Quarterfinal Playoffs Raise a Question

[Zamboni_Driver]

Going over next week's conference championship games, I noticed that there were several Top 25 match-ups at the quarterfinal level. I know rankings will change with the losses last week, and the championship games to play, but the question I have is:

Should a team that losses in their quarterfinals be eligible for MCLA championship play even if they finish in the top 16?

(I use these as examples only, and have nothing against the conferences or the teams)

From WCLL.com
Division A: Quarterfinal Playoffs - Sat. 4/21
#7 Sonoma vs. #16 Cal Poly
#10 UCSB vs. #4 ASU
#12 Arizona vs. #24 Claremont

From SELC.com
Division A: Quarterfinal Playoffs - Fri 4/20
#11 FSU vs. #23 Georgia Tech

My 2 cents: No. I think there should be a rule similar to the football BCS that says if you don't win your conference you can't play in the title game. Same here, if you don't atleast get into your semi-finals you should not be eligible for nationals, especially since the pollsters aren't able to see everyone play and ranking of teams in the 10-15 area has become especially hard.

[UBlax]

(i'm relatively certain that) the final Poll comes out after all the conference tournaments. If a team loses in the quarter-finals of their individual conference, i would assume that would have a huge impact on their standings in the poll.

as for your example...
#10 UCSB vs. #4 ASU
if both teams truly are 10th and 4th in the nation by the time the last poll comes out, then i would feel that they both deserve MCLA tournament bids.

just one man's opinion though

[scooter]

i disagree. some conferences are overloaded with talent, that to exclude them from nationals, just because their conference is more difficult would be cruel.....

If ASU happens to lose in the quarterfinal, it might drop them to 10th or so in the poll, are you saying that the 10th "best" team in the country shouldn't be eligable for a tourny that is supposed to hold the "best" 16 teams?

[CATLAX MAN]

If you want an example of how wrong to exclude those teams would be, look no further than last year. UCSB lost to UCSD in the first round of the WCLL playoffs last year when both were ranked. UCSB went on the make the semifinals of the tourney.

This year, one of UCSB or ASU will lose in the first round. Both are ranked in the Top #10 right now. A loss will drop one of them a few spots. If the drop is not enough to exlcude them from the tourney, then why should they be artificially excluded? You could say the same for the RMLC, they have 3 teams in the Top 10 right now. Two of those teams will not win the conference. To exclude them will be wrong also.

[Zamboni_Driver]

i disagree. some conferences are overloaded with talent, that to exclude them from nationals, just because their conference is more difficult would be cruel.....

If ASU happens to lose in the quarterfinal, it might drop them to 10th or so in the poll, are you saying that the 10th "best" team in the country shouldn't be eligable for a tourny that is supposed to hold the "best" 16 teams?

I struggle with two things here -

1. The national tournament doesn't always mean the "best" teams. If it did, we'd get rid of the AQ? I'd be in favor of doing that, or going the opposite direction and just have the conference winners at the tournament. The half and half is what I struggle with.

2. I don't know how to phrase this to make this make sense, but if a team falls in the quarter finals do you assume they would have beaten the other 3 teams that made it to the semi's, or would they have fallen twice more (semi's and finals)? A team lossing three games at the end of a season would be hard pressed to hang onto their ranking.

When I say I struggle, I really do, cause I firmly believe teams should be evaluated by their body of work, and 1 loss at the quarterfinals against another ranked team may not be representative of the body of work. I do like this discussion.

[scooter]

i should probably go into more detail into what i mean by "best"....

I think there always be a necessity for AQ to avoid alienation of certain regions of the country.

But i once again present my the arugment if ASU happens to lose. They will surely drop in the final rankings, but how far? 9, 10, 11? even if some conferences have upsets in the Finals, giving the AQ to a team previously ranked outside the top 16, there is no way that the supposed 9,10,11 team should be automatically barred because they had a poor showing against great competition.

If the 14 seed fails to make it into the tourny because of AQs, thats unfortunate, but I still think they should be alive and hope all the necessary chips fall into place.

[Theflow]

The example of UCSB and ASU this year is a good one.

ASU has beat Oregon, Michigan and Utah, but has lost to BYU, Colorado and Arizona (all wins and loses in the top 13)

UCSB has beat Cal Poly and Colorado. They have lost to Utah and CSU, and were killed by BYU and Chapman.

If UCSB does not beat ASU, it is hard to justify a spot in the top 10 with one real quality win over Colorado, a lost to #13, and getting badly beat by "unranked" chapman.

[Timbalaned]

I also think you have issues with that because of conference sizes. In the WCLL just making the playoffs is usually a pretty good feat considering all the teams in their conference and who they have to beat out to get there. In the RMLC, you have a total of 5 teams in Div. A so 4 out of 5 "make the semis". I don't think it really works to just blanket the idea of having to get to semis to get to nationals.

