Okay, just when you thought the ECAC couldn't get any wackier... Not
only is it possible for the season to finish with a six-way tie for
third place, but there are multiple ways if could happen, with six
different possible resolutions of the tiebreakers, depending on how we
get there. All of these possibilities involve Clarkson, Dartmouth,
Harvard, RPI, Cornell and Princeton all ending up at exactly .500.
With Cornell and Harvard entering the weekend a game below .500 and
the others all already there, we need Cornell and Harvard to have
three-point weekends, Clarkson to tie their only game, and everyone
else to get two points in their two games. This can happen in the
following way:
-- Clarkson ties Dartmouth
-- Dartmouth ties SLU
-- either
Harvard ties Union
(A) RPI def Brown
Harvard def RPI
or
Harvard def Union
(B) RPI ties Brown
Harvard ties RPI
-- either
Cornell ties Yale
(1) Princeton def Colgate
Cornell def Princeton
or
Cornell def Yale
(2) Princeton ties Colgate
Cornell ties Princeton
That makes four different combinations, but in some cases, the record
vs top 10 tiebreaker is needed, so the result of the Union-Brown game
is also relevant to determine which of those teams is in tenth place.
The possible orderings are as follows:
A1: If Brown def Union, Da Cr Ck Pn RP Ha
otherwise, Da Cr Ck Pn Ha RP
A2: Pn Da Cr Ck Ha RP
B1: Da RP Cr Ck Pn Ha
B2: If Brown def Union, Pn RP Da Cr Ck Ha
otherwise, Pn Da RP Cr Ck Ha
To see how this works out with all the tiebreakers, use the ECAC
Playoff Possibilities Script at
http://www.slack.net/~whelan/cgi-bin/tbrw.cgi?ecac.cgi
(You didn't think I worked all this out by hand, did you?)
John Whelan, Cornell '91
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http://www.amurgsval.org/joe/
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