Summer League Playoff Schedule

A number of 'UPA-blessed' six-team tournament schedules are described here. If the Fort Wayne Summer League was a UPA-sanctioned event, we would probably use the 'Six Team Modified Elimination' (Table 6.3). There are some benefits and drawbacks to using that format.

Benefits:

• Every team has exactly the same opportunity to win the tournament.
• At the end of the tournament, every team can be strictly ranked from 1st to 6th place.

Drawbacks:

• The first week, Seed1 and Seed2 have a Bye. Neither team plays. This is boring. The two teams could play each other, if they wished, but the outcome would not affect the tournament in any way.
• The second week, LoserA and LoserB play each other (in MatchG). MatchG determines 5th and 6th place. The third week, LoserA and LoserB have no game to play. This is boring. The two teams could play each other (again!), if they wished, but the outcome would not affect the tournament in any way.

Our Summer League will use the tournament schedule below. The schedule eliminates the two 'dead' games of the UPA six-team tournament, however, there are some significant drawbacks to it.

       WEEK1        WEEK2        WEEK3    

     __Seed1___
               |
              A|___WinnerA__
     __Seed6___|            |
                           D|___WinnerD__
                 __LoserC___|            |
                                         |
                                         |
     __Seed2___                          |
               |                        X|
              B|___WinnerB__             |
     __Seed5___|            |            |
                            |            |
                           E|___WinnerE__|
     __Seed3___             |
               |            |
              C|___WinnerC__|
     __Seed4___|



                ___LoserA___
                            |
                           F|___WinnerF__
                ___LoserB___|            |
                                        Y|
                             ___LoserE___|


                             ___LoserF___
                                         |
                                        Z|
                             ___LoserD___|



Under some circumstances, LoserD, LoserE and LoserF will need
to be rearranged in order to prevent teams replaying each other.

Benefits:

• Every team has a game to play each week of the tournament.
• With the judicious rearrangement of LoserD, LoserE and LoserF, it is always possible to ensure that no team will have to replay a team that they already played in the tournament. (There is one exception to this - MatchX. This exception is described in the last bullet point of the Drawbacks section.)

Drawbacks:

• At the end of the tournament, it is NOT possible to strictly rank teams from 1st to 6th place. Because of this, by definition, the winner of MatchX is the champion. The loser of MatchX is ranked 2nd. Ranking 3rd through 6th place is not always possible, so no provision is made to do so.
• After losing MatchC, LoserC gets re-slotted into the tournament and gets a second shot at winning the tournament. No other team gets this benefit. As a 'penalty', LoserC will (almost certainly) have to play Seed1 (in MatchD).
• If LoserC becomes WinnerD and WinnerC becomes WinnerE, then the championship game will be a rematch of the same teams that played each other in MatchC. (However, regardless of what the outcome of MatchC was, the champion is the winner of MatchX.)

One way of thinking about this tournament format is to think of WEEK1 as a 'pre-tournament' which eliminates two teams from the Playoffs, leaving the top four teams to compete for the championship in WEEK2 and WEEK3.