Tiebreak Scenarios

Forum Forum Lehigh Sports Lehigh Men’s Basketball Tiebreak Scenarios

This topic contains 9 replies, has 1 voice, and was last updated by  lfnadmin 14 years, 11 months ago.

Viewing 10 posts - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #1754

    lfnadmin
    Keymaster

    The Last Four Games

    Holy Cross @ Lehigh
    Lafayette @ American
    Bucknell @ Army
    Navy @ Colgate

    Key to note here is that Lehigh’s game is at 7:05 while the rest start at 4PM, so Lehigh will know what they need to do in order to get the No. 1 seed (and, likely, who they will be playing).

    Tiebreakers Scenarios going into Saturday night (unofficial, the math is mine):

    Winners:
    LC BU Navy : Lehigh needs to win to clinch No. 1 seed (three way tie situation with LC/Bucknell, Lehigh 0-2 vs. Navy). Loss drops LU to No. 2 seed (still win tiebreaker vs. BU).

    LC BU Colgate: Lehigh needs to win to clinch to No. 1 seed (three way tie situation with LC/Bucknell, but Navy still in the 4-hole with a 7-7 record and we lose that tiebreaker). Loss drops LU to No. 2 seed (still win tiebreaker vs. BU).

    LC Army Navy: Lehigh needs to win to clinch the No. 1 seed (1-1 tie with LC, both 1-1 vs. Bucknell but LC 2-0 vs Navy and Lehigh 0-2 vs. Navy). Loss drops LU to No. 2 seed.

    LC Army Colgate: Lehigh needs to win to clinch the No. 1 seed (1-1 tie with LC, both 1-1 vs. Bucknell but LC 2-0 vs Navy and Lehigh 0-2 vs. Navy). Loss drops LU to No. 2 seed.

    AU BU Navy: Lehigh already clinches the No. 1 seed (Lehigh 1-1 vs. Bucknell. If we win, we win on the seventh tiebreaker in conference vs. Holy Cross (LU 2-0 vs. HC, BU 1-1). If we lose, it comes down to common OOC opponents (LU 3-0, HC 2-1 – we beat Dartmouth and they didn’t), and will play the No. 8 seed Army (only team with 4-10 record).

    AU BU Colgate: Lehigh already clinches the No. 1 seed (Lehigh 1-1 vs. Bucknell. If we win, we win on the seventh tiebreaker in conference vs. Holy Cross (LU 2-0 vs. HC, BU 1-1). If we lose, it comes down to common OOC opponents (LU 3-0, HC 2-1 – we beat Dartmouth and they didn’t), and will play the No. 8 seed Army (only team with 4-10 record)

    AU Army Navy: Lehigh already clinches the No. 1 seed, will play No. 8 seed HC if they win Sat. night (HC three-way tie with Army and Colgate for last spot, HC has 1-3 record vs. Army and Colgate) If LU loses, they play Army (Army and Colgate tied, 1-1 head to head but Colgate’s sweep of HC puts them at No. 7)

    AU Army Colgate: Lehigh already clinches the No. 1 seed, will play No. 8 seed Army if they win Sat night (If HC loses, HC tied with Army at 5-9, HC 1-1 vs. Army but vs. Lafayette HC is 1-1 and Army 0-2. If HC wins, Army is the only team with a 4-10 record.)

    In a nutshell:

    * If Lafayette beats American, we need to win against HC in order to win the regular-season title and get home court at STAR. But worst we could do it is be the No. 2 seed.
    * If American beats Lafayette, we clinch the regular-season title and play (most likely) Army, but possibly Holy Cross.

    #1755

    LU65
    Participant

    Thanks, lfnadmin. I think you got it right. Just too tired after a long night to examine each and every scenario. Anyway, you beat me to the punch as I was just about to publish this highly simplistic recap of how we either end up in first or second place.

    FIRST PLACE FINISH IF EITHER:

    A. AU beats LC in the 4pm game on Saturday (CBS College Sports broadcast)

    With such a loss, LC would drop to 8-6 and be out of contention. But, what if HC beats us and BU defeats Army? No problem, LU and BU would tie at 9-5 and the nod would go to LU based on our superior RPI (the tie-breaker used when in cases like this when the tied teams have identical W-L records against every other team in the league).

    or

    B. We beat HC in a game set to get underway at 7:30pm at Stabler

    SECOND PLACE FINISH IF:

    HC beats us and LC beats AU. It really doesn’t matter what BU does. LC, which would finish at 9-5 (same as LU and perhaps BU if they were to defeat Army) and would lay claim to the top spot due to their better W-L record against Navy. The Leopards went 2-0 against the Midshipmen while both LU and BU posted 0-2 marks.

    After all this thought, I now see that the League – just minutes ago – released the official report of scenarios. Oh well…….

    http://www.patriotleague.org/sports/m-b … 10aae.html

    Senior Night Saturday! Even if a win over Holy Cross is not needed, let’s turn out in big numbers to express our thanks and appreciation to Marquis, Zahir, Dave, and Matt – four exceptional young men.

