Men's seed race 2/9/2010

I'm a little late this year posting this, but it's about time to really zero in on the jockeying for seeds in the HL tourney.

Just to clarify once again, the idea is "if the regular season ended today, these are the way the seeds would be laid out, and this is what the 1st round matchup would be." When I list someone with a seed #, it does not mean they have clinched it, it means they currently leading the race for that seed.

Scores from 2/8/2009:

Butler 62 Loyola 47
Valpo  83 UIC    82

Seed Team             Conf 1st round matchup
---- ----------       ---- -----------------
#1   Butler           14-0 Has clinched #1 seed and double-bye
#2   Cleveland State   8-4 Would receive double-bye
#3   Green Bay         8-5 Would host #10 UIC
#4   Wright State      8-5 Would host #9 Youngstown State
#5   Valparaiso        8-6 Would host #8 Loyola
#6   Detroit           7-6 Would host #7 Milwaukee
#7   Milwaukee         5-7
#8   Loyola            4-10
#9   Youngstown State  2-11
#10  UIC               2-12

Green Bay is 1-0 against WSU. The rematch is later this week, so the #3 seed tiebreaker could change after that game.

One measly win by Butler or one measly loss by Cleveland State (one or the other is very likely) clinches the regular season title outright for Butler, but even if they lose out and CSU wins out to tie at 14-4, Butler still wins the tiebreaker:

1. They will have split their head-to-head series.
2. The only common opponents that can break the tie in this scenario are Wright State, Detroit, UIC, and Youngstown State. Both teams will have swept Green Bay, Milwaukee, and Loyola, and both teams will have split with Valpo.
3. WSU and UDM break the tie in favor of Butler because both teams have beaten CSU already while Butler has already swept them.
4. YSU and UIC would break the tie in favor of CSU because CSU has already swept both teams, whereas Butler would have split with both teams.
5. Since WSU is 8-5, YSU is 2-11, and UIC is 2-12, there is no way that YSU or UIC can finish ahead of WSU, so they won't be used as tie breakers.

One possible flaw to this logic: what if WSU ends up tied with other teams? The tiebreaker procedure requires that ties must be broken from the top down in order, one at a time, so such a tie would be put on hold, and WSU's record would be merged with one or more teams tied with them to form a composite common opponent.

However, the worst record WSU can have is 8-10, while the best record YSU can have is 7-11 and the best record UIC can have is 6-12, so neither of these two teams can even tie WSU. Any other teams that tie with WSU would add nothing to the effect that WSU has by themselves, so the result would still be the same.