Tuesday, March 2, 2010

How will the Big Ten tiebreakers shake out?

Right now, the top of the Big Ten looks like this:


Pretty close, right?

It gets worse. Take a look at the remaining schedules:

  • Ohio State: Illinois
  • Purdue: Indiana, at Penn State
  • Michigan State: Penn State, Michigan
I'm sure I am not the only one that expects OSU, Purdue, and MSU to win all five of those games. And if that were to happen, all three teams would be tied at 14-4 atop the Big Ten standings.

So who would be the #1 seed in the Big Ten Tournament?

The tiebreaker goes as follows:
1. Results of head-to-head competition during the regular season.
  • When comparing records against a single team or a group of teams, the higher winning percentage shall prevail, even if the number of games played against the team or group are unequal (i.e., 2-0 is better than 3-1); in the case of tied percentages vs. the team or group of 1.000 or .000 the following shall apply: 2-0 is better than 1-0; 0-1 is better than 0-2.
  • After the top team among the tied teams is determined, the second team is ranked by its record among the original tied teams, not the head-to-head record vs. the remaining team(s).
Purdue and Michigan State split during the regular season, as did Purdue and Ohio State. But Ohio State beat Michigan State in their only match-up this season.

So that means that Ohio State went 2-1 against the other two teams, Purdue went 2-2, and Michigan State went 1-2. If my math is correct, then that means that Ohio State gets the 1 seed, Purdue the 2 seed, and Michigan State the 3 seed.

Make sense?

Good.

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