Does Stanford Control Their Own Destiny?

by insomniacslounge on Feb 22, 2008 5:21 PM PST

Hopefully this is something we won't have to deal with, but I have a hypothetical question for those in the know:

If Stanford wins out in the Pac-10 and UCLA wins all of their games aside from their remaining matchup with Stanford, then both teams will finish with identical records in Pac-10 play. Since they'll have split their games head-to-head, does anyone know what the next tiebreaker would be to determine who would get the #1 seed in the Pac-10 tournament? If it's record vs better competition (which is how they settle it in the Big East), then we're screwed b/c Stanford swept USC. But I have no idea if that's the same procedure that the Pac 10 uses.

(filler to meet 200 word requirement)
Once again, I hope that UCLA takes care of business and this becomes a moot question. And really, seeding in the Pac-10 tourney is of little significance in the big picture for the Bruins, but for financial (read; gambling) reasons, this has become an important issue to me in the last few weeks; and I now I need to decide if I want to do some hedging during Stanford's last few games. Thanks.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of BruinsNation's (BN) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of BN's editors.

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If we lose to Furd under these . . .

circumstances then we deserve second place.

by charnaw on Feb 22, 2008 6:18 PM PST reply actions

I looked up the tiebreaker rules

Short answer: Probably.

Long answer: Here are the tiebreaker rules from the Pac-10's preseason media guide: (They are on page 51 on the PDF file.)

Two-team tie

a. Results of head-to-head competition during the regular season.
b. Each team's record vs. the team occupying the highest position in the final regular standings, and then continuing down through the standings until one team gains an advantage.
When arriving at another group of tied teams while comparing records, use each team's record against the collective tied teams as a group (prior to that group's own tie-breaking procedure), rather than the performance against individual tied teams.
c. Won-lost percentage against all Division I opponents.
d. Coin toss conducted by the Commissioner or designee.

So what does this all mean?

As described in the diary, if Stanford and UCLA finish tied at 15-3 (UCLA wins out except for loss to Stanford, Stanford wins out), they would finish 1-1 against each other. So it goes to tiebreaker b. above.

Right now, USC (who UCLA lost to) has seven Pac-10 wins, one more than Oregon (Stanford loss), Arizona State (Stanford) or Washington (UCLA). If that holds up, Stanford would get the #1 seed via the tiebreaker because Stanford would have gone 2-0 vs. USC, compared to UCLA's 1-1.

If that doesn't happen, and any of these teams finish alone ahead of USC, here's what would happen.

ORE finishes ahead of USC, ASU & UW: UCLA gets #1 seed
ASU finishes ahead of ORE, USC & UW: UCLA gets #1 seed
UW finishes ahead of USC, ORE, & ASU: Stanford gets #1 seed

If there's a two-way tie between two of these teams ahead of the other two teams:

USC/UW tie ahead of ASU/ORE: Stanford gets #1 seed (Stan 4-0 against them, UCLA 2-2)
ORE/ASU tie ahead of USC/UW: UCLA gets #1 seed (UCLA 4-0 against them, Stan 2-2)
ORE/USC tie ahead of ASU/UW: No tie broken, advance to next highest team (UCLA & Stan 3-1 against them)
ORE/UW tie ahead of ASU/USC: No tie broken, advance to next highest team (UCLA & Stan 3-1 against them)
USC/ASU tie ahead of ORE/UW: No tie broken, advance to next highest team (UCLA & Stan 3-1 against them)
ASU/UW tie ahead of USC/ORE: No tie broken, advance to next highest team (UCLA & Stan 3-1 against them)

If advancing to the next team above, the other two teams are not tied, go to my first scenario to break the tie. If the remaining two teams are tied as well, then to break the UCLA/Stanford tie, you would have go to to tiebreaker c., in which case they'd still be tied (even though UCLA would be 27-4 to Stanford's 26-4, one of UCLA's win was against a non Div-I opponent, so they'd both be 26-4.) A coin toss would ensue as it says in tiebreaker d.

If UCLA-Stanford are tied and three of the four teams they've lost to are tied ahead of the 4th team, here are the scenarios:

USC/ORE/ASU tied ahead of UW: UCLA gets #1 seed (UCLA 5-1 vs. them, Stan 4-2)
USC/ORE/UW tied ahead of USC: Stan gets #1 seed (Stan 5-1 vs. them, UCLA 4-2)
USC/ASU/UW tied ahead of ORE: Stan gets #1 seed (Stan 5-1 vs. them, UCLA 4-2)
ASU/ORE/UW tied ahead of USC: UCLA gets #1 seed (UCLA 5-1 vs. them, Stan 4-2)

If all four are tied, then both UCLA and Stanford would have gone 6-2 against them. In tiebreaker c., both teams would have 26-4 records against all Division I opponents, so a coin toss would occur.

Keep in mind that in all these scenarios, it doesn't matter if Arizona (six wins) or Cal (also six wins) finish tied with any of these teams, since UCLA and Stanford would have finished 2-0 against all of them (again, in this scenario).

That's all, folks. If that's not the longest comment on the history of this site, I don't know what is.

by gilbert on Feb 22, 2008 8:08 PM PST reply actions