I wrote yesterday about the possibility of there being five undefeated teams for two advancing spots at this weekend's Florida 18 & Over Mixed Sectionals in the 9.0 flight.
I think it was pretty clear the issue, that having two pods play matches against other pods but not within the pod is a recipe for disaster. But I've created a diagram to explicitly show it.
You can see there are clearly two groups of five teams that play against the other five, but not each other.
While this is a simple format to create, it clearly won't select the top two teams very well. Since none of the top group or bottom group play each other, it is possible for all the teams in one group or the other to end up 4-0, and thus my simulation saying that is possible.
Now, if there are strong teams in both pods, the chances of it occurring may not be that large, but if you have the strong teams all in one pod, it can be very likely to happen.
In this case, the top row has, by my ratings, four of the bottom five rated teams while the bottom row has four of the top five rated teams. Thus the fairly high likelihood that three or more teams finish 4-0 and one or more of them get left out.
I don't know if someone at Florida came up with this way of doing "random" opponents, or if this was what National advised, but it clearly isn't the best way to do things.
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