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How the NPI decides which Michigan teams make the NCAA tournament

How the NCAA’s NPI works, why it replaced the PairWise, and what it means for Michigan’s seven Division I men’s hockey teams.

Shaun
4–6 minutes
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Every March, 16 men’s college hockey teams get a bracket. For more than a decade, the math that sorted those teams was the PairWise. Since last season, it has been the NPI. Here is how it works, why the NCAA switched, and what it means for Michigan’s seven Division I teams.

What the NPI is

The NPI, which conference releases call the NCAA Power Index, is a single number that rates a team on two things: how often it wins and how good its opponents are. The NCAA Division I Men’s Ice Hockey Oversight Committee unanimously approved it for championship selection starting with the 2025-26 season, according to the announcement posted by the NCHC and Hockey East.

“The committee is excited to implement the NPI for the 2025-26 season,” Tim Troville, chair of the Division I Men’s Ice Hockey Committee, said in that release.

Division II and Division III already use the NPI, and Division I women’s hockey adopted it a season before the men, USCHO reported.

The dials

The formula runs on settings the committee calls “dials,” which it can review before each season. For the NPI’s first year in men’s hockey, the committee set them this way:

  • Winning percentage vs. strength of schedule: 25% and 75%. Who you play matters three times as much as your raw record.
  • Home and road: weighted 1.2 and 0.8 in the regular season, which rewards winning away from home, and 1.0 and 1.0 in the postseason.
  • Overtime: a 60-40 split in the regular season. College Hockey News explains that an overtime win counts as 0.6 of a win and an overtime loss as 0.4 of a loss. In the postseason, it is a full win or a full loss.
  • Quality wins: a bonus for beating strong opponents, set at a base of 51 with a 0.5 multiplier.
  • Minimum wins: 12.

The minimum-wins dial exists because the NPI can throw out results that would drag a team down. USCHO reported that low-value wins below a threshold can be removed and treated as if the game was never played. A team must keep at least 12 wins in its calculation, so no one can discard a whole schedule.

Strength of schedule is built from opponents’ own NPI values, so beating weak teams does not pad it. Only games against tournament-eligible Division I opponents count, CHN notes.

Why the PairWise had to go

The PairWise, used since 2013-14, did not rank teams directly. It compared every pair of teams on three criteria: RPI, record against common opponents, and head-to-head results. Each criterion won was worth a point, and the team with more comparison wins ranked higher.

That design produced strange results. USCHO’s example from 2024-25: Ohio State ranked 10th in the PairWise with an RPI of .5594, while Princeton ranked 43rd at .4830. But Princeton beat Ohio State twice, and the teams had no common opponents, so Ohio State could not win the comparison despite a huge RPI edge.

“We immediately solve that disconnect,” Tim Danehy, a consultant to the NCAA, told USCHO.

Danehy also said the NPI may not change the 16-team field much, but it is a more defensible way to pick it.

The committee also dropped the old rule that a team needed at least a .500 record to be considered for an at-large bid.

How the field gets built

Conference tournament champions earn automatic bids. The remaining at-large spots in the 16-team field go to the highest-ranked teams in the NPI, which also drives seeding.

The first NPI-era field was very good to this state. Last March, Michigan was the No. 1 overall seed, Michigan State was No. 3, and Western Michigan, the defending national champion, was No. 4, according to College Hockey Inc. All three were top seeds in their regions.

What it means for Michigan’s seven

As of Oct. 28, College Hockey News’ live NPI table had Michigan first (64.09), Michigan State fourth (59.58), Western Michigan seventh (58.94), and Michigan Tech 14th (55.77). Northern Michigan sat 35th, Ferris State 40th, and Lake Superior State 47th. The table updates with every result, and it is early: one weekend can move a team several spots.

Michigan and Michigan State play in the Big Ten, and that is an asset under a formula weighted 75% on schedule strength. When league opponents rate well, every conference weekend builds schedule value, and the road dial means a win in the other team’s building counts extra.

Western Michigan gets the same schedule-strength boost from the NCHC. For the Broncos, the question in March is less about getting in and more about seeding.

Michigan Tech, Northern Michigan, Ferris State, and Lake Superior State play in the CCHA, and this is where the NPI gets interesting. Tech’s early number puts it near the at-large cut line, but with its three in-state league rivals rated 35th or lower, a CCHA schedule can offer fewer high-value games than the Big Ten or NCHC. That makes the quality-win bonus and nonconference road games especially valuable. For the other three, the clearest path runs through the CCHA tournament and its automatic bid.

The takeaway: under the NPI, the schedule is the story. A win is a win, but a road win over a strong opponent is worth a lot more, and a weak win may not count at all.

For where the state’s teams stand in the polls, see Mitten Hockey’s latest NCAA hockey rankings.

Sources

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