Well, here we are; coming down the home stretch of another regular season with conference tournaments looming. And with it comes some uncertainty - not only with the conference races themselves but how things are going to be determined for the upcoming NCAA Tournament when it comes to at-large teams. In a lot of ways, it's definitely a brave new world we're entering.
So here I am at home on a snowy Friday evening (a good night to stay put really) and thought this would be an excellent opportunity to help explain what we may be looking at once the regular season wraps up this next Saturday afternoon (2-22). I touched base with the MIAC office earlier this week to inquire about what we may be looking at wrt a potential two-way tie atop the MIAC standings and the tiebreaking formula/mechanism that the conference has. I first want to extend thanks to both Commissioner Dan McKane and Associate Commissioner B. J. Pickard for explaining this all and breaking it down for me. So first, here's what Pickard had to say about a potential tiebreak situation involving both GAC and Bethel:
"We typically don't dive too far into specific scenarios until there's only a game or two remaining, but if it does play out where Bethel and GAC each end up with only one loss and it's against the other, I believe a coin flip would end up deciding the order for the top two seeds in the MIAC Playoffs. Bethel and GAC would each get a share of the regular season championship but since the tie can't be broken on head-to-head (tiebreaker 1) or winning percentage against other conference teams (tiebreaker 2), the next tiebreaker down is coin flip. We don't have any stat-based tiebreakers for WBB and we don't consider non-conference results as a tiebreaker for any MIAC sport (though some conferences do use overall record or NPI ranking as a pre-coin flip tiebreakers)."
So, in the case of a two-team tie come 2-22, here's how things would go according to Pickard:
"Two-team tie:
1. Head-to-head results
2. Winning percentage vs other conference teams in descending order of final standings
a. When arriving at another pair of tied teams while comparing records, use each team's winning percentage against the collective tied teams as a group (before their own tie-breaking procedures), rather than the performance against the individual tied teams.
b. When comparing records against a single team or a group of teams, the higher winning percentage shall prevail, even if the number of games played against the team or group is unequal (i.e., 2-0 is better than 3-1, but 2-0 is not better than 1-0).
3. Coin flip
Multiple-team tie:
1. Results of head-to-head competition during the regular season
a. When comparing results against the tied teams, teams will be seeded based on the winning percentage among the group, even if the number of games played against the other team or group is unequal (i.e., 2-0 is better than 3-1, but 2-0 is not better than 1-0).
b. If all teams in the group are separated based on winning percentage, all ties are broken.
c. If the winning percentage among the group for any tied teams is equal, the tie-breaker procedures will continue down the list with those specific tied teams only (e.g., if there is a four-team tie, one is 4-0, another is 3-1 and the last two are 2-2 among the group, the two teams that are 2-2 move on in the tie-breaking procedure and the teams that are 4-0 and 3-1 assume the next two available highest seeds).
d. Teams can be separated from the top, middle, or bottom. The objective is to break the tie.
e. If a team or teams are separated from the group based on step "a", seeding for the remaining teams among the group is not determined by head-to-head record vs the remaining teams, but rather by taking all remaining teams to the next tiebreaker.
2. If the remaining teams are still tied, then each team's record shall be compared to the team occupying occupying the highest position in the final regular season standings, continuing down through the standings until one team gains an advantage.
a. When arriving at another pair of tied teams while comparing records, use each team's winning percentage against the collective tied teams as a group (before their own tie-breaking procedures), rather than the performance against the individual tied teams).
b. When comparing records against a single team or group of teams, the higher winning percentage shall prevail, even if the number of games played against the team or group is unequal (i.e., 2-0 is better than 3-1, but 2-0 is not better than 1-0).
3. Coin flip."
A few thoughts on the tiebreaker info.....
First, while I was not a Sports Management major during my days at the University of Iowa, I've been close enough (whether by competing during my tennis-playing days or just being the sportsnut in general, it all seems like a lot of ado. However, I also do get the fact that you have to have these procedures in place in case of a situation cropping up like we may have at the end of the day on 2-22. Here's the thing: I was genuinely surprised to learn that overall records - specifically out of conference records - have no role whatsoever in the tie-breaking process. In this specific case, you see where GAC obviously would come out on top if this were a factor. And keep in mind, while each case/situation has its own special dynamics in play, I wanted to offer thoughts on these three methods:
1. Overall record - Again, by comparing records of both GAC and Bethel, you would see where the Gusties would obviously come out on top in such a scenario. But, is it really fair - and especially now given that we're playing an unbalanced conference schedule that offers MIAC teams the opportunity to play more out of conference opponents to get the SOS (strength of schedule) up? Perhaps not although it's been put to the test in other situations and other sports. For me - and it may not be the best analogy - I hark back to when I was youngster back in 1973 and that great 1973 UCLA team led by Mark Harmon, James McAllister, Kermit Johnson, et al was a freaking scoring machine; putting up 50-60 points a game. The Bruins were 9-1 coming into the regular season finale against our crosstown rival, USC, which was 8-1-1 (Trojans tied Oklahoma and lost to Notre Dame while my Bruins lost at Nebraska in the season opener) with the Pac 8 title and Rose Bowl berth on the line for both teams. And because UCLA had the better overall record, all the Bruins had to do was either win or come away with a tie and they would go to the Rose Bowl because they would have the better overall record. Alas, my Bruins laid an egg that day and lost 23-13 which sent USC to the Rose Bowl (and yes, I STILL grieve over that damn game to this very day). My point is that overall record is an element that can be used but it isn't always easy to apply and obviously varies from sport to sport.
