Matt,
I know that in past year's the NCAA has tried to the best of their ability to avoid intra-conference matchups in the first round when they could.
That was part of the reason why Norwich didn't play Manhattanville in the NCAA Play-In Round last year and instead got the bye to the Frozen Four.
As long as that rule is still in place, I think there might be some adjustments to the pairings you posted.
RIT hosts Amherst
Norwich hosts Elmira
Middlebury hosts Plattsburgh
Now obviously we lose a little bit of bracket integrity with RIT having to play the No. 4 seed instead of the lowest seed and Middlebury as the No. 3 seed hosting the lowest seed.
The counter arguement that was presented to me that also might factor in to the process is the NCAA might also want to avoid having three teams from one conference in the Frozen Four, which could happen in the scenario I described.
Tomorrow's NCAA rankings will be interesting since Middlebury went 0-1-1 on the week to the No. 2 ranked and No. 6 ranked teams in last week's poll.
I have a feeling Amherst might jump ahead of Middlebury tomorrow. Other than that, I don't think there will be any changes in the East teams at least.
While it does state in the NCAA manual that teams from the same conference do not need to play each other in the NCAA Quarters, it does not say that there should be any effort to prevent it from happening. Looking back through the year, there are several instances of teams from the same league facing off in the first round (most have actually been Plattsburgh vs Elmira).
Also, Norwich received the first round bye last year solely because RIT was forced to play Adrian due to the requirement to limit flights in the first round. Norwich was the next highest seed in line and was awarded the bye. It had nothing to due with Manhattanville.
Having said that, it's entirely possible they do that this year, but I would be very very shocked if they do, for two reasons. The first, as you mentioned they will not want 3 teams from the same conference in the FF. Secondly, to my knowledge, and taking a look at every years NCAA first round match-ups, they have never gone out of their way to avoid these match-ups before.
Additionally, we likely wont have to worry about this because, as always, there will be an upset somewhere and a team not currently in the discussion will snag an AQ.
