Hockey pairwise update: On to the Joe

[EDIT: updated with Sunday's results]

Hockey’s Selection Sunday is now but a week away.  Michigan has advanced to the Joe and remains the #4 team in the Pairwise rankings, now tied with Miami (for more on the Pairwise, see here). 

Here’s a recap of Saturday’s significant action:

• This was on Friday, not Saturday, but still: David Wohlberg was sandwiched hard by two BG players as he reached for the puck, and Red Berenson said that he’s probably done for the season.  Ugh. However, we could have Louie Caporusso back next weekend, so we’ve got that going for us.  Which is nice.
• Denver completed its sweep of MSU (NTMSU), knocking the Screaming Eagles Mavericks out of the ranks of the TUC, and obliterating Denver’s TUC record as a result.  If you have a problem with how this works, by the way, check out everyone quoting the basketball team’s record against the RPI top 50, which went from something like 1-9 to 6-10 this weekend, thanks to MSU and Penn State.  Anyway, this makes it impossible for Denver to pass Michigan now without Michigan losing.
• Notre Dame lost to Lake Superior.  You want this to happen again today, which would set up a Michigan-LSSU semifinal.  Should Notre Dame win, Michigan would play the winner of the Western-Ferris series, currently tied 1-1.  Either way, it’s really hard for Notre Dame to pass us now, even if they beat us at the Joe, because our RPI will be much better.
• Miami swept Alaska, and is now tied with Michigan in the Pairwise.  In fact, if both teams reach the finals, Miami will probably be ahead of Michigan in the Pairwise going into that game.  However, it looks like Michigan would have to lose, either to Miami or to someone else, for Miami to pass Michigan, so the closeness of this comparison is a little irrelevant, since at least one of the two teams will definitely lose.  The most important thing to say is that you are rooting really really hard for Miami to lose. 
• Merrimack completed its sweep of the same Maine team that embarrassed them just two weeks ago.  This gives Merrimack a lead in their comparison against us.  However, they will play either BC or New Hampshire in the Hockey East semis.  If Merrimack wins out, they win the comparison.  If they play New Hampshire in either the semis or finals, and UNH  beats them, we will win the comparison even with one loss at the Joe, because the Common Opponents record would be tied, and we would win RPI.  If Merrimack loses to BC in the semis, we will win the comparison with higher RPI and tied TUC record, even with one loss at the Joe.  If Merrimack loses to BC in the finals, we win the comparison if we win out.
• Bemidji State completed its sweep of UNO, so the Mavericks are done, and we will own our comparison against them.  Yay!  By the way, Bemidji has 14 wins in 36 games this year.  They are 5-0-1 against a UNO team that went 21-10-1 against everyone else.  Weird.
• Union lost to Colgate.  This wiped out their RPI advantage over us to the point where we are basically tied, and means they have to beat Colgate tomorrow to stay alive in the ECAC tournament.  The good news is that Union played Bemidji State earlier in the season and lost.  Bemidji is now a TUC, and should stay that way even if they lose their next game in the WCHA tournament.  This slight wound to Union’s TUC record means that if both teams win out, Michigan would win the comparison. 

Sunday's results:

• Union lost to Colgate, so they are done.  They can only pass us if we lose both games at the Joe, at which point it doesn't really matter that they passed us.
• Yale won their quarterfinal, but the Union loss makes that irrelevant.
• Notre Dame defeated Lake Superior, and Western defeated Ferris.  So the CCHA matchups are Michigan-WMU and Notre Dame-Miami. 
• Northeastern defeated BU, so Merrimack plays UNH in one Hockey East semifinal, and BC plays Northeastern. 

The upshot:

• If Michigan wins its two games at the Joe, they will likely get a #1 seed.  Apart from the top 3, only Merrimack would be able to win a comparison against us.  Even then, they might lose a comparison to someone else, and then we’d get the top seed with our better RPI.  Should Michigan and Merrimack win out and Merrimack get the last #1 seed, it will be in St. Louis, and we’d probably be the #2 seed there, and I’m fine with that.  A better way to look at this is: win out and you go to St. Louis, which is far more preferable than all the other regions.
• The most important teams to root against are now Miami and Merrimack. Unleash all of your psychic rage and voodoo magic upon them.
• A loss at any point for Michigan almost certainly means a #2 seed, and brings in the possibility that we’d get sent to the east coast to face UNH and BC in Manchester, or be in Yale’s regional in Bridgeport.  If we had to lose, the best loss would be to ND in the finals.

By the way, I think it’s about time we got to host our own regional again.  The Northeast regional is always within an hour drive of Boston.  Yale is hosting this year and next.  The Frozen Four is in Minneapolis-St. Paul this year, and they host a regional next year.  Green Bay hosts this year and next, if Wisconsin could every get there.  And that means that there are regionals in both Minnesota and Wisconsin, which is stupid.  Why is Michigan punished for having better fans than everyone else?  If you don’t want it in Yost, I understand (although I think it's time we stopped having to pay for the 1998 championship), but can we at least have a Detroit regional?  /rant

Edit: I get that the regional-hosting decision, at least the decision to even bid, is based on money, which is why the Joe doesn't host.  There are some sites that haven't hosted, though, that I'm surprised haven't bid (or haven't won a bid).  I think Toledo would be a good regional site, as well as Cleveland.  Actually, with Dan Gilbert being a MSU guy, maybe someone could prevail upon him to bring a regional, or even the Frozen Four, to Cleveland, so that 1) I can go, and 2) he can bring in a bunch of outside people to rent his arena and go to his hopefully-soon-to-open casino.  Half of the CCHA is within a very reasonable drive of Cleveland, as are a couple others (Mercyhurst, Robert Morris, Niagara, Penn State).   While it is the Worst State Ever, it's a lot closer than St. Louis.

And now, on to the Joe. Go Blue!