As we approach the last few weeks of the regular season, it is now or never for several NCAA tournament contenders. Let’s take a look at what changed in the last week, and how that affected the playoff picture!
In case you want a refresher, here is last week’s post for reference! Let’s get started with our fourth men’s preview.
Current Projections as of 1/28/25
Automatic Qualifiers (NPI Rank)
- CNE: Curry (3)
- MAC: Wilkes (23)
- MASCAC: Plymouth State (19)
- MIAC: Gustavus (26)
- NCHA: Trine (6)
- NEHC: Hobart (1)
- NESCAC: Hamilton (7)
- SUNYAC: Cortland (14)
- UCHC: Utica (2)
- WIAC: UW-Superior (16)
At-Large (NPI Rank)
- Aurora (4)
- Geneseo (5)
- Adrian (8)
- UNE (9)
First Four Out (NPI Rank)
- St. Norbert (10)
- Trinity (11)
- UW-Stevens Point (12)
- Endicott (13)
Discussion
A couple substantial changes from last week:
- New Teams in Field:
- Auto-Bid: Despite Oswego beating Cortland a week ago in a non-conference game, the Red Dragons returned the favor this past Saturday earning a 4-3 win over the Lakers. With the win, Cortland overtook Oswego for the SUNYAC lead in points percentage, putting them into the projected field.
- At-Large: On the at-large side of things, Trinity’s upset loss at the hands of Tufts was enough to knock them out of the field. The Nor’Easters of UNE were the team to replace them in the projected field.
- Not only did UNE earn a pair of wins over Wentworth, but St. Norbert, who was the first team out, also dropped a game, helping the Nor’Easters into the field.
- Not a new team into the field, but there was another conference leader shift:
- Utica took over the UCHC lead, with Geneseo’s upset loss at the hands of Chatham.
- Both Utica and Geneseo are still in good shape for the NCAA Tournament, but they need to continue to play well to earn as high of a seed as possible.
- There were a few “seed line” shifts as well.
- With Geneseo falling from #3 to #5, Curry, and Aurora both moved up a seed.
- Dubuque’s major upset win over Adrian knocked the Bulldogs back to #8, allowing Trine and Hamilton to jump them.
- UNE slotted in as the last team in the field at #9, moving up from the second team out at #11.
- The cut line for this projection is #10 being the first spot out. This gives us 5 auto-bid schools in the projected field ranked lower than the first team out, #10 St. Norbert.
- Multi-bid Leagues:
- NCHA: (3)
- CNE: (2)
- UCHC (2)
Seeding
- Hobart
- Utica
- Curry
- Aurora
- Geneseo
- Trine
- Hamilton
- Adrian
- UNE
- Cortland
- UW-Superior
- Plymouth State
- Wilkes
- Gustavus
Projected Bracket
First Round
13) Wilkes @ 8) Adrian
11) UW-Superior @ 6) Trine
14) Gustavus @ 4) Aurora
9) UNE @ 7) Hamilton
10) Cortland @ 5) Geneseo
12) Plymouth State @ 3) Curry
Quarterfinals
13) Wilkes/8) Adrian @ 1) Hobart
11) UWS/6) Trine vs. 14) GAC/4) Aurora
9) UNE/7) Hamilton @ 2) Utica
10) Cortland/5) Geneseo vs. 12) Plymouth St./3) Curry
Geographical Breakdown
- Thick black lines indicate first round travel matchups.
- Purple shapes indicate which quadrant of the bracket is which
Rationale
The 9E/5W Split
The 9/5 split is still alive, with UNE replacing Trinity in the final at-large spot. Again, we will need to choose a pod of 4 west teams, meaning like last week, either Adrian or Trine will be forced into an East pod.
The Byes
In a shift from last week, the #1 and #2 seeds made a pretty clean outcome this go-around. Nothing is too challenging for any particular high seed with how the bracket worked out, so #1 Hobart and #2 Utica get the coveted byes for this opening weekend.
