Women's seed race down to 8 scenarios

Last night, the Women's seeding got clarified quite a bit. Green Bay ruined Loyola's notions of snagging a great tiebreaker advantage, thereby clinching the 2 seed for YSU in spite of Brandi Brown's injury, which was reported as rolling her ankle (and her absence from the rest of the game was described as "precautionary"). Also, Wright State prevented a tie with Cleveland State.

With 3 games left tomorrow, the standings are:

 W L
UWGB 15 0      1 seed
YSU 11 5      2 seed
UDM 9 6
Loyola 9 6
WSU 6 10
UIC 5 10
UWM 5 10
CSU 5 11
Valpo 4 11

Of course, Loyola's loss also prevented their tying YSU, so in a sense the loss of tiebreaker advantage is irrelevant.

Detroit and Loyola alone fight for the 3 seed, with the loser getting the 4 seed. It takes a Detroit loss to Valpo AND Loyola beating UIC for Loyola to get the 4 seed -- in other words, Loyola must finish 1 game ahead of Detroit, because they lose the tiebreaker: both swept by GB, both split with YSU, they split with each other. If they tie at 10-6, they both swept Milwaukee (who becomes relevant if they beat GB), but Detroit swept WSU while Loyola split with WSU, so Loyola loses the tiebreaker. If they tie at 9-7, UIC also joins the 6-10 tie, but since they split with both Loyola and Detroit, they don’t change anything.

Hence, if Valpo beats Detroit AND Loyola beats UIC, Loyola gets the 3 seed and Detroit gets the 4 seed. Otherwise Detroit gets the 3 seed and Loyola gets the 4 seed.

Wright State finishes 6-10. Both UIC and Milwaukee can join them by beating Loyola and Green Bay respectively. Each of these teams is 1-1 against each of the other two, so no matter how many are tied with WSU, common opponents will have to be consulted. Thus by beating Green Bay, Milwaukee would immediately snag the 5 seed. In fact, this is true regardless of what UIC does.

If Green Bay beats Milwaukee, then UIC can get the 5 seed by beating Loyola because they would split with Loyola while WSU was swept by them. Otherwise, Wright State stands alone at 6-10 and gets the 5 seed.

Hence, if Milwaukee beats Green Bay, they get the 5 seed. If they lose, then if UIC beats Loyola they get the 5 seed, otherwise WSU gets the 5 seed.

Wright State gets the 6 seed if UIC beats Loyola and Green Bay beats Milwaukee OR if Loyola beats UIC and Milwaukee beats Green Bay. In each case they get the 6 seed because they lose the tiebreaker for the 5 seed to either UIC or Milwaukee. UIC gets the 6 seed if they beat Loyola and Milwaukee beats Green Bay because after Milwaukee eliminates them both for the 5 seed, UIC eliminates WSU for the 6 seed because of their win over Loyola. Finally, Milwaukee gets the 6 seed if Loyola beats UIC and Green Bay beats Milwaukee because they would be the only 5-11 team to sweep another 5-11 team (CSU) while splitting with the other 2 or 3 (if Valpo beats Detroit).

If Loyola beats UIC, CSU gets the 7 seed because in a 3-way tie with Milwaukee and UIC, they finish in the middle at 2-2 with Milwaukee getting the 6 seed at 3-1, because in a 2-way tie with UIC they win because they swept UIC, and because in a 4-way tie at 5-11, Milwaukee wins the tiebreaker with a 4-2 record. At that point, we start over, and CSU wins the remaining tiebreaker because they are 3-1, Valpo 2-2, and UIC 1-3 (it matters not that UIC is 2-4 in the 4-way tie, because the rules state that you start over as soon as one team is declared the winner and there are still 2 or more teams left in the original tie.

If UIC beats Loyola, WSU gets the 7 seed as the last 6-10 team if Milwaukee beats Green Bay, and Milwaukee gets the 7 seed at 5-11 because of their sweep of CSU.

Valpo gets the 8 seed by beating Detroit, regardless of what else happens because they either tie with UIC or CSU, they split with both, and both of those teams were swept by YSU. In that case, CSU is either the 7 seed or the 9 seed, and the same can be said of UIC.

If Valpo loses to Detroit, they end up with the 9 seed as the only 4-12 team. UIC falls to 8 if they lose to Loyola, otherwise CSU falls to 8.