| | AL-O playoff seeds set! (scroll down for A.L.)
WED 4/8 (9:45AM) -- See playoff brackets link in the righthand table.
TUE 3/31 (1:15AM) -- Here are the seeds for the playoffs...
1 Five Ten (8-0) -- won Eastern Conference
2 Bay Area Blazers (6-2) -- won Western Conference
3 Ballin' (5-3) -- no head-to-head vs Trybe, 2-1 common opp Mile/Five/SFC vs Tryb
4 Trybe (5-3) -- no head-to-head vs Ballin', 1-2 common opp Mile/Five/SFC vs Blln
5 Purefoods (4-3)
6 Oakland Rams (4-4) -- won head-to-head vs Dark, tied 2-2 common opp Dark/Lion/Tryb vs SFC, 45 strength-of-victory vs SFC
7 Dark Knights (4-4) -- lost head-to-head vs Rams, won head-to-head vs SFC
8 SF City (4-4) -- tied 2-2 common opp Dark/Lion/Tryb vs Rams, 26 strength-of-victory vs Rams, lost head-to-head vs Dark
9 SF Lions (3-5)
10 Snipers (2-6) -- 1-1 common opp HibA/Tryb vs Mile
11 Mile High Club (2-6) -- 1-2 common opp HibA/Tryb vs Snpr, tied h2h vs HibA, 1-3 common opp SFC/BABz/Lion/Blln vs HibA
12 Hibachi AL-O (2-6) -- tied head-to-head vs Mile, 0-4 common opp SFC/BABz/Lion/Blln vs Mile
Ballin' and Trybe tied at 5-3 and didn't play against each other. So we looked at the next NFL wildcard tiebreaker, which is record vs common opponents. The difference-maker was Trybe's early season loss to SF City.
The Rams, Dark Knights, and SF City all tied at 4-4, good enough for double-elim status each. In the NFL, you first eliminate teams from the same division (or in our case, conference). So we must first find out which team is higher, Rams or Dark. Well, that was easy because the Rams beat Dark head-to-head in their only meeting. Therefore, Dark cannot finish higher than the Rams, since they are from the same conference.
Then you move onto to see how SFC compares to that group starting at the top. SFC didn't face the Rams head-to-head, so we look at common opponents. Those were Dark, Lion, and Trybe and the total tally for both SFC and the Rams against those teams was 2-2. So we move onto the next NFL tiebreaker which is "strength-of-victory".
For basketball games, I'm gonna assume strength-of-victory means point differential in games won, so if you look at that, the Rams win by a wide margin. Oh btw, I'll cap blowouts at 20 points maximum, since a blowout's a blowout and we don't want the game to get out of hand in blowouts. The Rams beat Purefoods by 5, Dark by 10, Snipers by 10, and Lions by more than 20 which we will mark as 20. SF City only beat Trybe by 1, Lions by 8, Hibachi by 6, and Mile High by 11.
For the three clubs tied at 2-6, same thing. First we look at Mile vs HibA since they are from the same conference. They both beat each other head-to-head. Against common opponents, the Lions were the difference. Mile High beat the Lions while Hibachi lost. Actually, I believe the win by Mile over Lion was by forfeit, so there you go. Hey, it happens. Therefore, Hibachi cannot finish higher than Mile High.
Now we merely compare Snipers to that top team. The Snipers beat Hibachi head-to-head and both the Snipers and Mile High lost to Trybe. But since Mile High went 1-1 head-to-head vs Hibachi, the Snipers win the tiebreaker against Mile due to being 1-1 against common opponents Trybe and Hibachi instead of Mile's 1-2 record.
And there you have it. Since a #9 Lions vs #8 SF City would've produced a three-peat matchup, I made the matchups for 4/5 as follows...
playoffs1a: #12 Hibachi AL-O vs #5 Purefoods @ RWC
playoffs1a: #11 Mile High Club vs #6 Oakland Rams @ RWC
playoffs1a: #10 Snipers vs #8 SF City @ OAK
playoffs1a: #9 SF Lions vs #7 Dark Knights @ SF
playoffs1b: Winner-#12/#5 vs #4 Trybe @ RWC
playoffs1b: Winner-#11/#6 vs #3 Ballin' @ RWC
playoffs1b: Winner-#9/#7 vs #2 Bay Area Blazers @ SF
playoffs1b: Winner-#10/#8 vs #1 Five Ten @ OAK
If you're a veteran of dreamleague quasi-double-elim playoffs, you know that one of the things that I live by is the diversity-of-schedule factor, which means out of 9 games, I think most people would rather not have to play the same team 3 times out of those 9 games. Therefore, you'll see a little tweak such that it's #10 vs #8 and #9 vs #7 instead of the traditional #10 vs #7 and #9 vs #8. Honestly I think the diversity thing outweighs the exactness of the NCAA-like seed pairings. It's not like the quality of the teams are that far off. In quasi-double-elim, you still have to beat similar caliber teams, then presumably tougher-caliber teams to eventually win it all.
