We’re back for our 2nd look at men’s bracketology for the 2025-26 season, and we already have some pretty drastic changes in our projected field!  If you haven’t done so yet, take a look at last week’s projections to get a lay of the land.

Current Projections as of 12/9/25

Automatic Qualifiers (NPI Rank)

• CNE: UNE (10)
• LEC: Babson (12)
• MAC: Neumann (40)
• MASCAC: Fitchburg State (25)
• MIAC: Saint Mary’s (33)
• NCHA: Adrian (4)
• NESCAC: Bowdoin (2)
• SUNYAC: Hobart (1)
• UCHC: Utica (21)
• WIAC: UW-Eau Claire (26)

At-Large (NPI Rank)

• Hamilton (3)
• Oswego (5)
• Middlebury (6)
• St. Norbert (7)

First Four Out (NPI Rank)

• Colby (8)
• Aurora (9)
• Endicott (11)
• Salve Regina (13)

Discussion

• New Teams in Field:
  • Adrian, the first team out last week, vaults up to #4 in the NPI, tying St. Norbert for the lead in the NCHA, with an impressive sweep of MSOE.  AC holds the conference lead tiebreaker due to NPI
    • St. Norbert falls to #7, the last team in the field, a tough break, after earning a hard-fought OT win, and a tie, at a very good Trine team.
  • Middlebury entered the weekend as the third team out, and moves into the projected field as the 2nd to last team in after an impressive pair of wins, landing at #6.
  • Middlebury and Adrian, a NESCAC and an NCHA team, replace teams from those leagues in the projected field, as Tufts and Aurora fall out.
    • Tufts lost a pair of games to Colby and Bowdoin, while Aurora split a series against Lawrence in which they were heavily favored.
• Other Seed Line Shifts:
  • Hobart earned a massive road win over Oswego, and another dominant win at Brockport, moving up to the #1 overall seed, where they likely belong.
  • Utica also jumped 15 spots in the NPI, as they vault from the 13-seed in this field, to the 10-seed.  The Pioneers also defeated Oswego, giving UU a signature win.
  • The Lakers played two extremely tough teams, so despite the 0-2 week, they fell to just #5.
  • Bowdoin moved up to the #2 spot, after a win and a tie in NESCAC play.
  • Hamilton slipped out of the bye range to #3.
  • Eau Claire defeated Beloit Thursday, but fell to River Falls Saturday night, dropping back 7 NPI rankings, and back to the #12 seed.
  • Saint Mary’s split a series with Concordia (MN), but got passed by Utica, as SMU now is the #13 seed.
• The cut line for this projection is #8 being the first spot out.  This gives us 7 auto-bid schools in the projected field ranked lower than the first team out, #8 Colby.
• The NESCAC continues to be the hot topic of the sport, for various reasons, but there are still plenty of games to be played.
• Multi-bid Leagues:
  • NESCAC: (3)
  • NCHA: (2)
  • SUNYAC: (2)

Seeding

1. Hobart
2. Bowdoin
3. Hamilton
4. Adrian
5. Oswego
6. Middlebury
7. St. Norbert
8. UNE
9. Babson
10. Utica
11. Fitchburg State
12. UW-Eau Claire
13. Saint Mary’s
14. Neumann

Projected Bracket

First Round

9) Babson @ 8) UNE

11) Fitchburg State @ 5) Oswego

13) Saint Mary’s @ 4) Adrian

12) UW-Eau Claire @ 7) St. Norbert

10) Utica @ 6) Middlebury

14) Neumann @ 3) Hamilton

Quarterfinals

9) Babson/8) UNE @ 1) Hobart

11) Fitchburg St./5) Oswego vs. 13) SMU/4) Adrian

12) UWEC/7) SNC @ 2) Bowdoin

10) Utica/6) Middlebury vs. 14) Neumann/3) Hamilton

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 Bowdoin move into “bye territory” as the top 2 seeds, replacing their conference rivals, Oswego and Hamilton, respectively.

