Saturday, October 15, 2022

Rain in Arizona wreaks havoc with the 18 & Over 4.0 schedule

As I write this, it is raining in Arizona and the 18 & Over 4.0 events are woefully behind schedule.  In fact, with the forecast for rain to continue into the evening the players have been told there will be no more matches today and a plan will be communicated at 8pm tonight.

The men only had 5 matches completed this morning and it appears none of the women's matches have been completed.  The question now is how to finish?

It is unlikely they can come up with a schedule or format that allows completing all of the matches for all the teams.  And those that are 0-2, 0-3, or 1-2 likely aren't terribly interested in sticking around and changing travel plans.

My suggestion would be to figure out a way to reasonably identify the four best teams with the minimum additional matches played.

For the men, there are two 3-0 teams, SoCal and Eastern, and with only two other 2-0 teams, the 3-0 teams should be in the semis.  The two 2-0 teams, Intermountain and Mid-Atlantic, are certainly candidates for selection, but given the standings, there is really just one other team, Florida, who would have an argument to be considered with them.  Florida is 2-1 and 11-4 on courts and it is possible that if Intermountain or Mid-Atlantic lost 4-1, they'd be tied with Florida and the tie could be broken.  None of the other teams are or can get to 2-1 and 11-4.  NorCal, Caribbean, and Midwest could each get to 2-1 but Caribbean has already lost a court vs Mid-Atlantic so they'd be at best 9-6 on courts, and NorCal and Midwest could get to 10-5 on courts so are already eliminated as Florida and Mid-Atlantic are already ahead of that.

So, I'd suggest Mid-Atlantic finish their match with Caribbean to see if they can win another court and be ahead of Florida.  If they do, or they finish tied at 2-1 / 11-4, the standings tie-breaker is used to break the tie and whoever wins that gets the 3rd semi spot.

It is trickier with Intermountain.  Their third match was to be against Eastern and it isn't really fair to make Eastern play a fourth match.  Unless you want to make the Eastern/Intermountain match a way to make IM play a third match and be a "play-in" match to make the top-4.  I don't really like this idea.

What might be better is to have Intermountain play any other team, say Hawaii since that was to be their fourth match, and as soon as they win two courts they are in, or if they only win one court the tie-breaker with Florida and/or Mid-Atlantic is done.

One last option would be to take the standings as is and take the top-5 and two of them play a play-in match to make the semis.  You could have Intermountain and Mid-Atlantic play since they are the ones with just two matches needing a third to be fairly compared with the teams ahead of them.  Or have Florida play in the play-in as they have a loss vs Eastern as they have the most courts lost.

Or, one other idea.  Take the top-8 in the standings right now and do quarterfinals.  This would add 2-1 teams Southern, Northern, and New England.  This is a bit unfair to the 1-1 teams that didn't have a chance to get to 2-1, but those teams had no shot making the top four or five under the above options.  Or you could try to play/complete the matches for the 1-1 teams first thing in the morning and then take the top eight to the quarterfinals.

The women is a different story with none completed.  I'll write another blog on them shortly.


Update: Here is my best idea.

Plan to take the top-8 to the quarterfinals.

To get the top-8 as fairly as possible, you need the 1-1 teams to play/finish their 3rd matches.

Mid-Atlantic and Caribbean already started, have them finish.  Mid-Atlantic is already in the top-8, but Caribbean could find their way in if they win.

NorCal and Hawaii is I think already started, have them finish.  NorCal could find their way into the top-8

Texas and Midwest is I think already started, have them finish.  Both are 1-1 and could find their way in.

That is it, once those are finished, take the top-8 in the standings to quarterfinals.  Use short set/fast-four format for the quarters and semis, if time allows, use normal sets for the final.

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