On a thread about MCLA on the DII/III Men's side of the forum, PrezdeJohnson09 pointed out how many independents there were and it got me thinking about conference realignment in terms of the relaxed standard of only needing six teams for an auto-bid instead of 7. Here are some things we could see:
- With six MAC schools playing women's hockey, we could see Arcadia, Alvernia, King's, LVC, Stevenson, and Wilkes leave the UCHC and form a MAC conference. That would leave the UCHC with five teams, but Hilbert College in the Buffalo suburbs fits the geographic profile of the remaining schools (Chatham, Manhattanville, Nazareth, Neumann, and Utica) and could get them back up to 6.
- The NEWHL would no longer need both Canton and Morrisville to keep their auto-bid. There's also a rumored existing SUNYAC men's ice hockey school heavily considering starting a women's team and if they go through with it, we could see a six-team SUNYAC Women's Ice Hockey conference that has an auto-bid without having Morrisville or Canton in the conference.
- The WIAC would need just one more member to gain their own auto-bid and not rely on Pool C
If all of the above come to pass it goes from 3 Pool C bids to 1.
CCC
MAC
MIAC
NCHA
NEHC
NESCAC
SUNYAC
UCHC
WIAC
There are enough teams that with enough reconfiguration they could end up with more conferences with six teams than bids to the tournament. What happens in a scenario where there are 11 conferences with enough teams for an auto-bid but only 10 slots in the tournament?
With MSOE, Hilbert and MCLA there will be 74 teams. The rumored SUNYAC school starting a women's program would be 75. If the hypothetical sixth WIAC team is a new program that would be 76. There could be programs I'm forgetting about that are starting. Using the 6.5 access ratio Division III is supposed to use, there should be an 11th team in the tournament at 72 teams so DIII has passed that threshold for 11 berths with just the three I mentioned. I also recall reading that they wanted to add tournament bids in even numbers, which would mean needing 78 teams to get the access ratio to 12. In the event we start seeing multiple six-team conferences devour Pool C they should add the 11th team to the tournament as obligated by the access ratio and not wait for there to be a 12-team tourney before expanding the bracket. That said, it seems like 78 teams is well within reach in the next five years.
- With six MAC schools playing women's hockey, we could see Arcadia, Alvernia, King's, LVC, Stevenson, and Wilkes leave the UCHC and form a MAC conference. That would leave the UCHC with five teams, but Hilbert College in the Buffalo suburbs fits the geographic profile of the remaining schools (Chatham, Manhattanville, Nazareth, Neumann, and Utica) and could get them back up to 6.
- The NEWHL would no longer need both Canton and Morrisville to keep their auto-bid. There's also a rumored existing SUNYAC men's ice hockey school heavily considering starting a women's team and if they go through with it, we could see a six-team SUNYAC Women's Ice Hockey conference that has an auto-bid without having Morrisville or Canton in the conference.
- The WIAC would need just one more member to gain their own auto-bid and not rely on Pool C
If all of the above come to pass it goes from 3 Pool C bids to 1.
CCC
MAC
MIAC
NCHA
NEHC
NESCAC
SUNYAC
UCHC
WIAC
There are enough teams that with enough reconfiguration they could end up with more conferences with six teams than bids to the tournament. What happens in a scenario where there are 11 conferences with enough teams for an auto-bid but only 10 slots in the tournament?
With MSOE, Hilbert and MCLA there will be 74 teams. The rumored SUNYAC school starting a women's program would be 75. If the hypothetical sixth WIAC team is a new program that would be 76. There could be programs I'm forgetting about that are starting. Using the 6.5 access ratio Division III is supposed to use, there should be an 11th team in the tournament at 72 teams so DIII has passed that threshold for 11 berths with just the three I mentioned. I also recall reading that they wanted to add tournament bids in even numbers, which would mean needing 78 teams to get the access ratio to 12. In the event we start seeing multiple six-team conferences devour Pool C they should add the 11th team to the tournament as obligated by the access ratio and not wait for there to be a 12-team tourney before expanding the bracket. That said, it seems like 78 teams is well within reach in the next five years.