Selecting the West Pod
Just like last week, I chose #6 Trine to be matched up with the 3 “western-most” west teams in #4 Aurora, #11 UW-Superior and #14 Gustavus. If you missed my explanation last week, Trine is only within driving distance of 2 east schools, whereas Adrian has a third east school they could play. Thus, Trine gets forced back west.
Again, the caveat here is that Superior will have to fly to Trine in this scenario, being 632 miles apart. The potential of a Gustavus-Trine quarterfinal could cause also force a flight. Unfortunately, this is the best we are going to do. The matchups are Superior @ Trine and Gustavus @ Aurora for the second consecutive projection.
Adrian’s Placement
With Hobart having a bye, Adrian’s first round game should be against either #13 Wilkes or #5 Geneseo, with the winner going to #1 Hobart. This would allow Adrian to drive to any location in this pod. With #1 Hobart theoretically getting the “best path,” and Adrian most likely getting a home game at the #8 seed, we will send #13 Wilkes to #8 Adrian for the first round game, with the winner heading to the Cooler for the NCAA Quarterfinal.
Setting the First Round Matchups
As I said above:
- In the west pod, we have #11 UW-Superior flying to #6 Trine, and #14 Gustavus heading to #4 Aurora.
- In the Hobart pod, we have #13 Wilkes driving to #8 Adrian.
With the rest of the field, we will just pair off the highest and lowest ranked teams to make the matchups as fair as possible.
Remaining Teams: (#2 Utica earns a bye)
- #3 Curry
- #5 Geneseo
- #7 Hamilton
- #9 UNE
- #10 Cortland
- #12 Plymouth State
So in a pretty easy calculation, we will have #12 PSU going to #3 Curry, #10 Cortland going to #5 Geneseo, and #9 UNE going to #7 Hamilton. The only potential travel issue we have amongst these is UNE and Geneseo being just over the 500 mile limit, which is no problem here.
Quarterfinal Assignments
With no further travel issues, we will set the quarterfinals: The west pod is set, and we know Hobart gets the Wilkes/Adrian winner.
For the other side of the bracket, we will take the middle two teams matching up, and feed that matchup into the 2 seed, Utica. So, we have the #9 UNE/#7 Hamilton winner heading to #2 Utica to take on the Pioneers.
The other four teams will make up a quadrant with the #12 Plymouth/#3 Curry winner taking on the #10 Cortland/#5 Geneseo winner. Some interesting matchups here, including a former SUNYAC battle. The winners would face off at the highest eligible seed to host.
Frozen Four Placement
Despite Aurora and Trine moving up the rankings a tad, the #4 Spartans of Aurora would play on the same side as #1 Hobart, meaning the west pod goes on Hobart’s side of the bracket.
Utica’s side of the bracket features their own pod, as well as the quadrant including #3 Curry and #5 Geneseo.
Dollars & “Sense”
Here’s what flights the NCAA is ponying up for in this bracket projection.
First Two Rounds:
- First Round: 1 flight from UW-Superior to Trine
- Second Round: 1 potential flight from Gustavus to Trine
Then, with a west host for the Frozen Four, it all comes down to who is hosting.
Frozen Four:
-If Aurora hosts:
- 2 flights from both right quadrants of bracket
- additional flight if Hobart/Wilkes advances from top left quadrant
-If Trine hosts:
- 1 flight from top right quadrant of bracket
- additional flight if Curry/Cortland/Plymouth State advances from bottom right quadrant
- additional flight if Wilkes advances from top left quadrant
-If Adrian hosts:
- 1 flight from top right quadrant of bracket
- 1 flight from bottom left quadrant of bracket (Aurora/Trine have been eliminated if Adrian hosts)
- additional flight if Curry/Cortland/Plymouth State advances from bottom right quadrant
If UW-Superior or Gustavus hosts:
- 3 flights from all other quadrants of bracket
Depending on results, this bracket results in anywhere from 2-5 flights (lots of contingency plans).
Wrap-Up
Thanks for reading Edition #4 of Bracketology! Hopefully, I provided some insight for the recent results and how they’ve impacted the big picture. We have some major games coming up this week, so Edition #5 is likely to shake things up even more.
