Final Bracketology for 2025-26 College Hockey Season

The regular season is complete, the conference tournament have been played. We’re down to the NCAA Tournament, and they’re prepping the selection show set to air in a matter of hours (3 p.m. ET on ESPNU).

This is the first year that the selection committee will use the National Collegiate Percentage (NPI) Index to determine the at-large bids and seed the teams in the 16-team field. But the way things played out we’ve all known that Michigan would be the No. 1-overall seed, with North Dakota, Michigan State and Western Michigan set to be the top teams in the other regionals.

The final pieces of the puzzzle were mostly on the other end, with Hockey East landing three spots thanks to Merrimack winning the conferene tournament and Connecticult barely doing enough to continue its season.

With that, here’s our final bracketology for the 2025-26 season, and how we expect the NCAA Tournament pairings to be revealed.

Automatic bids: The six automatic bids go to the the conference tournament champions: Bentley (AHA), Michigan (Big Ten), Minnesota State (CCHA), Dartmouth (ECAC), Merrimack (Hockey East), and UMD/Denver (NCHC). Their final NPI rankings, in order, were No. 23, 1, 13, 6 19 and 5.

Merrimack’s win knocked the 15th-seeded team, Augustana, out of the NCAA tournament. UConn would have been out with another upset in either the ECAC, or the Big Ten would have knocked the Huskies out. Joining Augustana on the first four teams out were St. Thomas, Massachusetts and Boston College.

At-large spots: The top ten non-conference winners in NPI fill out the 16-team tournament field. I order: North Dakota, Michigan State, Western Michigan, Providence, Minnesota Duluth, Penn State, Quinnipiac, Cornell, Wisconsin and Connecticut.

Seedings: The teams are placed in order, 1-16.

1. Michigan
2. North Dakota
3. Michigan State
4. Western Michigan
5. Denver
6. Dartmouth
7. Providence
8. Minnesota Duluth
9. Penn State
10. Quinnipiac
11. Cornell
12. Wisconsin
13. Minnesota State
14. Connecticut
15. Merrimack
16. Bentley

Tiers: Teams are placed in order in four tiers. The key here is that teams aren’t allowed to be moved out of a tier barring something extreme in order to maintain bracket integrity

Tier 1: Michigan, North Dakota, Michigan State, Western Michigan
Tier 2: Denver, Dartmouth, Providence, Minnesota Duluth
Tier 3: Penn State, Quinnipiac, Cornell, Wisconsin
Tier 4: Minnesota State, Connecticut, Merrimack, Bentley

Brackets: This is how they would look in a perfect 1 vs. 16, 8 vs. 9, etc. format, without lining up the potential 1 vs. 4 and 2 vs. 3 semifinals. We’ll do that later:

1 Michigan, 8 Minnesota Duluth, 9 Penn State, 16 Bentley
2 North Dakota, 7 Providence, 10 Quinnipiac, 15 Merrimack
3 Michigan State, 6 Dartmouth, 11 Cornell, 14 Connecticut
4 Western Michigan, 5 Denver, 12 Wisconsin, 13 Minnesota State

The first team listed and the last team on each line would play in the first round, along with the teams in the middle. The one thing here that the selection committee will seek to avoid is a first-round matchup between teams in the same conference. There’s only one, Dartmouth vs. Cornell, both out of the ECAC. For now we’re going to keep them right where they are and you’ll see why in a moment.

Venues: Regional hosts have to play at their sites if in the tournament. There’s only one that is in this scenario, Denver at Loveland, Colo. There others are Albany, N.Y. (Union), Worcester, Mass (Holy Cross) and Sioux Falls, S.D. (Omaha).

Attendance: Having a local attendance draw is important, otherwise. Putting North Dakota in Sioux Falls is a natural fit. Cornell in Albany is almost a must as it’s the only school in the state. Consequently, we ideally want Denver, Cornell and North Dakota to be in separate brackets.

Let’s go back to our first-round issue. The move is usually to switch the lower team, Cornell, but it can’t swap with Quinnipiac, which is also out of the ECAC. It could chnage positions with Wisconsin, but then we lose the ideal attendance scenario. Instead, we switch Cornell and Penn State, which are two slots apart in tier 3. That’s normally not considered ideal, however it gets us to where we want — plus the NPI difference between those three tier-3 teams was tiny (Penn State 55.361; Quinnipiac 55.344 and Cornell 55.144).

That gives us the following, with venues included …

Albany: 1 Michigan, 8 Minnesota Duluth, 11 Cornell, 16 Bentley
Sioux Falls: 2 North Dakota, 7 Providence, 10 Quinnipiac, 15 Merrimack
Worcester: 3 Michigan State, 6 Dartmouth, 9 Penn State, 14 Connecticut
Loveland: 4 Western Michigan, 5 Denver, 12 Wisconsin, 13 Minnesota State

Finally, is there a small change that could give a final attendance boost? Not really, especially with UConn located only an hour away from Worcester (Dartmouth is a little over two hours).

The committee could mess with it some more and maybe do something like a double-swap of Providence and Quinnipiac to Worcester, but the real plusses to this projection are that the 1-8 part of the bracket is completely intact and there’s a local draw for each regional. So this is our bracket, with first-round pairings and the order changed to reflect the potential 1 vs. 4 and 2 vs. 3 semifinals.

Final Projected Brackets for 2026 NCAA Tournament

Albany: 1 Michigan vs. 16 Bentley; 8 Minnesota Duluth vs. 11 Cornell
Loveland: 4 Western Michigan vs. 13 Minnesota State; 5 Denver vs. 12 Wisconsin
Sioux Falls: 2 North Dakota, vs. 15 Merrimack; 7 Providence vs. 10 Quinnipiac,
Worcester: 3 Michigan State vs. 14 Connecticut; 6 Dartmouth, vs. 9 Penn State

Regionals will be played next weekend, with Sioux Falls and Worcester games on Thursday-Saturday, March 26-28, and Albany and Loveland on Friday-Sunday, March 27-29. The Frozen Four is slated for April 9 and 11 in Las Vegas.