Bracket-gate

[29dad]

I never complain about tournament brackets... until now. Ok, here's my beef. Big, important (final qualifier) 14A tournament this weekend with 31 teams. Brackets are publicly posted at 11am on tuesday. i print the brackets and kind of study the teams, figuring out DD's team's chances.. all that fun stuff. Two hours later the brackets are "revised." Apparently game times had to be changed due to additions in the overall tournament field (but not in the 14A division). Game times were changed, but the matchups remained EXACTLY the same (no additions or deletions from the field). Exactly the same except for one thing - a powerhouse team from the upper half of the bracket was moved to the lower half of the bracket and replaced by a lesser team from the lower bracket.

So my question is this - does that seem right to you? One added fact is this - the "host" team was on a collision course with that powerhouse team in the second round. Now they don't have to face them until the finals. Does this at all suggest influence and/or favoritism, or is this type of thing common and perhaps a complete coincidence? Curious to get the softball community's response to this. Thanks.

 

[BaldNBeautiful]

29Dad you have probably scabs off of ALOT of wounds by bringing this up!
Unfortunately politics will always enter into the equation, especially when pools and brackets are set up.

 

[WinThemAll]

I hate it when that happens!!! I think it is common, but in poor taste. I can't stand it when no thought what so ever goes into the bracket and pool play.

Is it double elimination?

 

[29dad]

I hate it when that happens!!! I think it is common, but in poor taste. I can't stand it when no thought what so ever goes into the bracket and pool play.

Is it double elimination?

It is double elimination. Here is the response I got from the tournament director:

Fact is we didnt compare the brackets. We didnt have time. We had to add more teams that were left out of the tournament. There are three tournaments in the 14 category. All three are in the same bracket builder file in the all pro software we use. Two of the tournaments in [city name deleted] use two locations and teams move between complexes. The addition of the six teams moved the tournamnet start from zSat to Friday night. The files did not save when we re-did the brackets. We used our team lists and re-entered the teams into each category a,b, and c. Again, Tom and I were in the room from 9 am until 5pm doing 14s 16s and 18s not once but twice. Seven tournaments. We coouldnt tell you who was who nor did we take the time to follow the brackets. We were also fielding calls, emails throughout the process which added to slowing down the publishing of the brackets

So it is what it is. I understand that it is probably much harder than I'll never know, but I still can't figure why if he "didn't take the time to follow the brackets" how it's possible for every other game to be exactly the same except for the two teams switching places. Oh well, at least I got a response. Do you think his answer makes sense??

 

[nanotech14]

it seems to happen all the time in our area.The host team seems to make to give themselves a little edge.

 

[PA SB Dad]

I'm usually surprised when the bracket looks like a blind draw! The host team usually games the system in their favor if they are not particularly strong or they are counting on the qualifier to get to nationals. Happens out here all the time.

 

[Greenmonsters]

IMO, you only worry about brackets if you think you're not good enough to beat every team in a tourney. There always seems to be an easier bracket some other team can take advantage of, but if you want to win the whole thing you have to have the mindset of being prepared to beat everyone you have to play, no matter when you face them. If you're not among the elite, then I find it more constructive evaluating success by assessing how you played against the better teams rather than how far you made it before being eliminated. In other words, focus on that over which you have control.

PS The OP bracket change does smell a little funny

 

[David Carter]

It would be nice if there were simply blind draws. Although at regionals (PONY) they had a seeded draw from your results at sectionals this worked really well making sure 4 best teams out of 16 did not all end up in same bracket. Although for us #1 seed out of our sectionals it did not matter we lost second game and had to win 6 in a row through losers bracket to win.

Greenmonster has it pegged exactly right if you can't beat every team there you don't deserve to win....although it is a little different when you are just shooting for top 4 or 8 to qualify.

 

[WinThemAll]

What Green says is true.

But when TD start monkeying around and try to give the host team an advantage instead of how things should be seeded, it just plain sucks to go to a tournament and play the same two or three teams. Not to mention facing a good team in the second round, knocking them out and then run rule the host in the championship.

Coaches won't pay to play at those tournaments for very long and will go spend the teams money elsewhere.

 

[Atlantabell]

This happens all the time. When a meet host does this we vote with our feet next year. Here's one for you. In our state, we had a Hall of Fame Qualifier. It was listed as open, but when the brackets came out, all the "B" teams were in one bracket for pool play and all the "A" teams were in another, in every age group. Now, I am not a statistician, but that seems statistically impossible. If it's an open tournament and you are a B team, shouldn't you be mixed in with everyone else?