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Why is the #1 tie breaker overall point difference? Why isn’t it head to head like literally every sports league there is?

1st tiebreaker is divisional position. Like literally most sports leagues in the world. After that it is record. Like literally every sport league in the world.

There is no league in the world where someone who is second is seeded higher than someone who is first. And there is no league who seeds based on head to head instead of overall record either.

Yes head to head and Classifica Avulsa are normally used in these 2 scenarios:
1) League with the same number of games between each team (ie like in a football or European basketball league), with the same number of games at home and on the road. Head to head is used in the NBA too but it's third behind record and divisional standing (if one is the winner of a division) and I believe it's only based on W-L ratio, not PD between tied teams.. In the NBA the only teams a team can face an odd number of games are own conference / different division teams (eg OKC plays HOU twice at home and once on the road)
2) Group stage with 1 game against each team, usually on neutral grounds. In this case 3 way ties can happen reasonably frequently and classifica avulsa works quite well (you take out the games against the 4th team and you use the ranking without them)

That said, for BB, a situation where 2 teams in the same conference are tied and one team owns a 2-0 record against the other is fairly rare.

Last edited by Lemonshine at 10/30/2017 8:18:50 AM

That wouldn’t be a tie lol. I didn’t think I would need to explain that by ‘tie’ I meant 2 teams that had the same record.

I was unaware of that, I guess I am just familiar with Sports in the USA, thanks for the info. Maybe I should have been more specific and stated I was questioning interconference. Ie if 2 teams are 11-11, team 1 went 2-0 vs team 2, but team 2 has higher point difference that doesn’t seem right that team 2 would get the higher seed (enless there is a 3rd tied team which of course would throw out head to head)

I understand it’s probably a rare situation in B.B., but thought it was interesting. Thanks for the feedback

IMO, because it's simpler to sort teams just by PD, then to write some code calculating H2H record. The latter one would be also unfair due to many reasons, like random HCA advantage in interconference tiebreakers, or teams giving up a game due to their cup run. In other word, H2H is too random to be more fair than PD.

Last edited by Siwy at 10/31/2017 3:01:45 AM

I agree simplicity is the bulwark. But when it comes to the playoffs https://youtu.be/s2R2sH2ScBM things turn a little wonky. Now my examples are ancient but I doubt there has been a change. In season 19 I was in IV.39 and finished first on my side, the #2 from the other side was my finals opponent. Now yes he did have a better record, and for what it was worth he beat me during the season, but even then I found it bollocks he was given HCA. Though in the end it made no difference as I swept him in straight sets. However I found in my research that for a relegation series HCA goes to whomever finished higher in the standings for their conference regardless of record.