Men's tiebreakers with 5 #HLMBB games remaining

Oakland beat Green Bay, Valpo beat Wright State, Northern Kentucky beat UIC, Detroit beat Milwaukee. As usual, the fewer games left, the simpler the remaining scenarios start to untangle.

        W       L       Pct.    GB      Seed
Valpo   14      3       0.824   0       1-2
OU      13      4       0.765   1       1-2
UWGB    11      6       0.647   3       3-4
NKU     11      6       0.647   3       3-4
WSU     10      7       0.588   4       5
UIC     7       10      0.412   7       6
UDM     6       11      0.353   8       
YSU     5       12      0.294   9       8-10
UWM     4       13      0.235   10      8-10
CSU     4       13      0.235   10      8-10

Oakland's 2 game lead over 3rd place with 1 game to go along with still trailing Valpo by 1 game guarantees that Valpo and Oakland are the only teams left eligible for the 1 seed, with the loser getting the 2 seed. Both teams are guaranteed that their first game in the conference tournament will be on Saturday. If they win, they get a day off before their next game.

Wright State will be the 5 seed. They can still tie for 3rd or 4th place, but none of the tiebreakers favor them. If they tie with NKU and Green Bay (at 11-7), NKU is 3-1, Green Bay 2-2, Wright State 1-3, so the Raiders lose the tiebreaker. Obviously, if they tie only with NKU, the Norse swept them so they lose that one. If they tie with Green Bay who they split with, they lose because they were swept by Valpo while Green Bay split with Valpo.

Detroit clinched the 7 seed with their win over Milwaukee because the only team who can catch them is YSU, and the Titans swept the Penguins.

In order for Oakland to get the 1 seed, they need to beat Milwaukee AND they need Northern Kentucky to beat Valpo. This produces a tie, and Oakland wins the tiebreaker because they swept Valpo (who gets the 2 seed). If Oakland loses to Milwaukee OR Valpo beats NKU, Valpo is the 1 seed and Oakland is the 2 seed.

If Green Bay loses to Detroit, they need Valpo to beat NKU and UIC to beat Wright State in order to get the 3 seed. The Raiders would be 10-8 and Green Bay and NKU would be 11-7. Both Valpo and Oakland favor Green Bay over NKU (both teams split with Green Bay and sweep NKU). If Wright State beats UIC we have a 3-way tie and NKU wins that tiebreaker as mentioned above. If NKU beats Valpo, they get the 3 seed by finishing 12-6.

If Green Bay beats Detroit, they get the 3 seed because even if NKU beats Valpo, their win over Oakland breaks the tie in their favor (NKU was swept by Oakland; both teams would split with Valpo).

YSU can clinch the 8 seed if they beat Cleveland State by simple games-behind math. If they lose to Cleveland State, they tie at 5-13. If Milwaukee beats Oakland, it becomes a 3-way tie. In this case, both Milwaukee and Cleveland State would beat out YSU since the Penguins are the only team to have been swept by Oakland (Valpo swept all 3). Even if Milwaukee loses to Oakland, Cleveland State still beats out YSU on this tiebreaker. So YSU can only get the 8 seed if they beat CSU.

If YSU beats CSU and Oakland beats Milwaukee, Milwaukee and CSU finish tied at 4-14. Valpo swept both, but Oakland split with CSU while sweeping Milwaukee, so CSU gets the 9 seed and Milwaukee gets the 10 seed. If instead Milwaukee beats Oakland, then Oakland also does not break the tie. Green Bay also swept both teams, but Milwaukee split with NKU while CSU was swept by them, so Milwaukee wins this tiebreaker.

If CSU beats YSU and Oakland beats Milwaukee, CSU gets the 8 seed by winning the tiebreaker with YSU. If CSU beats YSU and Milwaukee beats Oakland, then YSU loses the 3-way tiebreaker as mentioned above, and Milwaukee gets the 8 seed because they split with NKU (both swept by Valpo and Green Bay, both split with Oakland).