UMD Women’s Hockey Team Selected For NCAA Tournament
On Sunday, March 6th, the selections were announced for the NCAA Women's Ice Hockey tournament, and UMD made it!
UMD ended their season ranked in the top 10 in the USCHO poll, which usually means they will make it. The most important way to see if a team will make it is the Pairwise Rankings. and on that poll, UMD finished in the Number 8 spot, which is even better.
According to the NCAA Brackets, UMD draws Harvard in the first round. This is interesting, because that is where Coach Maura Crowell came from. If they should win that game they move on to meet the Minnesota Gophers. That game would propel them to the Frozen Four.
According to The Rink Live, this season the tournament was expanded to 11 teams with two teams playing to meet the top 3 seeds, and seeds 4 and 5 playing each other. The automatic bids would be league champions from the WCHA, Hockey East, ECAC, and College Hockey America.
Also, the selection committee didn't want two teams from the same conference to meet each other to play the top seed, but, you could meet a conference foe to play in the final 4. This makes for an exciting tournament and also could set up a huge rivalry in the same conference playing to go to the Frozen Four as UMD could have with the Gophers.
One thing to notice is the number 1 and number 2 seeds are from the WCHA. Ohio State won the playoffs, but the Gophers won the regular season. They also have the top line in the nation.
According to the NCAA Bracket, Here is the layout.
- Quinnipiac and Syracuse will play to meet Ohio State, the top seed.
- Colgate and Yale are the 4 and 5 seed and would play the winner of the Ohio State Game.
- Wisconsin plays Clarkson who would meet the number 3 seed Northeastern
- UMD meets Harvard who would meet the number 2 seed Minnesota
The games begin on March 10th.