Nicole's NCAA Notebook: March 9, 2026

• We're down to 11 teams and 2 weeks of hockey. Congratulations to confernece winners Ohio State, Penn State, Connecticut, Quinnipiac and Franklin Pierce. Additional congratulations to Wisconsin, Minnesota, Northeastern, Yale, Princeton and Minnesota Duluth for earning at-large bids to the NCAA Tournament.
• Ohio State came out of this weekend looking like the team to beat. They adapted to losing their Olympians the best and they've adapted to bringing everyone back together the best. They didn't do anything unusual or unexpected - this is the style they've long played and yet they overwhelmed Minnesota for a full game and Wisconsin for at least have of the title game.
• The winners of championship Saturday were two teams that didn't play that day - Minnesota, who hung on to the 4th overall seed and the right to host their NCAA Quarterfinal and Minnesota Duluth, who were very, very on the bubble, but managed to keep it from bursting and found themselves as the last team in.
• Because the tournament is basically decided by NPI, there wasn't much mystery heading into Selection Sunday, but there were some questions about how the bracket would shake out because of the rule that teams from the same conference cannot play each other in the opening round. With ECAC teams ending up 7th, 8th and 9th in the NPI, there had to be some manuevering. Without getting way over explanatory, the committee chose the option that moved all three opening round pairs and added a flight, which is something that would have been unheard of just a few years ago.
• The simplest way to describe it is that a perfect bracket integrity bracket would have 8 v 9 with the winner playing 1, 7 v 10 with the winner playing 2 and 6 v 11 with the winner playing 3. Here we got 8 v 10 at 1, 7 v 11 at 2 and 6 v 9 at 3.
• Northeastern and Connecticut played an extra 35 minutes on Saturday. Franklin Pierce played into double overtime on Wednesday. That's a lot of extra hockey and particulary for Northeastern and Connecticut. Northeastern doesn't have to play until Saturday, but UConn actually got the toughest draw out of the reshuffled bracket mentioned above and they'll be facing Princeton at Penn State. I'd imagine the team is traveling on Tuesday. Basically, UConn has its work cut out for them this week.
• It was so amazing to see the big crowds at some of these games this weekend. The group that stayed through two OTs at Franklin Pierce on Wednesday was rowdy and fun. UConn set a new Hockey East title game record. Announced attendance was above 2,000 for three of the five championship games.
• Goals of the week:

This overtime game-winner from Kyla Josifovia to secure the Hockey East Championship

This redirect by Penn State's Nicole Hall

And this one from Ohio State's Hilda Svensson

The interception and perfect pass from Makayla Watson and the breakaway goal from Ella Johnson for Quinnipiac's first goal