How is Michigan Tech holding down an NCAA tournament spot?

Usually, a team from a relatively weak conference with a 19-9-3 record isn’t going to be making huge waves in the national picture. But right now, Michigan Tech sits at 12th in the Pairwise rankings and seems like a lock to make the NCAA tournament.

The reason why is simple: In moving to the new overtime format on a national level, the way the Pairwise is calculated got tweaked. Now, if you simply get to overtime, you are guaranteed at least 45 percent of a win. Score in the 3-on-3 overtime and it counts as 55 percent of a win, but even if you give up a goal immediately, you’re still getting that 45 percent.

As such, you get a big boost if you do what Tech has done this season: They get to OT quite a bit. In fact, 10 of their 31 games have gone to overtime, and so that 19-9-3 record isn’t really reflective of how the Pairwise views them. Even though they’re 2-5-2 in overtimes (shootout wins and losses still count as ties), you figure it out: the Pairwise sees the Huskies’ record as being more like 20.35-4-2.