SoCal trying to one-up NorCal with inappropriate use of unflighted round-robin

schmke

Legend
I just learned (and wrote about on my blog) about SoCal using unflighted round-robin for their Tri-Level Sectionals for the 3.0/3.5/4.0 women's event.

It appears there are 13 teams and since that couldn't be split into even flights, they went this route. That is fine, unflighted round-robin can work well, but to be fair and avoid controversial standings, enough matches need to be played. Unfortunately, SoCal has scheduled each team to play only 2 matches!

That means there could be 5 or 6 teams finish undefeated, and with just 4 advancing 1 or 2 teams without a loss could be sent home. And with only 6 courts played total in the round-robin, the chances of ties are high either for the last undefeated spot or at 1-1 if there are 3 or fewer undefeated teams. And then we have flawed tie-breakers being used. Consider, as many as 11 teams tied at 1-1 (and 9 tied at 1-1 is entirely reasonable at 25%) and all of those teams having to have court records of 4-2, 3-3, or 2-4, and you can see some tricky tie-breaking.

Way to go SoCal, gotta find a way to one-up NorCal's ineptitude?
 
Why do Tri-level for only 2 team matches anyways?

And is your NorCal comment about the recent Tri-level or something else? (Just curious as a NorCal guy)
 

schmke

Legend
Why do Tri-level for only 2 team matches anyways?

And is your NorCal comment about the recent Tri-level or something else? (Just curious as a NorCal guy)
Two matches seems like very few, regardless of the format, to decide who advances at Sectionals. But they have some 3-team flights for other Tri-Level events that also have just two matches, but more clearly can decide a flight winner to advance.

The NorCal comment is regarding Districts there this year where they used unflighted round-robin to take the top-4 teams in the standings to Sectionals, ... and had five undefeated teams at one level/gender so one did not advance to Sectionals despite not losing a team match at Districts. NorCal brought it on themselves by doing unflighted round-robin with 22(!) teams and having them only play 3 matches.

The simulation says NorCal's 22 teams and 3 matches is more egregious than the 13 teams and 2 matches, but both are not exactly an equitable way to decide who should advance.
 

MarinaHighTennis

Hall of Fame
Two matches seems like very few, regardless of the format, to decide who advances at Sectionals. But they have some 3-team flights for other Tri-Level events that also have just two matches, but more clearly can decide a flight winner to advance.

The NorCal comment is regarding Districts there this year where they used unflighted round-robin to take the top-4 teams in the standings to Sectionals, ... and had five undefeated teams at one level/gender so one did not advance to Sectionals despite not losing a team match at Districts. NorCal brought it on themselves by doing unflighted round-robin with 22(!) teams and having them only play 3 matches.

The simulation says NorCal's 22 teams and 3 matches is more egregious than the 13 teams and 2 matches, but both are not exactly an equitable way to decide who should advance.
The NorCal director is dumb
 

esgee48

G.O.A.T.
No, not dumb, but very math inept. More teams, fewer matches can/will yield more ties. This means they have to think thru the implications and have sensible tiebreakers. Obviously if you are math inept, so not sure if the tiebreaker sequence is/will be fair.
 
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