mrjames
Professor
Posts: 6062
Loc: Montclair, NJ
Reg: 11-21-04
|
02-17-19 01:38 PM - Post#276989
In response to rbg
Dusted off the simulator this morning and the number one thing that popped out to me was how likely ties are to be a factor in the Ivy tourney - and not just a simple tie for fourth and fifth.
In 41% of simulations there's a tie for the last spot, but in only 24% of simulations is the tie exclusively between fourth and fifth place. That leaves 17% of sims where three (or more) teams are tied in a situation where at least one will be left out. The most common is a tie for fourth, fifth and sixth (10%), while a tie for third, fourth and fifth is next most at 6%. There is a 1% chance of a crazy tie between third, fourth, fifth and sixth.
That obviously brings into play the oft-maligned Ivy tiebreaker rules, which despite being widely discussed, haven't actually been used to break a fourth-place tie yet (but were used to break the first-place tie for seeding and NIT purposes last year).
Right now the odds have Yale as having a 97% chance to be a top two seed (I have them at 77% to be the one-seed). And Harvard is at ~80% to be a top two seed. At the same time, Columbia and Dartmouth have essentially zero chance of making the tourney. So, we can focus on what the breakers mean for that middle group of four vying for two spots.
If there's a sweep between two teams, things are pretty simple. From there, we need to analyze top wins.
So, right now, Princeton is in the best shape, having sealed the tie-breaker with Penn (and thus being effectively up three games) and having an early leg up in the tiebreaker with Cornell with the road win. It would need to beat Brown at home to have a shot at that tie-breaker. At the same time, the Tigers have zero wins against Harvard and Yale to help with the second tie-breaker (best win).
Cornell is in the next-best shape with wins over Penn and Brown AND a win over Harvard. That means if the Crimson stays in the top two, the Bears can, at best, tie the Big Red for the first two tie-breakers (beating Cornell AND Harvard to match Cornell's win) and Penn would need to beat Yale or Harvard as well as taking the return from the Big Red. Cornell did have the loss to Princeton at home and is in danger of losing that tiebreak.
Penn is in okay shape. The tiebreaker with Princeton is obviously lost, so it is effectively 3 games behind the top three. And its best shot at the tiebreaker with Cornell would require not only beating the Big Red but taking down Yale at home during the final weekend of the year. That being said, winning a game that would tilt the tiebreak back in its favor is probably necessary to getting into a tie for fourth anyway.
Brown is in the worst shape, needing to win the return by Cornell AND matching its best win to have a shot at that tie-breaker and needing to win at Penn to have a shot at that tie-breaker. It does have the early leg up over Princeton, but if Princeton holds serve at home next weekend, the odds of catching the Tigers even with a sweep that would secure the tie-breaker would diminish greatly.
The race should be pretty wild. Princeton is leaking oil as opponent three-point shooting has regressed to the mean making the Tigers' defense look pretty human, exposing an anemic offense. With the tiebreaker situation, though, if Princeton wins Friday, it'll be hard to catch. If not, Saturday becomes a must win with the closing schedule the Tigers have.
Penn and Brown have to sweep and should be favored in all of their games (Harvard-Brown might be close to a pick).
Meanwhile, Cornell, which won't be less than a 6 or so point dog in any game over the next two weekends could easily find itself at 5-7... BUT it likely only needs one upset over those four games (especially if it's at Penn) to be in very good shape.
Oh yeah... and the tourney odds I got:
Yale - 99.9%
Harvard - 99%
Princeton - 87%
Cornell - 40%
Penn - 35%
Brown - 34%
Dartmouth - 3%
Columbia - 0%
Edited by mrjames on 02-17-19 01:40 PM. Reason for edit: No reason given.
|
