Looking at how the actual selections went down, I can’t say that any of it was a surprise.
Once again the PairWise Rankings correctly predicted the group of teams in the NCAA tournament. When it came to geography, though, we tried our best and just wound up putting some teams in the wrong places.
Let’s examine it and see what happened.
Basically, the committee decided where the top seeds went and then it fell into place from there.
The committee looked at the teams and started out by protecting the overall number-one and -two seeds in Michigan and Miami.
So they put Michigan in Albany, the next closest regional to Ann Arbor, and then Miami in Worcester. And then North Dakota went to the next closest regional and then New Hampshire, as the fourth seed, went to the last regional available.
The committee then used bracket integrity to fill out the second band.
Then the committee did what they had to do for bracket integrity and attendance.
Wisconsin had to face Denver, and then Minnesota had to face Boston College. Now it’s a matter of placing Clarkson and Michigan State, two teams tied in the PairWise.
Clarkson would be the better draw in Albany, and so it went there, which left Michigan State in Colorado Springs.
And then the fourth band went via bracket integrity, except that Niagara went to Albany for attendance and travel reasons, a precedent set last year with Air Force.
No real drama or twists there.
Where was my mistake? Basically in the first band. Where would all the number-one seeds go? I started by putting Michigan in Madison, and it went wrong from there.
I don’t think there’s any disputes here. The PairWise correctly predicted the teams in the tournament and my job was to try to predict where they went. I analyzed wrong right at the start, and it went from there.
It’s all said and done.
Let’s sit back and enjoy some games.
