Playoff time is here.  With less than two weeks remaining until Selection Sunday, the pressure is officially on for teams looking for that NCAA tournament berth.  Before we get into our up-to-the-minute projection, review our conference tournament brackets to see the landscape for the coming weeks, and last week’s projection for context.  Let’s get into it!

Current Projections as of 2/24/26

Automatic Qualifiers (NPI Rank)

• CNE: UNE (4)
• LEC: Norwich (16)
• MAC: Neumann (32)
• MASCAC: Anna Maria (25)
• MIAC: Saint John’s (21)
• NCHA: Adrian (5)
• NESCAC: Hamilton (2)
• SUNYAC: Hobart (1)
• UCHC: Utica (8)
• WIAC: UW-Stout (10)

At-Large (NPI Rank)

• Endicott (3)
• Bowdoin (6)
• Salve Regina (7)
• Aurora (9)

First Four Out (NPI Rank)

• St. Norbert (11)
• Babson (12)
• Geneseo (13)
• Oswego (14)

Discussion

New Teams in Field:

• Just two new teams in the field this week, which is still crazy this late in the year.  However, with the amount of turnover we’ve had, just two is the wording I’m going with here.
• New Conference Leader:
  • Saint John’s swept a frisky Concordia team, holding off the rest of the MIAC contenders to capture their 10th regular season title and earning home ice throughout the conference playoffs.  The Johnnies enter our projection as the #12 seed.
    • Saint Mary’s couldn’t go perfect, as they split with Augsburg, falling out of the projected field.
• New At-Large Team:
  • Aurora is a hot topic in D-III hockey, and despite being a consensus top 4-5 team in the country, find themselves on the bubble thanks to the NPI calculator  For now, they’re on the right side.
    • AU swept away MSOE in dominant fashion in the NCHA quarterfinals.  This comes after struggling with the Raiders earlier in the season, as the Spartans jump one spot in the NPI to the #9 seed in the tournament and the last team in.
    • On the other side of the coin, Babson falls out of the tournament, after being defeated by New England College Friday night.
      • The Beavers fall three spots in the NPI to #12, and sit as the 2nd team out of the field.  Babson will need some help to get back in as an at-large candidate.
• Other Seed Line Shifts:
  • Not a shift, but Hamilton losing twice this past weekend has brought them back to the pack a bit, but still hold the #2 seed.  If the Continentals struggle in the NESCAC tourney, they could reasonably lose their bye now.
  • Endicott defeated, then surprisingly tied Johnson & Wales this past week.
    • Despite the tie, the Gulls moved up one seed line to #3.
  • UNE used some late-game heroics to avoid a loss/tie against Nichols, and jumped up a seed line to #4 as well.
  • Adrian hammered Lake Forest in both NCHA quarterfinal games, also moving up two seed lines to #5.
  • With all the above teams jumping up, you probably were waiting to see who fell, and it’s the Polar Bears of Bowdoin.
    • Bowdoin was taken to OT in a home contest versus Conn. College before prevailing, and then suffered a home defeat to Tufts the following day.
    • Bowdoin fell three seed lines to #6 with the less-than-ideal weekend.
  • Trendy Salve Regina was idle again this weekend, and slipped one spot to #7 in the NPI and the 2nd to last at-large team in.
    • The NPI rankings remain tight, so SRU fans will surely have rooting interests the next two weeks.
  • Anna Maria clinched their first-ever MASCAC regular season title with a pair of wins this weekend.
    • Despite staying put in the NPI, they fell one seed, down to #13, with Saint John’s replacing Saint Mary’s.
• The cut line for this projection is #11 being the first spot out.  This gives us 4 auto-bid schools in the projected field ranked lower than the first team out, #11 St. Norbert.
• Multi-bid Leagues:
  • CNE: (2)
  • NCHA: (2)
  • NESCAC: (2)
    • The NCHA regains its 2nd bid, and with some highly-contested semifinals this weekend, we’ll see how the math plays out.  The LEC falls back into 1-bid territory for now…

Seeding

1. Hobart
2. Hamilton
3. Endicott
4. UNE
5. Adrian
6. Bowdoin
7. Salve Regina
8. Utica
9. Aurora
10. UW-Stout
11. Norwich
12. Saint John’s
13. Anna Maria
14. Neumann

Projected Bracket

First Round

10) UW-Stout @ 9) Aurora

12) Saint John’s @ 5) Adrian

13) Anna Maria @ 4) UNE

8) Utica @ 7) Salve Regina

11) Norwich @ 6) Bowdoin

14) Neumann @ 3) Endicott

Quarterfinals

10) Stout/9) Aurora @ 1) Hobart

12) SJU/5) Adrian vs. 13) AMC/4) UNE

8) Utica/7) SRU @ 2) Hamilton

11) Norwich/6) Bowdoin vs. 14) Neumann/3) Endicott

Geographical Breakdown

• Thick black lines indicate first round travel matchups.
• The colored shapes indicate which quadrant of the bracket is which.

