Bracketology: Notre Dame, Minnesota teams are big winners

Conference tournaments begin this weekend in four of college hockey's six Division I men's conferences, meaning we're less than three weeks away from selection Sunday, when the NCAA tournament selection committee announces its field.

The PairWise Ratings mimic the formula that the committee uses to pick the teams for its 16-team tournament. With that in mind here is this week's version of Bracketology, a projection of the NCAA field.

The big winners over the weekend were the Big Ten, which now has Notre Dame joining Ohio State in the field, and the state of Minnesota, which has three of the four No. 1 seeds. Of course, this is just a snapshot of the moment, because every game played can change the PairWise.

The PairWise Ratings through Monday:

1. St. Cloud State

2. Massachusetts

3. Minnesota Duluth

5. Quinnipiac

6. Denver

7. Ohio State

8. Arizona State

9. Providence

11. Northeastern

12. Cornell

13. Harvard

14. Western Michigan

15. Notre Dame

Others of note

20. North Dakota

21. Gophers

24. Michigan

26. Wisconsin

Note: American International, No. 32 in the PairWise, is projected to win the Atlantic Hockey tournament title and its automatic NCAA bid, thus bumping Penn State.

Here's how the NCAA bracket projects:

West Regional (Fargo)

1. St. Cloud State vs. 16. American International

8. Arizona State vs. 11. Northeastern

Northeast Regional (Manchester, N.H.)

2. Massachusetts vs. 15. Notre Dame

7. Ohio State vs. 10. Clarkson

East Regional (Providence, R.I.)

3. Minnesota Duluth vs. 13. Harvard

Note: No. 14 Western Michigan would have been UMD's first-round opponent, but the Broncos are moved to avoid an intraconference matchup. Quinnipiac and Denver are swapped to avoid a first-round ECAC matchup in the Midwest.

Midwest Regional (Allentown, Pa.)

4. Minnesota State vs. 14. Western Michigan

5. Denver vs. 12. Cornell

Since the 9-12 band of No. 3 seeds all were from the East, and the 5-8 band of No. 2 seeds had three Western teams, not many moves could be made this week to greatly improve attendance.