Welcome to crunch time, as we preview the NCAA tournament here at DIIIHN Bracketology: men’s edition.  The penultimate week of the season is here, as playoffs have arrived.  Two conferences have started their respective tournaments last week, and the rest will start up this week.  The pressure is as high as ever, so now it’s time to see who thrives and who falters under it. Let’s get right into it!

For reference, here is last week’s bracket projection.

Current Projections as of 2/25/25

Automatic Qualifiers (NPI Rank)

• CNE: Curry (1)
• MAC: Wilkes (18)
• MASCAC: Plymouth State (16)
• MIAC: Gustavus (34)
• NCHA: Aurora (3)
• NEHC: Hobart (2)
• NESCAC: Hamilton (10)
• SUNYAC: Cortland (13)
• UCHC: Utica (4)
• WIAC: UW-Superior (14)

At-Large (NPI Rank)

• Geneseo (5)
• St. Norbert (6)
• UNE (7)
• Trine (8)

First Four Out (NPI Rank)

• UW-Stevens Point (9)
• Adrian (11)
• Trinity (12)
• Endicott (15)

Discussion

New Conference Leaders:

• Automatic Bid:
  • Though we have no new teams moving in on the playoff bubble in an at-large spot, we have two changings of the guard at the auto-bid level.
    • Last week, Anna Maria overtook Plymouth State for the MASCAC lead.  Now, the Panthers took it right back, capturing the regular season title.
    • PSU dominated the final game of the season, which determined the conference title, 5-0.  AMC actually went 0-2 this past week.
  • In the UCHC, Geneseo was tripped up Saturday by Nazareth, losing 7-4.  That, combined with Utica’s 2-0 week gave the Pioneers the outright UCHC title.
    • The two teams were previously tied, but Genny held the tiebreaker.  Thus, Utica takes the lead for the auto-bid at this moment.
• Despite all the high-intensity games, there wasn’t a whole lot of shuffling in our projected bracket, but we did see a couple of shifts.
• Seed Line Shifts:
  • First and foremost, let’s start at the top.  Curry has overtaken Hobart as the top seed in the field.
    • The Statesmen went 1-0-1 this weekend, featuring a Saturday tie @ Babson.  The strength of schedule appears to be the difference here, as the NEHC has not held up its end of the bargain for Hobart’s schedule difficulty.
  • Cortland put together a solid week, earning two wins to wrap up the SUNYAC regular-season title, including a controversial 2-1 win over Oswego Saturday night.
    • The Red Dragons jumped the idle Yellowjackets of UW-Superior this past week for the #10 seed, as UWS falls to #11.
• #5 Geneseo’s upset didn’t impact their seed at all, as #6 St. Norbert also suffered a tie in Game 2 of the NCHA quarterfinals against Concordia-WI.  Luckily for the Green Knights, they took Game 1, so advanced to the semis.
• The cut line for this projection is #9 being the first spot out.  This gives us 5 auto-bid schools in the projected field ranked lower than the first team out, #9 UW-Stevens Point.
• Multi-bid Leagues:
  • NCHA: (3)
  • CNE: (2)
  • UCHC (2)

Seeding

1. Curry
2. Hobart
3. Aurora
4. Utica
5. Geneseo
6. St. Norbert
7. UNE
8. Trine
9. Hamilton
10. Cortland
11. UW-Superior
12. Plymouth State
13. Wilkes
14. Gustavus

Projected Bracket

First Round

10) Cortland @ 9) Hamilton

12) Plymouth State @ 7) UNE

13) Wilkes @ 4) Utica

8) Trine @ 5) Geneseo

11) UW-Superior @ 6) St. Norbert

14) Gustavus @ 3) Aurora

Quarterfinals

10) Cortland/9) Hamilton @ 1) Curry

12) Plymouth St./7) UNE vs. 13) Wilkes/4) Utica

8) Trine/5) Geneseo @ 2) Hobart

11) UWS/6) SNC vs. 14) GAC/3) Aurora

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

With no at-large bids changing hands, we stick with the 9E/5W split.  What was huge this week, was that Aurora, St. Norbert, and Trine all avoided a loss in the NCHA quarterfinals.  Adrian did lose, but ended up advancing in the mini-game.  If the west is to going to keep five bids, or potentially get to six, then Adrian and/or Trine will have to pull a road upset of Aurora or Norbert.  Point and Superior will need to win their WIAC semifinals as well.

The Byes

Although the top seed has a new owner, it’s still the same two schools receiving byes as #1 Curry and #2 Hobart get the extra rest.

