Friday, February 28, 2014

Final tiebreakers

And now there are only 16 scenarios left. There's not much left to decipher.

With 4 games remaining, the standings are:
Team               W   L   Games Left
Green Bay         13   2   @UDM
Cleveland State   11   4   @VU
Wright State       9   6   @UIC
Valparaiso         9   6   CSU
Milwaukee          7   9
Oakland            6   9   @YSU
Detroit            6   9   GB
Youngstown State   6   9   OU
UIC                1  14   WSU
The 4 remaining games can now be split up into 2 independent pairs. As already mentioned, if WSU beats UIC or Valpo loses to CSU, WSU gets the 3 seed while Valpo gets the 4 seed. Conversely if Valpo beats CSU and UIC beats WSU, Valpo gets the 3 seed and WSU gets the 4 seed.

Meanwhile, Milwaukee has clinched a home game on Tuesday. They will be the 5 seed unless Detroit beats Green Bay and YSU beats Oakland. In that case Milwaukee, Detroit, and YSU will be 7-9. The 3 teams split with each other, both Milwaukee and Detroit will split with Green Bay, both were swept by CSU, both split with WSU, but Detroit split with Valpo while Milwaukee was swept by Valpo. Hence in this case, Detroit gets the 5 seed and hosts Oakland, and Milwaukee gets the 6 seed and hosts YSU.

Otherwise Milwaukee gets the 5 seed. If Detroit beats Green Bay and Oakland beats YSU, Milwaukee wins the head-to-head-to-head tiebreaker 3-1 to 2-2 (Oakland) to 1-3 (Detroit). If Detroit loses to Green Bay, then Milwaukee ties with either Oakland (0-2) or YSU (swept by Green Bay). Either way, Milwaukee gets the 5 seed and the winner of Oakland-YSU gets the 6 seed. The loser gets the 7 seed (Oakland because they swept Detroit; YSU because they split with CSU) and Detroit gets the 8 seed.

Detroit will either host the 8 seed at home, or go on the road Tuesday. There is no 6 seed for them. If they beat Green Bay but Oakland beats YSU, Detroit gets the 7 seed. If they lose to Green Bay they get the 8 seed.

If Oakland beats YSU they get the 6 seed. If they lose, then it depends on Detroit's game. If Detroit wins, Oakland gets the 8 seed. If Detroit loses, Oakland gets the 7 seed.

YSU can get the 6 seed by beating Oakland and Green Bay beating Detroit. They lose the tiebreaker with Milwaukee, but finish ahead of both Detroit and Oakland. If they lose to Oakland, they get the 7 seed if Green Bay beats Detroit (they tie with Detroit and win the tiebreaker by splitting with CSU) and they get the 8 seed if Detroit beats Green Bay (YSU would be alone at 6-10).

The only way WSU could have broken a lower tie is if Oakland was part of that tie, since WSU split with the other 3 teams but swept Oakland. Oakland can only tie with Milwaukee or Detroit or both, and in each case, head-to-head resolves the tie, so there's no need to resort to WSU. Therefore, it doesn't matter if WSU finishes ahead of Valpo or behind Valpo. The two sets of games are independent.

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