Results of the tiebreaker

Women's Sports Women's Basketball
1

I went out to eat with friends after the game and then drove home and I looked at the MAC website, The MAC discussion website ( which includes the tiebreaker rules and the way it has been interpreted in the past), and the MURedHawks.com. Nobody had the results. So I just set down and figured it out.

Here are the final standings without doing the tiebreakers:

Toledo 16-2
BG 14-4
BS 14-4
KS 12-6
NIU 8-10
AK 8-10
EMU 7-11
WM 7-11
UB 7-11
MU 7-11
CM 4-14
OU 4-14

So we are in a 4 way tie for places 7,8,9, and 10. Here are how 4 way ties are broken. For 7th place , you see who had the best record against the other 3 teams you are tied with, so:

EMU 1-0 vs MU, 1-1 vs UB, 2-0 vs WM
WM 0-2 vs EMU, vs MU 0-1, vs UB 1-1
UB 1-1 vs WM, vs EMU 1-1, vs MU 1-1
MU 0-1 vs EMU, 1-0 vs WM, 1-1 vs UB

So Eastern is 4-1, Western is 1-4, UB is 3-3, MU is 2-2
Therefore Eastern gets 7th place

Now there is a 3 way tie for 8th place and we see who had the best record between Buffalo, Miami, and Western

Buffalo 1-1 vs MU, 1-1 vs WM
WM 0-1 vs MU, 1-1 vs UB
Miami 1-0 vs WM, 1-1 vs UB

So Miami is 2-1, Buffalo is 2-2, and Western is 1-2
Thus Miami gets the #8 seed!!!

I am not bothering with any of the other seeds and tiebreakers, they do not effect us. We play #1 Toledo at 11:00 on Wednesday morning in Cleveland. And the men play #1 Toledo at 11:00 on Thursday morning in Cleveland.

So do #8 seeds ever beat #1 seeds? I have seen it happen several times in both the mens and women’s tournament. Twice Miami men have knocked off the #1 seed.

Of course, this is not official, but as far as I know it is correct. We are 3 wins from being MAC champs and playing in the NCAA tournament.

2

Thanks, Dick. I had absolutely no clue.

3

Dick - a few minutes after we left BW3,
the MAC website put up the bracket, and they gave the 8 seed to Buffalo.

Miami is out.

4

Oh no. Crap. Then the information on how to interpret the tiebreakers on the MAC board was incorrect. That is even more depressing.

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5

My understanding is that the first tiebreaker is head to head record among tied teams. That puts EMU at 7 and WMU at 10. Since Buffalo and Miami are tied for 8th, you move on to the two team tiebreaker with those teams. First tiebreaker is head to head, which is also tied. The next tiebreaker is record against conference opponents in descending order, which apparently gives Buffalo the 8 seed and leaves Miami out.

6

I’m shocked we won as many games as we did this year. I thought maybe 5-7 max . Because, no bench. So not shocked how it all ended. But shows there’s some talent for sure. This program could easily be top 50. It’s in a good conference for women’s hoops and in a recruiting hotbed. I bet the AD knows all this.

7

If you look at the MAC board, you will see that I asked on Friday which of the two methods would be used to determine the 8th place team and the two guys who answered both said it was the way I did it above, so I guess they were wrong. You can’t really tell just by reading the MAC rules.

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