Frozen Four Bracket

[Mingjai]

The college hockey playoffs are and oddly run deal.

* * *

Then you have the 'autobids' that go to Holy Cross and Bemidji State. No winner of their conferences would ever qualify under the pairwise rankings due to a strength of schedule rating their conference cannot overcome, so every year a deserving school or two doesn't get in.

This year four teams tied for 15th, (16 get in) Dartmouth, Denver, Northern Michigan & St. Cloud State in favor of Holy Cross #21 and Bemidji #28 - #28!

Sure, they won their "conference", but it's a conference that has only 6 teams in it!

I have a similar gripe with the men's volleyball tourney, which is only a four team deal. The 3 volleyball conference champs get autobids and there is one at large. The problem is if you look at the top 10 in rankings, most of them are from one conference: the MPSF. For example, in the current rankings, the top 8 are all MPSF schools: 1. UC Irvine, 2. BYU, 3. Hawai'i, 4. Pepperdine, 5. Long Beach State, 6. Cal State Northridge, 7. UC Santa Barbara, 8. UCLA. At most, only two of these eight schools will make the NCAA tournament (the MPSF has always gotten the at large bid). If only they expanded the field to 8 teams, then only two of these teams would be left out.

Count your blessings that the Frozen Four is a 16 team tournament!

[usahockeyrube]

Wilson - Awesome bracket, thanks.

usahockeyrube - Man, you put me in the wayback machine on that one.

"ohjsndf mafoafa m[fjaf m afmjas famf af pfkpamf."

"What him say?"

"He say Go Go Gophers are awesome!"

Whoopy Doopy, we have fun!

[CC97]

Oh well, as long as CC doesn't win, I'll take that as consolation.

head