The 10E/4W Split

With one west team in, and one west team out, we still are holding firm with the 10/4 split.  However, Adrian makes things much more tricky than Aurora, the team who just exited the bracket.  Adrian is notoriously in “no man’s land,” as they have few opponents within the 500-mile drivable distance.  In fact, there are more east teams they could realistically drive to, than west ones.

Setting West Matchups

With no west team earning a bye, Adrian will be forced into a western matchup.  They can’t play St. Norbert, a conference opponent in the first round, so that means one of the other west teams will have to fly into south central Michigan.  Given #4 Adrian is the highest-ranked west team, we’ll give them the lower ranked of the 2 other conference leaders: #13 Saint Mary’s from the MIAC.  By process of elimination, #12 UW-Eau Claire of the WIAC will travel to #7 St. Norbert.

Setting the Rest of the First Round Games

From here, we can start pairing up the rest of the east teams by seed to create the most “fair” matchups.

• #14 Neumann @ #3 Hamilton
• #11 Fitchburg State @ #5 Oswego
• #10 Utica @ #6 Middlebury
• #9 Babson @ #8 UNE

The Knights of Neumann travel up to Hamilton.  Oswego hosts a battle of the green and yellow teams.  A “blue blood” in Middlebury hosts a “new blood” in Utica.  Lastly, the UNE Nor’Easters welcome the Beavers, a matchup from last week’s projection.

With no geographical issues or intraconference games, these should work out great!  Note, when looking at the western teams and their seeds, Oswego, and Middlebury get “harder” games, than suspected, if you’re just looking at seeding.

Setting the Quarterfinals: West-East Crossover

Like I mentioned last week, the 2025 committee did a fantastic job keeping bracket integrity in the quarterfinals.  Thus, we will be of the mindset that they will follow that trend this year.  This means playing the quarterfinals as true to seed as possible.

While #1 Hobart gets the #8 UNE/#9 Babson winner in a very clean matchup, #2 Bowdoin would in theory, get the winner of #7 St. Norbert and #12 Eau Claire.  That means someone is flying out of Wisconsin after the tournament’s first weekend.

On the bottom half of the bracket, the #10 Utica/#6 Middlebury winner faces off against the #14 Neumann/#3 Hamilton winner.  No issues here whatsoever, in what could be a rematch of one of the more controversial moments we’ve seen in this sport.

The last pod of teams is interesting as we already have a flight with the #13 SMU @ #4 Adrian matchup.  The victor would face the winner of #11 Fitchburg and #5 Oswego.  Interestingly enough, if both home teams hold up, Oswego is just under the 500 mile drivable limit to head to Adrian for the quarterfinal, which would save the NCAA some cash.

Frozen Four Placement

As expected, the #4/#5 pod, is placed on the side of #1, as Hobart gets the #4 Adrian pod winner, while #2 Bowdoin gets the #3 Hamilton pod winner.

Dollars & “Sense”

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

First Two Rounds:

• First Round:
  • 1 flight from Saint Mary’s to Adrian
• Quarterfinals:
  • 1 flight for UWEC/SNC to Bowdoin
  • 1 additional flight if Fitchburg wins AND/OR if Saint Mary’s wins

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

• 1 additional flight if Adrian/Saint Mary’s advances from bottom left quadrant of bracket
• 1 additional flight if St. Norbert/UW-Eau Claire advances from top right quadrant of bracket

Depending on results, this bracket results in anywhere from 2-5 flights.

Wrap-Up

That’s all she wrote for the 2nd edition of 2026 Men’s Bracketology.  There’s a lighter slate of games this week as we approach the Christmas break, but I’m sure we’ll have some new numbers next week.

Wrap-Up

 

First Two Rounds:

• First Round:
  • 1 flight from Saint Mary’s to Adrian
• Quarterfinals:
  • 1 flight for UWEC/SNC to Bowdoin
  • 1 additional flight if Fitchburg wins AND/OR if Saint Mary’s wins

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

• 1 additional flight if Adrian/Saint Mary’s advances from bottom left quadrant of bracket
• 1 additional flight if St. Norbert/UW-Eau Claire advances from top right quadrant of bracket

Depending on results, this bracket results in anywhere from 2-5 flights.