Selecting the West Pod

Same story as last week, as one west team will have to play out east, as there’s one too many for a pod of four.  With Trine being in driving distance of a pair of East schools in this field, the Thunder will be playing out east.

With #8 Trine out of the picture, the remaining four west teams will make up one pod: #3 Aurora, #6 St. Norbert, #11 UW-Superior, and #14 Gustavus.

Trine’s Placement

With not a ton of changing of teams, I’ve told this story before.  Essentially, the two east teams Trine is within driving distance of, is Hobart and Geneseo.  When Hobart was ranked #1, I felt that the “reward” of a #8 vs. #5 matchup was too harsh.  I’ve also see the NCAA spend a little extra when it comes to protecting the top seed.  In that specific instance, I felt that the NCAA would be willing to budge a bit.

This week, is a little different. Now that Hobart is #2, I think #8 vs. #5 feeding into #2 is definitely in play.  So in this instance, Trine will be finally be placed with the two east teams it can drive to.  #8 Trine will unfortunately lose out on their potential home game, traveling to #5 Geneseo.  The winner will then head to the Cooler.

Setting the Rest of the First Round Matchups

As I stated in the previous two sections:

• In the west pod, we have #11 UW-Superior driving cross-state to face #6 Norbert, and #14 Gustavus battling the Chicago traffic to battle #3 Aurora.
• In #2 Hobart’s pod, we have #8 Trine driving cross-region to #5 Geneseo.

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: (#1 Curry earns a bye)

• #4 Utica
• #7 UNE
• #9 Hamilton
• #10 Cortland
• #12 Plymouth State
• #13 Wilkes

There are no potential travel issues among these six, with all schools being within driving distance of one another.  So this will be nice and painless, pairing up the highest-ranked and lowest-ranked teams throughout.  So, #13 Wilkes will head to their former conference rival, #4 Utica.  #12 Plymouth heads to #7 UNE, a rematch of the opening game of the season.  Finally, #9 Hamilton hosts #10 Cortland in a very compelling matchup.

#8 Trine’s loss of a home game, is #9 Hamilton’s gain, as they now get one more chance to play in front of their fans at Sage Rink.  It’s not perfect, but the cost of doing business, as they say.

Quarterfinal Assignments

The west pod is already set, and Hobart’s potential opponents have been selected.

In terms of #1 Curry’s quarterfinal matchup, we will take the middle two teams being matched up.  Thus, the winner of #10 Cortland and #9 Hamilton will travel to the Canton Ice House  (Side note: Cortland and Curry split their series back about three months ago).

The remaining two matchups will make up their own pod.  The #12 PSU/#7 UNE winner will face the winner of #13 Wilkes and #4 Utica with the highest eligible seed hosting the quarterfinal.  Not predicting anything here, but this is quite a nice setup for the Pioneers.  They get a bit of a seeding break with this draw.

Frozen Four Placement

With #1’s pod being matched up with #4’s pod in a traditional bracket, that means we will place the Utica pod of four teams, alongside Curry’s pod.

On the other side of the bracket, the #2 Hobart pod is facing off against the west pod, spearheaded by #3 Aurora.  On the right side of the bracket, we have #2 Hobart, #3 Aurora, #5 Geneseo, and #6 St. Norbert, making for an absolute war trying to emerge to the Frozen Four and championship game.

Dollars & “Sense”

Here’s what flights the NCAA is ponying up for in this bracket projection.

First Two Rounds:

• 0 flights (just they way they like it!)

Then, with a west host for the Frozen Four, it all comes down to who is hosting.

Frozen Four:

-If Aurora/St. Norbert hosts:

• 2 flights from left side of bracket
• additional flight if Hobart/Geneseo advances from top right quadrant

-If Trine hosts:

• 2 flights from left side of bracket
• 1 flight from bottom right quadrant of bracket
  • This assumes neither Aurora/SNC advanced if Trine is indeed hosting, so the other west rep is either UWS/GAC

-If UW-Superior/Gustavus hosts:

• 3 flights from all other quadrants of bracket

Depending on results, this bracket results in anywhere from 2-3 flights.

Wrap-Up

Thanks for reading the eighth edition of Men’s Bracketology.  With just two weekends left of games, I will do my best to update you all when necessary.  Also, keep an eye out for future posts this week, that will serve as rooting guides for your favorite team.  I’ll also discuss the likelihood each team has at getting in so stay tuned!  Please leave any questions or comments down below as we approach the final stretch!