Making sense of it all..

The Mavericks dropped to #14 in this week's USCHO/CSTV top-20 rankings, but all that matters are the PairWise Rankings. MSU suffered a heartbreaking loss to the Gophers this last weekend, putting them out of the WCHA playoffs and in a tie for 13th in the PairWise with Wisconsin. They must now wait to see if they will be selected by the committee for the NCAA Tournament. The committee meets Sunday.

What Maverick fans should be watching:

Since MSU is tied for 13th with Wisconsin, and since Wisconsin hosts one of the NCAA regionals, it is likely the Mavericks will have to move ahead of th Badgers, even though they have a better resume, to make the tournament. With Colgate upsetting Clarkson in the ECAC Tournament, that leaves one less at-large bid and puts the cutoff at 13 in the Pairwise to make the tournament. With Air Force and Niagara winning their respective conference tournaments and gaining automatic bids, coupled with the fact that four other conferences (including the WCHA) will crown champions this weekend, that leaves 10 at-large bids left.

To put this ever so complicated selection process simply, the Mavericks need the team (Notre Dame) directly in front of them in the PairWise to lose, and teams behind them to also lose. The Irish play second-rated Miami this weekend, and with top-rated Michigan also in the field, the Mavericks need the Irish to lose to those teams as a win would propel Notre Dame much higher and make them a shoe-in for the tournament. If the highly-rated teams beat the Irish, they will likely slip in the PairWise, allowing the idle Mavericks to jump them, and the third place game against a weak Northern Michigan Team (pending they lose to Michigan in their first round game) would be meaningless, as beating a weaker opponent like Northern Michigan wouldn't be enough to move the Irish back into the picture.

Secondly, the Mavericks need teams behind them to lose, specifically Harvard (15th PairWise) and Princeton (16th PairWise). In the final four of the ECAC Tournament, those two teams are on opposite sides of the bracket, so if they both lose that would be perfect for MSU. Ideally, if Cornell wins that tournament, that means that they will have gone through Harvard, and likely Princeton, which means that Maverick fans should be rooting for the Big Red.

All of this would help the Mavericks, but this is also pending that there are no major upsets an any of the tournaments, as major upsets result in fewer at-large bids and that means less spots for MSU to take in the field of 16.

To summarize, Maverick fans should root for all of the favorites to win their respective tournaments, root for Cornell, watch Harvard, Princeton and Notre Dame closely and hope they lose, and hope that Minnesota does not do well in the Final Five. If the Gophers do well, that would be a 5 seed winning these games, making them upsets, thus taking at-large bids away from the rest of the field. Bad for MSU. More updates will come as the conference tournaments wrap up.

Questions? Check out the blogs of Shane Frederick of the Mankato Free Press and Dan Myers of USCHO.com.

Shane Frederick's Blog
Dan Myers' Blog

These guys are excellent and their analysis should help any questions you may have.