The 10 best at-large teams in the Pairwise rankings made the Tourney, no matter the conference.

There are still 10 at-large bids to go with the six automatic ones for conference tournament winners. (Yes, even the ECAC, with only four teams contesting this season, keeps an automatic bid.) With few non-conference games and no Pairwise to use as criteria, however, picking teams from each conference requires a closer look.

It remains easy to rank teams in the same conference to one another. Ranking conferences? Not so much. 

The Selection Committee seems to be aware of this issue, with NCAA men's hockey ice chair Mike Kemp telling USCHO's Jim Connolly that it plans on using the traditional criteria for ranking teams in-conference to one another and be subjective for the number of teams.

If Pairwise was used this season, the lack of comparisons would mean the NCHC, as of this writing, would be on track for one, maybe two bids. (Not coincidentally, NCHC Commissioner Josh Fenton, for a good self-serving reason, has been out front to use more historical data to choose teams.) Even taking away Fenton's idea, any person watching NCAA Hockey this season would agree the conference deserves more than one at-large bid.

With only in-conference play to compare and some eye test subjectivity, let's start by ranking the minimum and maximum bids each conference should and could get.

Atlantic Hockey: Comparisons might be a little tricky. Split between eastern and western pods, AHA had an unbalanced schedule. For example, AIC, winning the regular season for an unprecedented third straight year, did not play Robert Morris (14-7-0) nor Canisius (8-5-0). Neither did Army West Point (13-5-1).

Historically, Atlantic Hockey has never only once had two teams in the NCAA Tournament. Only twice did a team finish high enough to be an at-large. While this would be a year where going off the Pairwise would benefit AHA, it's not being used. Most likely, the lone bid goes to the winner of Atlantic Hockey conference tournament. There might be a question of wheher AIC, at 13-3-0 could get an at-large bid without winning the AHA autobid, however, two of those losses being non-conference losses to Quinnipiac gives the committee a point of comparison. 

Minimum: 1
Maximum: 2

Big Ten: Barring a couple series lost due to teams paused for Covid, the Big Ten will play a true round-robin schedule. On one hand, it gives a true look of how each team fares against one another. On the other hand, there are reasons for why teams end up where they are, such as Wisconsin and Michigan losing top players to the World Juniors for large stretches during the first half.

Entering the final weekend of play, there is a gap at the top. Minnesota (19-5-0) and Wisconsin (17-8-1) can both win the regular season title. Michigan (13-8-1), the only team to defeat the Badgers since the end of January, has at times been in the same tier. Mel Pearson's team gets another chance for a signature win, facing the Gophers this weekend. Notre Dame and Penn State - who face each other this weekend - sit in the next tier below Michigan. 

Historically, the Big Ten has struggled to get more than three schools in the NCAA Tournament. With enough of a look at how the teams play, the committee will have to decide through the lack of non-conference games where the top. It's likely the Big Ten gets at least two teams (Minnesota and Wisconsin) regardless. After that, decisions need to be made.

Minimum: 2

Maximum: 4

ECAC: With only four teams participating and more non-conference games than anyone else, this season features a much different ECAC than normal. Quinnipiac has shown itself to be the class of the conference, losing once in its last 14 games after a slow start. If anyone gets an at-large bid, it's QU. Even then, the Bobcats' resume features quality wins with some tough losses to Bowling Green (twice), St. Lawrence, and a 2-2-2 record against Clarkson (the only other ECAC team above .500) that does not make it a guarantee.

Minimum: 1

Maximum: 2

Independent: College hockey's two independents - Arizona State and Long Island University - took different paths to the same result. ASU joined up with the seven Big Ten schools, going on a season-long Midwestern roadtrip. LIU, meanwhile, just ended its inaugural season with a schedule mostly against nearby Atlantic Hockey schools. 

Both independents will end 2020-21 below .500 and therefore miss the NCAA Tournament, ending a two-year run for the Sun Devils (currently 6-15-3 and not participating in the Big Ten tournament). Still, the Sharks deserve kudos for finishing 3-10-0 after not existing this time last year.

Hockey East: Taking away the argument whether or not it makes sense to play sports in a global pandemic, few things better summed up this season than Hockey East going to week-to-week schedules. If nearby teams (eastern version) can play one another? Great. Heck, Maine spent the entire season on the road.

The end result is an incomplete system of comparisons and a season without a regular season champion. In fact, Hockey East already did the dirty work, creating a power index (HEPI) to rank teams. It's the closest anyone is getting to some Pairwise numbers among conferences.

Of the HEPI, the current top-3 have a good argument to be among the teams chosen. Boston College and UMass have been among the top teams national polls all season. BU, who started late and just hit the 13-game minimum required to be NCAA Tournament eligible, went 3-1-0 against those two teams. Then there's Providence, UConn and Northeastern, all of whom are in the next tier and possibly making final cases to be on the right side of the bubble. 

Minimum: 3

Maximum: 5

 

NCHC: Home to the past four national champions, the NCHC season featured both a first-half pod in Omaha and a second-half of travel to nearby teams (western version). Entering the final weekend of regular season play, North Dakota (18-4-1) won its second straight Penrose Cup, followed by St. Cloud State (14-9-0) and Minnesota Duluth (13-8-2) playing one another for second place.

Omaha (13-9-1) sits in fourth while Denver (9-12-1) and Western Michigan (10-11-3), both just under .500, are in a spot where each team has a resume of quality wins against the top-3 mixed with bad losses. Without any non-conference competition, these will be a test for a committee.

Minimum: 3

Maximum: 5

WCHA: Minnesota State became the first team to win four straight MacNaughton Cups with a 16-3-1 season. The Mavericks can rest easy about being in the NCAA Tournament in a few weeks, but that it's a battle for the rest of the conference. Four teams - Bemidji State, Bowling Green, Lake Superior State, and Michigan Tech - find themselves in the next tier behind Minnesota State yet with resumes that could use an extra win or two.

Minimum: 1

Maximum: 3

In recent seasons, the conference has gotten two teams in the NCAA Tournament. The WCHA can make more arguments for the committee and it might need to in a few weeks. To me, this is the most interesting race down the stretch - something I'll get into in the next bracketology blog.

Thanks for reading.

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