This is by no means official, but from everything I've heard, this is the
tiebreaking procedure used by the ECAC when there is a tie among three or more
teams.
 
The key is, the tiebreakers are used to *eliminate* teams from contending for
the highest seed.  In the case of a two-team tie, it makes very little
difference whether you are using the tiebreakers to award the higher seed to
Team A or to remove Team B from consideration, but it does make a difference
with three or more tied teams.
 
Whenever you eliminate teams from consideration, you don't simply go on to the
next tiebreaker if you still have tied teams left... you start the process over
again with the remaining tied teams.  The aim is not to place team A ahead of
team B in a more-than-two tie if B would be ahead of A in the case that those
were the only two tied.
 
Hopefully, an example will make this clearer.  (Doubtful... this is the
Academic League we're talking about, but anyway...)  Let's consider the
possibility of a four-way tie.  We apply the same tiebreakers as for a two-way
tie (head-to-head record, record against the top four, etc.) and look for teams
to be eliminated from consideration for the highest seed.  Any of four possible
situations can arise from applying a tiebreaker in a four-way tie:
 
1.  The four teams all tie in the tiebreaker.  In this case, we throw up our
hands, cuss a bit, then move on to the next tiebreaker and try again.
 
2.  One team (team A) finishes ahead of the rest (B, C, and D).  This is the
situation we're hoping for, since it means we immediately eliminate B,C, and D
from consideration and award the highest seed to team A.  Then, we start all
over at the beginning of the tiebreaking process to find out which of the
remaining three gets the next highest seed.
 
3.  Two teams (A and B) tie, ahead of the other two (C and D).  C and D are
eliminated from the race for the highest seed, and the second-highest seed as
well.  We start all over with the tiebreakers for A and B, to determine which
of them will get the highest seed and thus which will get the second-highest.
 Once we break that tie, then we start all over with C and D to determine how
the remaining two seeds will be awarded.
 
4.  Three teams (A, B, and C) tie, ahead of D.  As you might guess, this
eliminates D (in effect awarding D the lowest seed), and we start all over with
A, B, and C.
 
As has been noted before, the ECAC's tiebreakers can still produce an
unresolvable loop.  It's possible to have two teams tied for fourth and two
other teams tied for eighth, with the fourth-place tie not resolved after
head-to-head and record against top 4 (uh-oh, the next tiebreaker is record
against top 8 -- better go break that eighth-place tie) and the eighth-place
tie not resolved after head-to-head (uh-oh, the next tiebreaker is record
against top 4... but we don't know who the top 4 are!)  I believe the ECAC's
position on this is "we hope to God it never happens."
 
Isn't this fun?
 
--
Disclaimer -- Unless otherwise noted, all opinions expressed above are
              strictly those of:
 
Bill Fenwick
Cornell '86 and '95                                             DJF  5/27/94
LET'S GO RED!!                                                  JCF  12/2/97
"It's time for Congress to act. The computers do not need a V-chip. The
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   with a lover 1500 miles away.  Traficant went on to warn of the dangers
   of "immaculate reception."
 
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