    #1756

    lfnadmin
    Keymaster

    I wrote the league office to correct a technical point: that it was my thought that the LU/BU tiebreaker would come down to common opponents (which Lehigh wins), not RPI as it says in the release. But functionally the outcome is the same: Win and we’re the No. 1 seed. If we lose and LC loses to AU we’re the No. 1 seed. And Saturday is still senior night and the team needs to come out and win one for Marquis, Buch, Zahir and the other seniors.

    #1757

    lfnadmin
    Keymaster

    The league office got back to me. They said that the order of the tiebreaker for basketball goes PL record, then RPI, then common OOC opponents, then coin flip (which, in effect, makes the last two tiebreakers never take effect).

    RPI is probably a better way to determine the tiebreaker than common OOC, but it does mean that the league can’t say that Bucknell is completely out of it, since if they made up the 100 (or so) gap in RPI between now and Sunday, they’d win the RPI tiebreaker. There’s no realistic way for BU to make up that deficit, so basically, Lehigh has the tiebreaker against Bucknell and doesn’t have it vs. LC (thanks to their sweep of Navy, and our 0-2 record against them).

    Wouldn’t that have been something, though, if Bucknell lost the tiebreaker due to a bad early-season loss versus Dartmouth?

    #1760

    Mtnhwkfan
    Participant

    From the Patriot League website and their 2008 Patriot League Tournament Handbook (which is the most recent copy I can find on-line) they list the tiebreaker procedure as:

    a. In the case of a two-way tie between teams in the final standings for regularseason
    League play, the following process will be used until all ties are broken
    and the seeding process is completed (ties will be broken in rank order beginning
    with the highest seed):
    i. Head-to-head competition – the higher seed will go to the team that has won
    the most League contests played against the other team involved in the tie.
    ii. If a tie still exists, a comparison of records will be made between the tied
    institutions starting at the highest possible seed and continuing through the
    lowest seed, if necessary.
    iii. RPI according to the Collegiate Basketball News published on the day (or the
    next day that a report is available) following the final regular-season League game
    to determine the higher seeded team. (Note: If a game must be postponed for any
    reason, the first CBN RPI calculated following the conclusion of that game
    will be used.) The team with the higher RPI will receive the higher seed and the
    opportunity to host the tournament final (should the team advance to the
    championship game).
    iv. Comparison of records versus out-of-League common opponents.
    v. Coin flip.

    I am confused as to what ii. means. According to the League response to Chuck, iii is moved ahead of ii. Is this truly correct? If not, does ii include OCC games?

    #1761

    LU65
    Participant

    Mtnhwkfan, in answer to your question, what does ii mean?

    If for instance this Saturday the winners were: LC, BU, and HC there would be a three-way tie at the top with LU, BU, and LC all finishing 9-5. Then a comparison would be made between those three teams to see who, if any, had a better record against one another. It would turn out that each posted a 1-1 record against the other. In that case, the next step would be to see how the three institutions did against the remainder of the league starting at the highest possible seed (Navy and working downward from there). Here it would favor LC since they went 2-0 against Navy while both BU and LU went 0-2. Now we’re left with BU and LU. Since each had identical W-L records against the remainder, i.e., Army, HC, AU, and CU) you go to a comparison of RPI. Here LU wins out (see below) and would claim the No. 2 seed. Since there could never to a tie in basketball RPI (someone may prove me wrong here), you would never get to a comparison of records among common out of league opponents or a coin flip.

    Real Time RPI this morning favors Lehigh and will, no doubt, at the conclusion of play on Saturday. LU could lose to HC by 50 pts and Bucknell could beat Army by the same and there would be no way to make up a difference of 89 RPI points.

    LU 166
    BU 255

    I believe I’m right and I hope this helps.

    #1762

    Mtnhwkfan
    Participant

    Thanks LU65. Your explanation is great and clears it up for me!

    #1768

    Mtnhwkfan
    Participant

    American over Lafayette, 45-26 at halftime.

    #1769

    LU65
    Participant

    AU 75
    LC 60

    LU gets the top seed no matter what happens at Stabler tonight! We are "League Champions" and now move on to the PL Tournament secure in knowing we have earned an invite to the post season NIT should we not prevail as Tournament Champions. Congratulation to Coach Reed, his staff, our four outstanding senior captain/leaders and the rest of the team.

    #1771

    lfnadmin
    Keymaster

    Bucknell up in a game that (apparently) has set back the sport back to the Peach Basket era, 23-15 at halftime.

    As noted, Lehigh is the PL Champion no matter what the outcome today. If Army loses today, they will be our first-round opponent. If Army scores a touchdown and a two-point conversion to force overtime and beats Bucknell and we beat Holy Cross, we play Holy Cross once again this Wednesday.

    Personally? It would be nice to beat Army and get that monkey off our backs.

Viewing 10 posts - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic.