Division I Playoff Seatings - The "Great Eight"
Submitted by walax on Mon, 2006-05-08 14:30.
Features
With all the hoopla surrounding the Division I playoffs, here is a little help navigating the options, and why some of seeding works the way it does. Here is how the “Great Eight” is established and where your favorite team sits at the tourney table.
Lets start with the game to get in. Thursday, we will see either Mercer or Bellevue play against Curtis or Vashon, but it will most likely be Curtis as long as Vashon handles Maple Valley as they did earlier in the year. Curtis will have to beat both Lakeside AND Garfield with a Vashon loss to make the cut.
If Mercer Island beats Bellevue, Mercer will not have to play the “play in” game. Bellevue will have to play Curtis, a team they beat 11-1 earlier in the season. If Mercer loses to Bellevue by any number of goals, it will be Mercer playing the Sound third seat. Barring unforeseen accidents of nature, this will be . Once this happens, all remaining teams (top 3 in Metro, top 2 in Mountain, top 2 in Sound and the winner of the play in game) will ALL BE SEEDED BASED ON OVERALL RECORD.
For more information, see the WHSBLA notes on playoff structure for Division I and Division II: http://www.whsbla.org/docs/2006-allignment-and-playoffs.pdf
Now, let’s cover the rest, and we will finalize the “Great Eight”…
- Bainbridge will possess the top spot uncontested. Though the loss to MI may have damaged pride, it has no effect on their playoff picture. In fact, what will happen is, we may see Mercer travel to BI for the first round for a little rematch.
- So, with the loss to Mercer Island on Friday, an unpredictable and huge upset, Garfield is still tied for first with Bainbridge, and will finish second if all things go as they should with BI beating Roosevelt and Garfield having already beaten Curtis on Sunday. Even with the same final records, Garfield will take second thanks to the 9-4 head to head victory Bainbridge has over Garfield.
- Mountain title holder Issaquah, will take the third playoff seat at the table with a 12-3 record. With losses to Bellevue, Bainbridge and Garfield, Issy holds the top spot though an even draw with Bellevue on tie-breaker, thanks to beating Mercer Island. Strangely for Bellevue, the first game tossed Issy a 5-3 loss, while the second game gave Bellevue a 6-4 loss, but again, the exact same goal differential in the wins.
- Bellevue or Mercer Island have this spot. If Bellevue can take one from Mercer, Mercer will have to play in the “play in” or “pig tail” game to get ranked amongst the other 7 teams in the “Great Eight”. If Mercer wins, they will have an 11-5 record, the same as Bellevue, but will have beaten them twice avoiding a tie-break. Bellevue has only to win, not win by the differential of the first MI vs. Bellevue game of 9 points.
- This will be the sorted loser of the Bellevue vs. Mercer game and the team playing against Curtis or the third seat in
- Vashon will take the second seat for the Sound and sit in the sixth seat based on total overall record as long as there are no surprises next week.
- For certain, Seattle Prep will pull the seventh seat uncontested as the second place team in the Metro division. Prep will draw a division champion for their first game, we will cover this in the brackets.
- Metro team number three will be Lakeside. Lakeside sneaks into the playoffs as the last seat at the table courtesy of being third in the conference, not because of their overall record. Lakeside will be a playoff team with a 3-10 record, and jump over the “buy in” game to be seated in the eighth seat.
With that, here is what the most likely picture will turn out to be:
|
Conference
|
Team
|
In-Conference
|
Seed
|
|
Sound
|
1
|
1
|
|
|
Metro
|
1
|
2
|
|
|
Mountain
|
2
|
3
|
|
|
Mountain
|
3
|
4
|
|
|
Mountain
|
2
|
5
|
|
|
Sound
|
2
|
6
|
|
|
Metro
|
2
|
7
|
|
|
Metro
|
3
|
8
|
See the Brackets to follow your teams through to the Championship