[benji]

I especially think that given the nature of conference playoffs, many of which involve rivalry games and multiple games played in a relatively short amoun of time, it would be hard to discard a team's national championship eligibility simply because of a loss in conference playoffs.

Would it be reasonable to render Team B ineligble for the national championship because they lost to Team A in conference playoffs. What if Team A is ranked #1 and Team B is ranked #2, nationally?

[CATLAX MAN]

Would it be reasonable to render Team B ineligble for the national championship because they lost to Team A in conference playoffs. What if Team A is ranked #1 and Team B is ranked #2, nationally?

That happened a couple of times already. Three years ago #1 UCSB played #3 Sonoma in the finals, 2 years ago #1 CSU lost to #2 BYU.

[Zamboni_Driver]

Definitely some good arguements against, and none for the other side so I may be alone in my concerns. I'll point out 1 hypothetical scenario that I see as problematic.

Take #24 Claremont vs #12 Arizona. Arizona will raise in the polls after their win vs ASU. However, say Claremont upsets Arizona and goes on to win the semi's over the Cal/Chico winner, but loses in the finals. Claremont and Arizona could occupy rankings from 13-16 in the polls with Arizona being higher. Add in a few upsets in other conferences, that would cause Arizona to go to Nationals over Claremont, a team that just beat them 1 week earlier and represented their league in the league championship.

[Disclaimer: the above is all hypothetical soly for discussion of the issue of how to handle top 16 teams losing in the quarterfinals - and were selected only because of their ranking and path to the WCLL championship - please do not argue over who will win the actual Claremont/Arizona match-up]

Under this hypothetical Claremont gets ousted from from Nationals because of things they couldn't control. Whereas under a "semifinal" rule, Arizona is ousted for something they could control and knew was in place.

I think the frequency of a team lossing in the league quarterfinals and going to nationals is low at this time, but I think with the increase in competition in the MCLA, it could become more of an issue.

[scooter]

yes, but not in the conference quarterfinals, which i think was his original thought

[TMcCourt]

Under this hypothetical Claremont gets ousted from from Nationals because of things they couldn't control. Whereas under a "semifinal" rule, Arizona is ousted for something they could control and knew was in place.

I think the frequency of a team lossing in the league quarterfinals and going to nationals is low at this time, but I think with the increase in competition in the MCLA, it could become more of an issue.

The problem with your argument (and believe me I am playing devil's advocate here because a part of me agrees with what you are saying) is that, in the current system, no team gets ousted because of things they cannot control. It is up to that team to play strong early in the season and put on a good showing in their conference tournament in order to make the playoffs. Each team is fully in control of how they played early on in the season to prove themselves to the voters.

You could sell me on an argument that hypothetically (not saying any team in particular so please don't get offended anyone) some teams are ranked artificially high and some artificially low due to preseason rankings and this is not in their control. An example would be that Team A has a similar resume to Team B but Team A was ranked 1st (again hypothetical!) to start the season and Team B was unranked. I think it is much more difficult for Team B to rise up to a tournament ranking then it is for Team A to stay in the top ten. There would be a general perception that Team A is a better team due to their preseason ranking. This would be unfair.

[CATLAX MAN]

These "hypotheticals" about the pre-season poll ranking affecting a team for the entire season are bunk. You'd be arguing the same thing if there was no preseason poll, but the "hypothetical" team wasn't ranked in the first regular season poll. It's an excuse - a rationalization. If teams want to be recognized as a competitive top program, you need to play a competitive top schedule. It's up to each team to make it happen, no matter what the potential barriers may be.

[DG]

i disagree. some conferences are overloaded with talent, that to exclude them from nationals, just because their conference is more difficult would be cruel.....

If ASU happens to lose in the quarterfinal, it might drop them to 10th or so in the poll, are you saying that the 10th "best" team in the country shouldn't be eligable for a tourny that is supposed to hold the "best" 16 teams?

I struggle with two things here -

1. The national tournament doesn't always mean the "best" teams. If it did, we'd get rid of the AQ? I'd be in favor of doing that, or going the opposite direction and just have the conference winners at the tournament. The half and half is what I struggle with.

2. I don't know how to phrase this to make this make sense, but if a team falls in the quarter finals do you assume they would have beaten the other 3 teams that made it to the semi's, or would they have fallen twice more (semi's and finals)? A team lossing three games at the end of a season would be hard pressed to hang onto their ranking.

When I say I struggle, I really do, cause I firmly believe teams should be evaluated by their body of work, and 1 loss at the quarterfinals against another ranked team may not be representative of the body of work. I do like this discussion.

I believe that the tournament is designed to get the 9 AQs in to the tournament, and then the 7 top teams outside of the AQs. In that regard, the system does as good a job as it can.

DG