Rationale

The Byes

Hobart and Hamilton hold the top two seeds, but as I said above, the margin is narrowing between the rest of the field and Hamilton…

The 10E/4W Split

Now that Aurora has reclaimed its at-large spot, we have retained the 10/4 split for this specific bracket.  Now begs the question, do we partner the west schools up for one round, or two?

No West Pod this Time

In previous editions, we have seen cross-region quarterfinals.  Where a western winner and an eastern winner meet up in a quarterfinal.  We saw it last year, and I will assume the committee will operate under those circumstances, even if they have to pay a bit more.  It’s not perfect, but it’s much better than previous brackets we’ve seen.

So, we will split the west teams up, but not before Round 1.  So, according to seed, we will send #12 Saint John’s to #5 Adrian, and #10 UW-Stout to #9 Aurora.

Adrian’s only drivable opponents are Aurora and Hobart.  One is a fellow NCHA member, and one is the #1 seed, so neither is happening.

Setting the Rest of Round 1

When taking the bye teams and west teams out of the picture, here’s who we have left to match-up:

• #3 Endicott
• #4 UNE
• #6 Bowdoin
• #7 Salve Regina
• #8 Utica
• #11 Norwich
• #13 Anna Maria
• #14 Neumann

When pairing off games according to seed, we get the following matchups: #14 Neumann heading up to #3 Endicott.  #13 AMC travels to Biddeford to take on #4 UNE.  #11 Norwich drives east to #6 Bowdoin in a game between two extremely northern schools.  Finally, we see #8 Utica @ #7 Salve, a tremendously intriguing first round game.

Setting the Quarterfinals

Again, we are not (potentially) sending #5 Adrian to #1 Hobart, as I think that’s much too harsh of a draw for the NCAA to give the top seed.  The “easiest” path would filter into #1, so in theory, the “middle matchup” of #10 Stout and #9 Aurora would head to the Cooler.  Whichever team wins the first round game, I would be so excited to see this one.

The next most-middle matchup is the intriguing #8 Utica/#7 Salve winner traveling to #2 Hamilton.  If the Pioneers can get past the Seahawks, that is a very enticing rematch between the two neighboring schools.

Next, we have to make pods of four of the remaining teams.  What’s so amazing about these next pods is they both show pure bracket integrity, which is what we should be doing all the time, no question asked… but I digress.

Since #3 and #6 go together in a traditional bracket, we will pair the #14 Neumann/#3 Endicott winner with the winner of the #11 Norwich/#6 Bowdoin winner at the highest seed’s rink.

Finally, in the 4/5 pod the #12 Saint John’s/#5 Adrian winner will be battling the #13 Anna Maria/#4 UNE winner at the home of the highest remaining seed.  Yes, there’s a bit of travel issues here, but the NCAA has shown they’re willing to make this happen.

Frozen Four Placement

With #1 and #4 on the left side of the bracket, the #1 Hobart and #4 UNE pods will go together, pushing all four west teams to the left side of the bracket.  On the other side, the #2 Hamilton and #3 Endicott pods are placed together.

Dollars & “Sense”

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

First Round:

• 1 flight from Saint John’s to Adrian

Quarterfinals:

• 1 flight for UW-Stout/Aurora to Hobart
• 1 flight for either Saint John’s/Adrian winner or Anna Maria/UNE winner (dependent on high seed)

Frozen Four (Host: Utica University: Utica Memorial Auditorium)

• 1 flight if UW-Stout/Aurora advances from top left quadrant of bracket
• 1 flight if Saint John’s advances from bottom left quadrant of bracket

This bracket results in anywhere from 3-5 flights.

Wrap-Up

The playoffs are now in full swing this week, as we’ll have a rooting interest guide coming soon in our annual bubble watch.  There, we’ll analyze who’s a lock, who’s in good shape, and who needs help.  Come back for more later this week!