NCAA Bracketology: Finals

Welcome back to The Ice Garden’s Bracketology column.

As always you can follow along from home using the PWR Calculator BCI’s Grant Salzano created from scratch — on the site you can edit past and future results to see where the rankings would end up.

This is it, folks; the last day of the season before the NCAA field is announced.  We have our field set, and all eight teams that will be participating have locked themselves in. Now the question is where do teams go.

What we know already

We have three teams that are locked into home ice: Northeastern, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

Two teams are locked into traveling: Princeton and Syracuse.

As for seeding, all we know is Northeastern is the three-seed and Princeton will finish seventh in the pairwise while Syracuse is eighth.

What is left

Wisconsin and Minnesota face off today for both the WCHA crown and the overall No. 1 seed in the tournament, which earns them the right to not play NU in the semifinals — plus they get Syracuse, the worst team to ever make the field (by winning percentage).

The 4–6 places are very up in the air between Boston College, Clarkson, and Cornell. Clarkson is home with a win, Boston College is home with a win and a Clarkson loss, and Cornell is home with a win and a BC loss.

The possible brackets

There are eight total brackets that could happen as a result of the three games. With each bracket I will give the three winners and the resulting bracket with the odds of each one happening based on KRACH.

Northeastern or Boston College, Clarkson, Minnesota: 27.1%

1 Minnesota vs. 8 Syracuse

2 Wisconsin vs. 7 Princeton

3 Northeastern vs. 6 Cornell

4 Clarkson vs. 5 Boston College

Northeastern or Boston College, Clarkson, Wisconsin: 24.69%

1 Wisconsin vs. 8 Syracuse

2 Minnesota vs. 7 Princeton

3 Northeastern vs. 6 Cornell

4 Clarkson vs. 5 Boston College

Northeastern, Cornell, Minnesota: 15.75%

1 Minnesota vs. 8 Syracuse

2 Wisconsin vs. 7 Princeton

3 Northeastern vs. 6 Boston College

4 Cornell vs. 5 Clarkson

Northeastern, Cornell, Wisconsin:  14.35%

1 Wisconsin vs. 8 Syracuse

2 Minnesota vs. 7 Princeton

3 Northeastern vs. 6 Boston College

4 Cornell vs. 5 Clarkson

Boston College, Cornell, Minnesota: 9.48%

1 Minnesota vs. 8 Syracuse

2 Wisconsin vs. 7 Princeton

3 Northeastern vs. 6 Clarkson

4 Boston College vs. 5 Cornell

Boston College, Cornell, Wisconsin: 8.63%

1 Wisconsin vs. 8 Syracuse

2 Minnesota vs. 7 Princeton

3 Northeastern vs. 6 Clarkson

4 Boston College vs. 5 Cornell

These brackets assume the committee sticks to bracket integrity and minimal flights, not trying to save money on hotels and buses (NCAA doesn’t pay for buses under 25 miles — e.g., BC to NU). The committee could very well say Boston College goes to NU unless BC hosts and Cornell and Clarkson play each other as long as one hosts, which is how it was done in 2016.