Also, for the advancement game, I have to assume the higher-seeded team will win, therefore I've got the #2 BABz slated to play winner of #9/#7 and #1 Five vs winner-#10/#8. If #9 upsets #7 and #8 holds on vs #10, the #1 Five plays a higher seed than #2 BABz. That's still acceptable because of scheduling, the double-elim format in which the Losers Bracket gets re-matched by seed each week, and the fact that #1 and #2 are still playing relatively low seeds at the start.
I've put probable locations on there, subject to change. Starting Round 2, I'll take a real close look at mileages as I did the last two seasons later in the playoffs. I don't wanna hear about this team earning homecourt over that team because they have a higher seed. I'm happy to do that, but when one team is traveling way more than another, I think it's more fair to balance out the mileages.
For example, if one team has multiple players coming from San Jose each week. There's a reason why I have all SJ-based teams play at RWC all the time. Because they are already traveling a lot each and every week. At some point late in the playoffs, however, a few long trips by an Oakland team to RWC may actually warrant the game to be in Oakland, depending on the miles travelled over the entire season.
Also at the start of Round 2, I'll hopefully post a playoff bracket. Remember, the Losers Bracket gets re-seeded each week and we again try to avoid repeat Loser Bracket matchups unless it's absolutely necessary. If there are an odd number of teams in the LB, the highest seeded team gets to advance despite the repeat LB avoidance. Basically this (a) makes the regular season relevant and (b) strives to also make previous playoff matchups in the double-elim format relevant. The Winners Bracket is straight-up NCAA style since it's double-elim format anyways.
Looking ahead a little, the only team to chime in about Easter 4/12 was Trybe, who cannot play that day. The Rams and SF City are affected by 4/19 LA Showcase tourney, and maybe the Dark Knights as well. We'll just have to play it by ear as usual. For example, I may try to see if the Rams and SF City can play on 4/12 somehow while, aside from whomever they're slated to play next, the remainder of the teams continue on 4/19 instead in the Rams' and SFC's absence on 4/19.
A.L. playoff seeds set for 4/5!
WED 4/8 (9:45AM) -- See playoff brackets link in the righthand table.
TUE 3/31 (11:30AM) -- So here are the playoff seeds based on standings thru 3/29 results. Remember, ALL seven teams get double-elim status since we only played 7 regular season games...
1 Prodigies (5-2) -- beat Pandas head-to-head
2 Pandas (5-2) -- lost to Prodigies head-to-head
3 Dragon Rouge (4-3)
4 All Day (3-4) -- beat Got-Em head-to-head
5 Got-Em (3-4) -- lost to All Day head-to-head
6 2449Squad (2-5)
7 ZerOne AL (1-6)
That means the Prodigies get the first-round bye. With #7 ZerOne and #2 Pandas, I've gotten permission from the Pandas to put that game in San Jose, so that's good news for ZerOne. The SF teams will get the homecourt, or at least as I write this (who knows, maybe I'll run into gym issues, maybe I won't) because they've traveled more thus far this season, particularly to RWC to play against the Pandas and ZerOne. By the same token, the Oakland teams have only traveled once each outside of Oakland thus far.
As usual, if you fall to the Losers Bracket, the highest seed will face the lowest seed, and if there are an odd number of teams, the highest seed in the Losers Bracket auto-advances. That makes the regular season relevant. The Winners Bracket is straight-up NCAA-style bracket, since we "re-seed" in the Losers Bracket anyways.
Got-Em has requested a bye on 4/5 and has picked the worst time to do it, with Easter 4/12 and LA Showcase 4/19 coming up. I know that the Pandas and Prodigies are affected by LA 4/19, so there you have 2 teams that can't play on that day and I will delay as necessary since this is a dreamleague tournament and, of course, we would rather have teams play in LA that weekend.
Hopefully All Day can accommodate as, you know, sooner or later after many seasons, every team is bound to have this problem as well. If not, Got-Em will just have to suck it up. It won't be the last time this happens, you can be sure.
And we can't really look at the #5 vs #4 vs #1 mini-bracket whereby the Prodigies will definitely not play on 4/19 because we're not quite sure if Got-Em will win or lose. If they lose to All Day, then we're looking at the Losers Bracket which is totally unpredictable. But I know this: if the Prodigies want, they could skip 4/12 and obviously 4/19, then have their first game on 4/26. It's kind of dictated by that. Now, I'm on the Prodigies and I *think* my teammates are available 4/12, so I'd rather finish the season sooner rather than later and have the Prodigies play on 4/12 as a 2nd-round game if necessary. It's really hard to predict without actually having that 1st round played, though. It's not like the other half of the bracket wants to take 4/5 off, with Easter and LA Showcase looming (that's a 3-week layoff right there). Something will get started 4/5 for sure. |
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