Oilers Chick
Registered User
With only a about a month left in the NCAA regular season, I thought this would be a good time to start talking about the Pairwise Rankings (PWR).
For those of you unfamiliar with the PWR, it's the prime source of determining the at-large bids and seedings for the NCAA Tournament. Jayson Moy over at USCHO does a wonderful job of explaining the PWR and how it works. You can follow it HERE and it includes helpful links pertaining to the PWR.
If the NCAA tournament started today, here are the teams that would get the automatic bids based on their current conference standings:
Mercyhurst - Atlantic Hockey
Big 10 - Minnesota
ECAC - Union College
Hockey East - Boston College
NCHC - St. Cloud State
WCHA - Ferris State
It's important to note here that Mercyhurst is the only team not amongst the current top 16 in the PWR.
The following teams would receive at-large bids based on the current PWR, if the tourney started today:
Quinnipiac, Cornell, UMass-Lowell, Michigan, Northeastern and Providence College.
Current teams on the bubble:
Minnesota-Duluth, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Notre Dame.
This scenario will change as games are played. One thing that most people don't realize about the PWR is the fact that it isn't only conference games that affect each team's PWR. Non-conference games also have a great impact. In some cases, more so. For example, a team like Michigan who is in the Big Ten, will be watching closely to see how ranked teams in the ECAC and Hockey East are doing because those teams could have a significant impact on their PWR.
For those of you unfamiliar with the PWR, it's the prime source of determining the at-large bids and seedings for the NCAA Tournament. Jayson Moy over at USCHO does a wonderful job of explaining the PWR and how it works. You can follow it HERE and it includes helpful links pertaining to the PWR.
If the NCAA tournament started today, here are the teams that would get the automatic bids based on their current conference standings:
Mercyhurst - Atlantic Hockey
Big 10 - Minnesota
ECAC - Union College
Hockey East - Boston College
NCHC - St. Cloud State
WCHA - Ferris State
It's important to note here that Mercyhurst is the only team not amongst the current top 16 in the PWR.
The following teams would receive at-large bids based on the current PWR, if the tourney started today:
Quinnipiac, Cornell, UMass-Lowell, Michigan, Northeastern and Providence College.
Current teams on the bubble:
Minnesota-Duluth, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Notre Dame.
This scenario will change as games are played. One thing that most people don't realize about the PWR is the fact that it isn't only conference games that affect each team's PWR. Non-conference games also have a great impact. In some cases, more so. For example, a team like Michigan who is in the Big Ten, will be watching closely to see how ranked teams in the ECAC and Hockey East are doing because those teams could have a significant impact on their PWR.