NAQT Mid-At and Standing Tiebreaks II

Durham_Devil · Wed, 15 Nov 2000 14:02:52 -0800

If you thought Division I's tiebreak was
complicated, you might want to consider skipping this post
altogether. The headaches abounded for Division II, where
there was a nightmare four-way tie in record for the
top spot.

Here was their standings. To remind
you, they decided that the next tiebreaker was
PPG:

1. North Carolina A (10-3)
2. Duke (10-3)
3.
Johns Hopkins (10-3)
4. Maryland A (10-3)
5.
Georgetown A (8-5)
6. Virginia (8-5)
7. Pittsburgh B
(7-6)
8. Pittsburgh A (7-6)
9. Ohio State (6-7)
10.
Georgetown B (5-8)
11. Delaware (3-10)
12. Maryland B
(3-10)
13. George Washington (3-10)
14. North Carolina B
(1-12)

NOTE: Officially, the teams were given "A", "B", etc.,
distinction across D-1 and D-2. But that's neither here nor
there, so I'm treating the tournaments as
separate.

As you see, there was a logjam atop the standings.
Using PPG as a tiebreak, the results are accurate. Now,
I can see how using head-to-head would be a
headache, but presuming you can find the six results
pertinent to this four-way draw, a mini-standings can be
formed. This mini-standings takes one of four
non-team-specific forms:

3-0, 2-1, 1-2, 0-3
3-0, 1-2,
1-2, 1-2
2-1, 2-1, 2-1, 0-3
2-1, 2-1, 1-2,
1-2

The last is most common. The first is most
beneficial. The middle two degenerate into our familiar
circles of death. For the last, then, you have two teams
in first and two in third. A simple head-to-head can
break that tie.

That being said, we will not
challenge the results. North Carolina deserved to win, and
at any rate beat our team, so that's fine. Like I
said, this is a tutorial. Perhaps a worthless tutorial,
but one nonetheless.

Admittedly, I was a
little miffed when I first saw that they didn't use
head-to-head, but thankfully I cooled off before posting this.
Now I'm just having fun helping out future TDs who
may be faced with this insanity.

Andy