2. Athletic Director vote - Ah, here's another interesting one that's arguably a good segue to my previous point. Again, the best memory I have of this one comes from that 1973 season - this one involving traditional B1G powers Michigan and Ohio St. In the big showdown in Ann Arbor (and on the very same day as the aforementioned UCLA vs USC game), the Buckeyes and Wolverines came in with identical 10-0 records in perhaps the biggest game of that storied rivalry. As some of you may remember, Ohio St jumped out to a 10-0 lead only to see Michigan come back and forge a 10-10 tie - and miss out twice on two errant FG attempts late in the game that would have won the game for them. Despite the game ending in a deadlock, the popular thought immediately afterward was that the conference ADs - who now had to meet in Chicago the next day to vote on the representative to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena - would likely tab Michigan to go to Pasadena as Ohio St had gone the year before. But in a wild, unexpected twist, the conference ADs selected Ohio St to represent the B1G in the Rose Bowl - which left Michigan and its fans outraged (if you haven't seen it yet, you should watch the program put out by the B1G Network a few years back called "Tiebreaker" which focuses on this. It's utterly fascinating and you really should watch it). With all this in mind, would something like this work for a potential regular season-ending standoff between GAC and Bethel for the number-one seed in the MIAC Playoffs? Maybe, but you and I both know that there'd be so much speculation of favoritism and God knows what else but I feel like I had to throw this one out there for discussion nonetheless.
3. Coin Flip - And then, failing everything else, we can always break out that big coin and flip the bloody thing and keep your fingers crossed that it goes your way. But here's the thing - there IS a precedent for this in MIAC Women's Basketball for this exact same purpose. If you've been watching/covering MIAC Women's Hoops as long as I have, who can ever forget that unforgettable 2003 season that saw Carleton, GAC and CSB all tied at the top spot with identical 20-2 conference records. I still don't quite understand how this whole process went from beginning to end (and if someone does, PLEASE chime in!) but I believe it ultimately came down to between the Knights and the Gusties and the participants were notified over the phone that "Carleton wins" - or something to that effect. Even after all this time, it still seems pretty wild when you think about it. As things unfolded in the playoffs that year, CSB would ultimately lose to GAC in one of the semifinal games and then Carleton would knock off GAC in the MIAC Championship Game two days later. The bottom line here is that it's obviously far from perfect but when you've exhausted every other option, I suppose it's the way you've got to go.
The only other method that I could even think of being viable would be if GAC Head Coach Laurie Kelly and Bethel Head Coach Jon Herbrechtsmeyer could meet on Sunday in the MIAC office and play Rock Paper Scissors a few times and see who comes out on top. Heck, I'd pay money to see that. 😅
Now, the other item that we need to touch on are the new NPI Rankings that NCAA DIII moved to for all team sport selections for at-large bids for NCAA Championships. As McKane explained to me in his e-mail response:
"This takes away the human element when it comes to comparing teams around the country. We've had a similar model in ice hockey for many years and it seems to work fine. Through our experience this fall, it's a very transparent process that uses data well......As for Regional Rankings, those still exist in many sports, however, they are essentially meaningless and I anticipate they will go away at some point in the future. There is still value in Regional Rankings, from a human perspective, however NCAA Championship selections will be done purely using NPI (once conference automatic qualifiers are identified)."
I have to tell you, for me, I really, really like this development. How many times over the last several years have you heard me rail ad nauseum on the pitfalls of Regional Rankings? Look, the human element that McKane talks about here is fine - IF the human element(s) know what they're bloody talking about or ranking. These last couple of seasons were so utterly ridiculous when it comes to the Region 9 rankings that it was easy to see how flawed the process was even to the layman. In all fairness, we probably need to see how the NPI really works when NCAA Tournament time rolls around but I have a good feeling about this and am hopeful that this will at least reduce some of the controversies we've had over the years. In fact, you can check things out on this at https://stats.ncaa.org/selection_rankings/nitty_gritties/42730
Another big day of Saturday games coming up tomorrow and need to get my beauty sleep. As always, please feel free to fire away with thoughts.
No comments:
Post a Comment