Pohl Talk: Why is Minnesota stuck at 8th/9th in the Pairwise?

It's hard to believe NCAA Selection Sunday is less than 4 weeks away.

When the Pairwise is set for good once the final game is played March 17th, it appears the Gophers will once again be one of the 16 teams. College Hockey News put out its first Pairwise Probablity Matrix on Monday. Minnesota makes the tournament in 99.9% of the 20,000 monte carlo simulations that CHN ran.

That's the good news if you're a Gopher fan. Minnesota's 6-1-1 run over the last 8 games, combined with a 9-3-0 non-conference record against top-tier opponents, seems to solidified a spot. Only two regular season games remain along with at least two conference tournament games. Even if the Gophers go 0-4 during this stretch the team, currently eighth in the Pairwise, would stay in position to get an at-large bid.

At the same time, there is not much room to move up. Several of you have noticed, which allows me to answer one of the questions I've most frequently been asked: Why is Minnesota stuck in the same Pairwise position?

Pohl Talk: Gophers ranked 3rd to open USCHO poll

Like the women's team last week, the Minnesota men open the USCHO preseason poll ranked 3rd.

The Gophers are joined by four Big Ten teams in the top 20. New member Notre Dame is eighth, Penn State tenth, Wisconsin 12th, and Ohio State is 19th. All except the Badgers made the 2017 NCAA Tournament.

Of the other Minnesota schools, three are in the top 20 while the fourth, Bemidji State, receives votes. UMD is sixth, St. Cloud State is ninth and Minnesota State, picked to win the WCHA, is 18th.

Obviously, the 50 voters seem to be high on Minnesota, moving the Gophers up from 7th in the final poll last season. There are things to be excited about with the team.

At the same time, it seems like Minnesota moves up in the preseason every year regardless.

Pohl Talk: Minnesota's comeback win likely doomed Ohio State's at-large NCAA chances

The weekly USCHO polls came out Monday, which see Minnesota's men's and women's team sit fifth and fourth, respectively. (Full disclosure: I don't have a vote.) The Gopher men hold its fifth spot after a road split at Ohio State which saw the Buckeyes come back to win 5-4 Friday before Minnesota did the same Saturday in a 6-5 victory.

The Gopher women, meanwhile, move back up into fourth after a dominating weekend sweep against North Dakota. Minnesota won 4-2 and 6-2, with the latter game featuring five goals from the team's second line and Sarah Potomak's 100th career point. That's important given the Gophers, third in the Pairwise, will be tested hosting WCHA regular season champ and #1 Wisconsin in the final week of the regular season.

On the men's side? Another weekend brings Minnesota closer to an at-large berth at the expense of Ohio State's season.

Pohl Talk: What does Minnesota need to do to clinch a NCAA Tournament berth?

It's Monday Tuesday which means the weekly rankings have been released. (Full disclosure: I don't vote in either.) Both Minnesota teams are ranked fifth in the USCHO.com poll with the men moving up two spost and the women moving down one following sweeps over Penn State and Minnesota State, respectively.

The Gopher women moving down to fifth matches its Pairwse ranking, which is the ranking which mimics the criteria used by the NCAA to determine the at-large bids. It wasn't by much. Minnesota moved by a single point among the 15 voters.

In the case of the men, the Gophers are, perception-wise, one back of its current Pairwise ranking although Minnesota is fourth in the other major poll, the USA Today/USA Hockey poll. So are the Gopher women, for what it's worth.

This week I wanted to answer two of the most frequently asked questions. What is the Pairwise and what do the Minnesota men need to do to clinch a NCAA Tournament berth?

Pohl talk: Both Gopher men and women remain in top-10 + Pairwise Implications

Let's start with the fact that polls in college hockey don't decide anything.

This isn't football. To make matters worse, there are rankings (Pairwise) which do decide who makes the NCAA Tournament. As the year winds down and there are fewer games, those make more and more sense.

What polls are good for is discussion and figuring out the perception 50 people who aren't me have of the country.

In that case, both the Gopher men and women remain in the top-10.