It’s official. For the second straight year, the men’s hockey Buckeyes are in the NCAA tournament. It is the eighth overall tournament appearance for the Bucks (1998-99, 2003-05, 2009, 2017-18). For the first time in program history, they are a No. 1 seed.
That seeding was a near thing. Ohio State’s Big Ten championship loss to Notre Dame, along with Denver’s NCHC tourney victory left the Buckeyes and Pioneers tied in the final PairWise rankings. Fortunately for the Bucks their .0125 advantage in RPI was enough to claim the final No. 1 seed.
Scenes from the @NCAAIceHockey selection show.
— Ohio State M Hockey (@OhioState_MHKY) March 18, 2018
No. 1 seed Buckeyes are heading to Allentown for the Midwest Regional. #GoBucks pic.twitter.com/tjg0cEuEEL
OSU (24-9-5) heads up the Midwest regional in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The Buckeyes will face No. 4 Princeton in the first round. The Tigers are a true Cinderella team. They went 19-12-4 during the regular season and finished seventh in the ECAC, but toppled both No. 2 Cornell and No. 10 Clarkson to win the ECAC tournament and play their way into the NCAA tourney.
Princeton is undefeated in its last eight games. It is also one of the highest-scoring teams in college hockey. The Tigers rank third in the nation in team scoring (3.69 goals per game) and their roster boasts two of the NCAA’s top-5 scorers, Max Veronneau (55 points) and Ryan Kuffner (52).
Twitter/@NCAAIceHockey
Ohio State and Princeton face off on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET. The game airs live on ESPNU. It will also be available through WatchESPN.
We’ll have a full preview of the Bucks' match-up for you later in the week. If they do advance, they’ll face the winner of No. 3 Penn State vs. No. 2 Denver in the quarterfinals on Sunday evening.
B1G in the Bracket
Speaking of the Nittany Lions, they are the Big Ten’s fourth NCAA tournament team. Notre Dame is the No. 1 seed of the East regional. Michigan is No. 2 in the Northeast regional.
With the large number of upset autobids this year, Minnesota just missed the cut. And I mean just missed it. The Gophers were tied for the final at-large spot with Minnesota-Duluth. By a .001 difference in RPI, UMD is in and Minnesota is out.
