UPDATED UPDATE:
We’re back to the drawing board on the possibilities of Kent State’s making the MAC Tournament next week. I received this message from Jay Fiorello, KSU’s assistant athletic communications director for women’s basketball.
“I was wrong about how ties with 3+ teams are settled, so disregard previous info. Spoke with Kyle Klein at the MAC, and they are still working through all of the scenarios.”
I don’t blame Jay. The situation is absurdly complicated. Even the people who created the rules haven’t been able to figure it out yet.
STORY FROM LAST NIGHT STARTS HERE
(Tiebreaker computations probably aren’t correct.)
After Kent State’s 69-60 loss to Bowling Green Wednesday, it looks very uncertain about whether the Flashes will make the Mid-American Conference Tournament next week. (Recap of KSU-BG game is at end of this post.)
The Flashes are 9-10 and in ninth place in MAC. Only the top eight teams make the tournament.
Kent State plays Ohio (9-9) at 1 p.m. Saturday at the M.A.C. Center. If KSU wins, it would be 10-10 while Ohio would be 9-10.
But I finally saw the MAC tie-breaker rules for this season about an hour after the game tonight. They’re very complicated and not encouraging for Kent State
Let’s start with this: If KSU loses to Ohio Saturday, it will be 9-11 and out of the tournament. No other team can lose 11 games.
If KSU beats Ohio, it gets complicated — so complicated I spent a couple of hours on it and got a headache. And anything I write is, of course, very unofficial. The MAC will only tell us officially after Saturday’s games.
So here goes this unofficial lesson in tiebreakers:
Because of COVID-19, the MAC adopted an “unbalanced tiebreaker policy” this season.
One of its rules is that if the teams have played an uneven number of games, ties come from the number of wins or the number of losses, not the overall record. So Ohio at 9-10 and Kent State at 10-10 would be considered tied. Three other teams — Bowling Green, Northern Illinois and Western Michigan — could also finish 10-10 and join the tie. It’s possible Ball State could finish 10-9 and join the tie.
The MAC has all sorts of further tiebreaker rules — one set for when two teams tie, another for when more than two teams tie.
If we somehow come down to head-to-head records, Kent State would lose tiebreakers against Bowling Green and Western Michigan and win against Ball State.
The Flashes split with NIU and would split with Ohio if they win Saturday. So the next tiebreaker is a team’s record against the first-place team in the league, then the second-place team, etc. Both NIU and Ohio have beaten higher-ranked teams than Kent State. So the Flashes lose those tiebreakers.
Looking at Saturday’s schedule, it’s almost certain that more than two teams will have 10 wins or 10 losses.
In ties of two or more teams, the MAC says, ranking goes by the record of each team against all other tied teams. For example, KSU’s overall record against Bowling Green, NIU, Ohio and Ball State would be compared with each of those teams’ records against each other and Kent State.
A lot depends on which teams tie. But if KSU and Ohio are in a multi-team tie, the Flashes could have better record. Both teams are currently 3-5 against all teams with a chance of tying.
But the MAC also says, “Once a three-team tie has been reduced to two teams, the two-team tiebreaker will go into effect.” I really have no idea what that means.
Remember KSU loses all those tiebreakers except to Ball State, which would have to lose to 4-15 Eastern Michigan at home on Saturday to fall into the tie. If the Cardinals win, they’re 11-9 and ahead of the pack.
So maybe KSU has a chance of squeaking in. If they do, the Flashes will play regular-season champion Toledo in the MAC quarterfinals. The Flashes lost to Toledo 69-60 in the first league game of the season. They did lead in that game going into the fourth quarter.
Do I trust all my computations? Not really. But it’s the best I could do.
Here are the MAC tie-breaker rules. If you read them differently than I did, let me know.
Below the tie-breakers are details of the KSU’s loss to Bowling Green.
Ties in winning percentage, and thus for tournament, seeding positions shall be broken as follows:
1. Between TWO teams:
A. Head-to-head competition
B. Division Record (10 games)^ (The MAC no longer uses divisions but hasn’t updated its procedures online.)
C. Winning percentage* vs. ranked conference teams (top to bottom, regardless of division, vs. common opponents regardless of the number of times played)
D. Coin flip
2. For MULTIPLE (3 or more) team ties:
E. Total won-lost record/winning percentage* of games played among the tied teams
F. Two (2)-team tie-breaker procedure goes into effect (refer to A)
[NOTE: Once a three-team tie has been reduced to two teams, the two-team tiebreaker will go into effect.]
Wednesday’s game: Bowling Green 69, Kent State 60
A 14-0 Bowling Green run in the second quarter doomed the Flashes.
Kent had led 23-21 after a Nila Blackford layup. But three KSU turnovers and four missed shots later, it was 35-23.
The Flashes managed to close the score to 39-33 by halftime and to 46-44 with three minutes to go in the third quarter. But BG led by between three and eight points for the rest of the game.
“We got to that spot where we were down five, down six, down four, down five, down six,” coach Todd Starkey said in a brief postgame radio interview. “We couldn’t quite get over the top and take the lead.”
2:12 3Q | BG 49, Kent State 47
Lindsey Thall’s record tying 212th career 3-pointer gets the Flashes within 2. Thall has a game-high 20 points.#GoFlashes⚡️ pic.twitter.com/pyPxass0gl
— Kent State Women’s Basketball (@KentStWBB) March 3, 2022
Lindsey Thall led Kent State with 22 points, four assists, two blocks and four 3-point baskets. The 3-pointers gave her 212 for her career, which ties the KSU record set by Larissa Lurken between 2013 and 2017.
Hannah Young was the only other KSU player in double figures with 10 points. Freshman Bridget Dunn had eight points, four steals, two assists and a block. Blackford led KSU in rebounding with six. Casey Santoro had four assists.
Kent State made 42.1% of its shots and 28% of its 3-pointers; BG shot 45.5% and 31.6% from 3-point distance. Statistics were pretty even except for a 14-1 margin for Bowling Green on fast-break points.