Playoff Seedings & B Division At-Large Selections

[Dan Wishengrad]

The PNCLL Executive has finalized a plan for the 2005 playoffs.

A Division -- Top four teams qualify to semis, seeded by five-game conference record. If two or more teams tie for any position in the standings these are the tie-breakers that will be used:
1. Head-to-Head
2. Goal Differential in Games between the Tied Teams (only)
3. Laxpower TSI as of Monday, April 25th 2005

#1 plays #4, #2 plays #3 in the semis

B Divisions -- Winner of each division (North, South & East) determined by eight-game conference record. If two or more teams tie for first place these are the tie-breakers that will be used:
1. Head-to-Head
2. Goal Differential in Games between the Tied Teams (only)
3. Laxpower TSI as of Monday, April 18th 2005

AFTER the three B Division winner are determined, they are then ranked #1-3 based on their 8-game conference record. If there is a tie for first or second place between the division winners, the same tie-breakers will be used. Head-to-Head and Goal Differential is only applicable IF the division winners have played each other, otherwise Laxpower TSI will decide these seedings. #1 and #2 have BYES into the semis. #3 will play a quarter-final game (versus #6).

AT-LARGE TEAMS #4-6 will be determined this way:
All remaining eligible (not on probation) PNCLL B teams will be ranked by their record (W-L %) in ALL games played against other PNCLL B teams. If two or more teams tie for any of the four at-large positions, these tie-breakers shall be used:
1. Head-to-Head
2. Goal Differential in Games Between the Tied Teams (only)
3. Goal Differential in All PNCLL B Games Played
4. Number of Wins in OOC Games Against Other B Teams
5. Number of Wins in Games Against A Teams
6. Laxpower TSI 4/18/05

#3 (a Division Winner) will play #6, #4 plays #5 in the quarter-finals
#1 plays #4/#5 winner, #2 plays #3/#6 in the semis.

If successful we will have a ten-team post-season this year, with the semis and finals up in BC. Our tradition in the PNCLL has been that the highest seed plays the early semi, earning the most rest before a potential final game.

[Ballaholic]

I was wondering....
where whitman stood on the leading at-large teams for B?

Is Linfield on probation for last season?

[muchachojones]

Linfield is not on Probation from last season.

[Kyle Berggren]

In the future, I would recommend that we change how the atlarge teams are selected in the B. Teams are benefited by scheduling weaker opponents, as opposed to rewarded for playing a harder schedule. If something like this was posted or explained at the scheduling, teams would have done it differently.

[WouMiddie]

Personally i agree with you, it is to bad that western washington plu and ups might not all make the playoffs. Im pretty sure those three teams could all take my school out and show us what was up. Believe me western oregon was not planning on being anywhere near a playoff spot at this point in the season. We just scheduled less games cuz we werent sure if we were gonna win any and 0-9 doesnt seem as bad as like 0-12. But i do agree with you.

[Kyle Berggren]

I don't even know if I'm a proponent of having the three of us go.... Just saying that if a team schedules 6 games against opponents they can beat up on, they're in better shape than a team that would try to schedule tougher games. In the future, I would recommend that division record count, and nothing outside of that.

As far as WOU goes.... I'm not saying keep you out of the playoffs, you're 3-2 in your division, 3-3 overall, good for you. Keep up the hardwork. If you're going to be the second team in your division, you could end up 6-2 in division, you absolutely deserve a playoffs spot. If we finish 5-3 (and make it, we might not), we should travel to play you. Just because we have a very competetive division, doesn't mean we don't have to win our games to represent the North in the playoffs. Just like you've won a bunch of close games in your own division, and should represent your division. Good luck in the rest of your games.

[Kyle Berggren]

I also just noticed that the Evergreen divisional forfiets do not count toward the B division at-large... Can I ask when this was decided and by who? Was it the Board preseason? mid-season?

[TheNino57]

I also just noticed that the Evergreen divisional forfiets do not count toward the B division at-large... Can I ask when this was decided and by who? Was it the Board preseason? mid-season?

I would also like to know about this decision.

For the play-off picture in the future somehow include the Laxpower rankings as a bigger factor than just a tie-breaker? I know that no one wants to be eliminated by math but this season it shows a much better top six than our current system. Actually, in my opinion, it shows exactly how I would seed things if it were up to me. Now, I would probably seed UPS above PLU, but these two teams still have another game against eachother, and things would change depending on the winner. But as of right now, based on the Laxpower.com system, the play-off seeding would be such:

1. Montana
2. Linfield
3. PLU
4. UPS
5. WWU
6. Whitman

I have a hard time swallowing WWU not making the post season when they are nationally ranked at #20. Any thoughts from anyone else?

