Montana's men's basketball victory over Northern Colorado on Saturday has resulted lots of inquiries into the Big Sky's tie-breaking procedure.
Below, you'll find the entire tiebreaking procedure, exactly as it appears in the Big Sky Conference Code.
Lots are people are wondering who will gain the No. 1 seed and the right to host the Big Sky semifinals and championship if Montana and Northern Colorado both win their remaining conference games.
Well, we'd have to decide that tiebreaker by RPI.
Northern Colorado and Montana split their regular-season meetings, so we can't break it that way. We also would not be able to break it by performance against the conference teams. Once again If Northern Colorado and Montana win out, the teams would have identical records against the other seven Sky teams. Both would have split meetings against Weber State and Northern Arizona, and both would have swept Idaho State, Eastern Washington, Montana State, Portland State and Sacramento State.
Now, if both were to lose again, we would be able to break the tie without going to RPI.
Weber State also isn't out of the hunt to host. If the Wildcats were to win out and tie Northern Colorado and Montana at 12-4, Weber State stands a good chance to win the tiebreaker thanks to a sweep of Northern Arizona.
Stay tuned. There is a lot of basketball to be played between now and the end of the season, and there are no easy road victories.
1. Head to Head Competition
a. Consider the head-to-head record during the Conference season. In double round-robin play, a team would have to sweep the
b. In the case of more than two tied teams, consider the conference regular-season record for head-to-head competition among all of the tied teams. This process is used to break ties between any of the tied teams with any remaining tied teams returning to the process at criteria 1.a.
Example: Teams A, B, C, and D have identical records from a double round robin season. In head-to-head competition, team A emerges with a 4-2 record against the other tied teams, team B and C have a 3-3 record and team D has a 2-4 record. Teams A and D can be placed in the final standings at that point, while teams B and C return to criteria 1.a. If B and C have split their regular Conference season games, they will move to criteria 2, performance against other teams in descending order.
c. In the case of three or more teams having identical win-loss records, the normal tie-breaking procedure would be used. When one or more of these teams is eliminated by using the tie-breaking procedure, the remaining teams involved would then return to the criteria listed in a. to break the tie. This will be done until a team is established for that particular seeding position.
2. Performance Against Conference Teams
This will be determined in descending order of finish, beginning with the No. 1 team. (Example: Teams B and C remained tied after head-to-head criteria from above. Team A has been declared the Conference champion based on the above criteria. Team B has split the conference season games with team A, and team C has lost both of the conference games to team A. Team B is now placed in second place ahead of team C.)
3. RPI rating
4. Coin Toss
Note: In all tie-breaking procedures, if more than one tie exists, the tie among/between the teams lower in descending order will be broken first, to facilitate the process of breaking the tie between/among teams higher in the order. (Example: Teams A and B are tied for first and second, and teams C and D are tied for fourth and five. All tied teams have split the regular conference season with their tied opponents. Teams C and D both have a 1-3 combined record vs. teams A and B. Team C has beaten team A, and D has beaten team B. Assuming all previous tiebreakers are the same, teams C and D will have their placing decided by their RPI ranking first (Criteria 3), and the teams A and B enter the tie-breaking procedures.).
Jon Kasper - Big Sky Conference
