Permutations, Thursday Update

Team	MAC Losses	Week of 11/10	Week of 11/17	Week of 11/24
Akron	2	Buffalo	@Ohio	@Temple
Buffalo	2	@Akron	@BG	Kent
BG	3		Buffalo	Toledo
Temple	4		EMU	Akron
Miami	5		@Toledo	@Ohio
Kent	4		NIU	@Buffalo
Ohio	5		Akron	@Miami

So, this is where the whole mess starts. Everybody plays the same number of games, so the number of losses will get us to where we need to be. You can look here for the actual tiebreakers, but, for now, we're going to not go any deeper than head-head, and we're not going to figure out what might happen in a four-loss tie.

Scenario #1: BG Wins Out:

• We would need Akron to lose at least once.
  
• Akron has to play Buffalo and Temple.
• If this happens, BG would have 3 losses, as would Buffalo and Akron. These are both teams BG would have beaten, and we would get the tiebreaker.

Now that Miami has five league losses, we don't have to worry about tying them, which is a positive development, since we don't have that tie-breaker. We also don't have to worry about them being in a multi-team tiebreaker either.

The Temple wild card.

There's an additional wild card. We don't play Temple. So, let's say we end up in a tie with Temple. The tie breaker is the record against the next highest ranked team. This can't happen at 3 losses now, and at 4, is likely to be a multi-team tie.

Could BG win the East with 4 losses?

The answer is, uh, yeah, it could happen....actually, all I really did was find one way for it to happen. There may be others. Wins in orange.

Team	MAC Losses	Week of 11/10	Week of 11/17	Week of 11/24
Akron	2	Buffalo	@Ohio	@Temple
Buffalo	2	@Akron	@BG	Kent
BG	3		Buffalo	Toledo
Temple	4		EMU	Akron
Miami	5		@Toledo	@Ohio
Kent	4		NIU	@Buffalo
Ohio	5		Akron	@Miami

You can see what this scenario requires....

That would leave BG, Akron and Buffalo with 4, losses and and everyone else with 5 or more. Based on this scenario, BG would win the tiebreaker.

You know, its not very likely.

Frankly, at this point, the winner of the Buffalo-Akron game is the favorite. And, you can't count Temple or BG out, either.

The 4-loss scenarios do matter...I'm not sure any team on this list can play well enough to win out.