Arkansas State, South Alabama, Troy and James Madison finished in a four-way tie for first place in the Sun Belt. The unusual result creates the most chaotic conference tournament bracket in college basketball.
Only two of the four teams get a major advantage next week even though they all share the same record.
I want to start this discussion with a breakdown of the conference tournament format. It was introduced in October to actively prevent Cinderella runs. While that might sound counterintuitive, because everybody loves a good college basketball Cinderella, the goal is to protect the Sun Belt from getting exposed on the national level. Or, if you want to look at it differently, the goal is to give the Sun Belt its best opportunity to compete on the national level.
The Sun Belt Conference Tournament bracket is wild!
Each of the top-two seeds in the conference will get a by all the way to the the semifinals. The bottom-four finishers, seeds 11-14, will have to win seven-straight games in seven-straight days to earn a bid to the Big Dance. The No. 1 and No. 2 seed will have to win only two-straight games in two-straight days.
This format all-but guarantees that one of the Sun Belt’s best four teams wins an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. It makes it remarkably difficult for a team that finished with only three wins, like Louisiana-Monroe, to make March Madness. That gives the conference its best opportunity to pull an upset in the first round of the Big Dance and potentially make a run.
However, this year’s regular season standings made the bracket as chaotic as possible. Four different teams finished in first place at 13-5. Only two get a free pass to the semifinals. The other two are forced to play an additional game in the quarterfinals. It was decided by a series of tiebreakers:
A. Highest win-loss percentage of the tied teams against each other is first considered.
— Sun Belt Conference
B. Each teams’ win-loss percentage vs. the team occupying the highest position in the final regular-season standings, and then continuing down through the standings until one teams gains an advantage.
C. 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.
D. If there is still a tie, the seeded position of the teams will be determined by a draw conducted by the Sun Belt Conference Commissioner.
E. For all ties of three or more teams, the progression of the tiebreaker shall be followed until the highest seed amongst the tied is determined. If one team falls out of contention for the higher seed, the remaining teams will continue down the tiebreaker until a higher seed is determined. Once the highest seed is determined, said team is removed from the pool of tied team and the tie of the remaining tied teams is broken by starting over from the beginning of the applicable tie-breaker.
South Alabama finished as the No. 1 seed. James Madison clinched the No. 2 seed. Troy got pushed down to No. 3. Arkansas State closed at No. 4.
Competition gets underway on Tuesday. The Sun Belt Conference Tournament is the most bizarre bracket in college basketball and the funniest outcome would be a Cinderella run!
The post Sun Belt Basketball Tournament Bracket Is Completely Insane After Four-Way Tie For First Place appeared first on BroBible.
Sun Belt Basketball Tournament Bracket Is Completely Insane After Four-Way Tie For First Place
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