The 4.0 women have two 4-0 teams in Midwest and Texas with Florida and PNW joining them at 3-1. PNW was tied with Southern at 3-1 / 12-8 but won the tie-breaker on fewer games lost. Close!
The simulation had PNW and Texas as favorites, and Midwest and Florida as contenders, so pretty spot on. The simulation even said a 3-1 / 12-8 record would make the semis which is what it took.
The 4.0 men also have two 4-0 teams in Texas and Eastern, and two 3-1 teams in New England and Mid-Atlantic. In the last match on Saturday, MOValley had a chance to go 5-0 and tie Mid-Atlantic but wasn't able to. Interestingly, Eastern went 4-0 but had the worst court record at 13-7 of the four semi-finalists. They found a way to win team matches. And New England went 3-1 but had the best court record at 16-4, their one loss 3-2 to Eastern on one court being an upset. And these two will play again in one of the semi-finals.
The simulation had New England as a favorite, and Texas having a chance, but Eastern and Mid-Atlantic were surprises. Kudos to them for coming through.
The 4.5 women have just one 4-0 team in Intermountain, and there were six 3-1 teams for three spots with Florida, SoCal, and Southern getting them, but Southern was tied on courts at 12-8 with PNW and Texas and won the tie-breaker losing fewer sets as well has beating PNW head to head 3-2.
The simulation had Florida and Intermountain as favorites and they came through, and SoCal had a chance, with Southern being the surprise.
Last, the 4.5 men have two 4-0 teams in Florida and Middle States, with NorCal and Eastern filling out the semis at 3-1 beating out three other teams with Eastern having to get it on fewer sets lost being tied with PNW at 13-7 on courts. I'd said a team that was 1-1 after day one would make the semis even though there were six 2-0 teams, that team was Eastern and they came through.
The simulation picked Florida, NorCal, and Eastern as favorites and Middle States as a contender, so another basically perfect prediction as they were the top-4 teams most likely to make the semis.
Congratulations to the teams, and good luck on Sunday!
Thanks for these updates Kevin! Seems like there is a big strength of schedule difference between the semifinalists and the just missed 3-1 teams like PNW. Do you know if the tournament organizers have a scheduling philosophy that favors some teams over others? Or are teams paired against one another randomly?
ReplyDeleteSchedules are advertised as random given the "random round-robin" naming. How exactly they do the random selection I don't know. I think I've looked for trends in the pairings in the past and there wasn't any obvious section A plays section B a lot trend, and with truly random you would expect to see some harder/easier schedules and we do. Could they look at strength of team and try to make the schedules more balanced? Yes, but I don't think they do.
Delete