[Dan Wishengrad]

Here's my "take" in response:

1) Division Winners -- Eight games count, traditional PNCLL tie-breakers utilized. This is what we discussed and agreed to at the AGM. We did not, however discuss, debate and vote how to seed these three division winners. The problem we discovered after the fact was that division winners might not play each other (Linfield has not played Montana, for instance). So how to seed them if they tie with identical records against DIFFERENT OPPONENTS? The Executive Board kicked around a number of ideas before we agreed to use Laxpower TSI. We all knew this wasn't an ideal scenario -- but at least it is objective. Finally, this turns out not to matter much this season, as we will likely use the TSI only to seed #1 and #2. Both teams will get byes into the semis anyway.

2) At-Large Selections -- We did not vote on this the AGM, just all reached a consensus that "the next three teams that didn't win a division" would qualify for playoffs also. Trouble is, we didn't take the time to hash this out with everyone present what would determine who these "next three" teams are. B teams play as few as eight total games (just the required conference games) or about twice as many games, like PLU scheduled this year. So how to rank non-division-winners that played different schedules and number of games? When Evergreen folded right before the season began, this gave us a new problem. We HAD to decide to use the forfeits for conference records so that every team in every division would have an eight game record. But for the at-large selections, we felt it wasn't fair to count these forfeits (except as part of a team's conference record) when deciding the playoff-worthiness of teams who didn't win their divisions. Likewise, The Board decided that it wasn't fair to "penalize" those teams that scheduled games against the A Division or B teams from other conferences (OOC games). The system we came up with doesn't factor these games in, except as an unlikely tie-breaker (down the list) to ever be used. One thing we rejected out of hand was any sytem that used goal differential in all games, as this type of thing encourages strong teams to keep running up the score against weaker teams in case the g.d. was needed as a tie-breaker.

There is no perfect system, and whatever we came up with was sure to disadvantage somebody. But when the regular season ends, hopefully we will have six deserving teams. I agree with Coach P. that Western Washington (nationally-ranked) is probably one of the six best B teams in the PNCLL and now won't make the playoffs. But when you play in the toughest division where top teams all beat each other up this happens -- in all sports! Look at the NBA where for the past decade very good teams from the West failed to even make the playoffs while 3-4 weak teams (with less than .500 records!) from the East made the playoffs. In our situation, the second-place team from B-South (likely to be WOU this year) will make the playoffs. Is Western Oregon better than Western Washington in 2005? We will never know, as they do not play. But WOU looks likely to end up with a better record against the PNCLL B Division than will WWU. Based on this, they deserve to make the playoffs. If we decided arbitrarily somehow to seed WWU over WOU because we felt they were a stronger team, than WOU would be really "screwed"! We'd be saying, in essence, that game results don't carry as much weight as subjective opinion or pure mathematical formula (i.e Laxpower), and this would be -- in my opinion anyway -- a bigger travesty.

[Kyle Berggren]

Dan, you're right, someone is going to be at a disadvantage from how we seed the teams.

I hope no one takes this as offensive, because that is not the intention so take it for what it's worth, my opinion. Because this was not disclosed pre-scheduling, teams scheduled in a manner they saw fit, for instance, scheduling multiple A games or OOC B games. The third tie break is "Goal Differential in All PNCLL B Games Played." Scheduling A games, or playing a tougher schedule is no longer is actually a disadvantage to playoff teams. Teams that expected to be in the playoffs should have scheduled their divisional games, and then beat up on any other team that was expected to be sub .500. A few weekends travelling to play these weeker teams over a weekend could result in better playoff seeding, and a home game. If divisional games were the only games to count, a team wouldn't be benefited by playing a weeker schedule. I agree with Dan, laxpower TSI should be used as a final tie break.

It is unfortunate that WWU is not making the playoffs this year, but we made divisions. The "best" teams in each division will come out and get to the playoffs. Unfortunately, WWU lost some very tough games this season (4 by a total of 6 goals, 2 1 goal games to us). They are an excellent team, and could do very well in the playoffs. The nature of divisions means weaker teams could get into the playoffs, just like Dan's example of the East vs West in the NBA.

I would rather have seen something as bad as goal differential against common opponents, or win loss against common opponents. Atleast that tie break does not benefit a team for playing a weaker schedule.