Where things stand in the Pairwise heading into Friday night (#544)
Tennessee State's program appears to be off the table for now, and the Hobey Finalists were announced
The first two conference championships will be crowned tonight. Maine and Connecticut will decide the Hockey East championship and Minnesota State will face St. Thomas for the CCHA championship.
Neither of those games will have Pairwise implications. Maine and UConn already know they’ll be dancing to the NCAA Tournament next week. Minnesota State will have the CCHA automatic bid no matter what happens tonight, thanks to the NCAA’s (dumb) reclassification rules, which have St. Thomas ineligible for NCAA Tournament competition.
The rest of the NCAA bubble is straightforward. In today’s issue (#544), I’ll break down the scenarios and give you some insight into where everyone could land in overall seeding for the NCAA Tournament. Plus, I’ll have a projected bracket based on where every team has the highest probability of finishing.
In other news, it does not appear likely that Tennessee State will launch its Division I program next season as was originally announced. The school is having financial issues and the program will have to be independently funded to happen. Finally, the Hobey Baker finalists were announced.
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