clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Boston College Baseball: Explaining the ACC Tiebreaker Procedures

It's only slightly less complicated than BASEketball.

By Electric Boogaloo
Carl Court/Getty Images

With the entire ACC baseball postseason picture jammed solid heading into the season's final weekends, figuring out who finishes where to qualify for Durham could be easier said than done.

The league seeds its teams by winning percentage and not by a traditional games behind model, hypothetically ensuring that teams don't lose ground by not playing games. That works in theory, but remember that a win or loss makes up a bigger piece of the pie based on a smaller amount of games played. That means two teams may have the same "games behind" number, but a team with more games played finishes ahead or behind.

Using winning percentage minimizes the impact of needing tiebreaker scenarios. But in the event that you need some help determining where your team might finish, here's how the ACC seeds its teams. Bear in mind that the coin flip should really be replaced with a potato sack race.

Division champions automatically earn the top two seeds

Whoever wins their division is automatically slotted as one of the top two seeds. The better of the two division winners earns the top seed in pool play, which allows them to have the choice of a preferred day off.

It does mean that a team with the second best record in the ACC may not finish as the first or second seed. If the second place team in the Atlantic Division has a better record than the Coastal Division champion, it doesn't matter; the Coastal Division champion gets the second seed.

Seeds 3-10 are determined by winning percentage

Self explanatory based on what I mentioned above.

When two teams are tied in the same division

1) Head-to-head competition between the two teams.
2) Better divisional record of the two teams within their respective division
3) Head-to-head record against the next team from the division with the best overall conference record, continuing through the entire division.
4) Head-to-head record against the teams from the other division, continuing through the entire division.
5) Coin flip

When three teams are tied and they're all from the same division:

1) Combined head-to-head among the tied teams.
2) Divisional records of the tied teams
3) Each team's head-to-head record against the next team from the division with the best overall conference record, continuing through the entire division.
4) Overall record versus the other division.
5) Combined record versus all common non-divisional opponents
6) Record versus common non-divisional opponents with the best overall conference record, then proceeding through all other common non-divisional opponents.
7) Three team draw.

When two teams are tied and they're from different divisions:

1) Head-to-head records against one another
2) Head-to-head record against common opponents. Common opponents are seeded for this procedure by winning percentage, from best to worst.
3) Coin flip.

When three teams are tied and they're from different divisions:

1) Combined head-to-head record among tied teams (if all three are common opponents)
2) Head-to-head record against common opponents from the better division, as determined by conference winning percentage.
3) Coin flip.

More From BC Interruption