The Horizon League is going to be quite a traffic jam
School League Overall 1 UW-Milwaukee 12-4 19-8 2 Butler 11-4 18-10 3 Wright State 8-7 13-13 4 Loyola 7-8 16-10 5 UIC 7-8 14-14 6 Detroit 7-8 14-15 7 UW-Green Bay 7-8 13-15 8 Cleveland State 5-10 10-16 9 Youngstown State 4-11 7-19
In a normal situation, having tie(s) in the middle of the pack is irrelevant, because it only affects first round seeding and who wears home uniforms. In Horizon’s weighted tournament, that third seed is worth a first round bye.
There’s only one game left in conference – zero for UWM, they’re the odd team out this week – so if Wright State wins at UIC, they’ve got the last bye. If not, it comes down to record against teams you’re tied with, and it may get a little messy from there.
They posted an article on the Horizon League site explaining this, and I sorta got confused, and I sorta wanted to figure it out myself. What I did understand is the tiebreaker is head to head record, and best record of the tied group if it’s 3-4-5 way.
Head to Head records for the five teams that could tie.
wins—–>
Wright Loyola UIC Detroit UW-GB Wright - 1 0 1 1 Loyola 1 - 2 1 0 UIC 1 0 - 1 1 Detroit 1 1 1 - 1 UW-GB 1 2 1 1 -
Using those numbers, and the 8 possible outcomes (remember, Wright State has to lose for any of this to matter, and I don’t care about the fourth seed), I walked thru the possibilities.
Wright/UIC Butler/Detroit UWGB/Cleveland Loyola/Youngstown 3rd Seed UIC Butler W-GB Loyola UW-GB UIC Butler W-GB Youngstown UIC UIC Butler Cleveland Loyola Loyola UIC Butler Cleveland Youngstown UIC UIC Detroit W-GB Loyola UW-GB UIC Detroit W-GB Youngstown UIC UIC Detroit Cleveland Loyola Loyola UIC Detroit Cleveland Youngstown UIC
That’s still a bit confusing. Here’s what I think.
Wright State needs: a Wright win. (1/2)
UIC needs: a UIC win and a Youngstown win. (1/4)
Loyola needs: a UIC win and a Loyola win and a Cleveland win. (1/8)
UW-GB needs: a UIC win and a Loyola win and a UW-GB win. (1/8)
Loyola sweeping UIC is the only reason this is more than a two team race; if Loyola wins, UW-GB has one more group win over UIC. Likewise, UW-GB sweeping Loyola makes them reliant on a Cleveland upset.
And the Butler/Detroit game is irrelevant; because Detroit split’s series with everyone, it doesn’t have any advantages when teams drop out of the picture.