EMERGENCY BREAKSIDE PART 2
BYU TO NATIONALS???
Late last night I was settling in to continue my replay of PokémonViolet when suddenly, I received a DM on Twitter with some startling information. Being the good journalist that I am, I worked with my brand new partner-in-crime and made a stunning discovery: This could be the year BYU sends a team to nationals.
What you need to know:
The D1 Women’s NW region has earned a stunning six bids to nationals
This creates some very funky tournament formats to use under USAU’s guidelines
BYU does not play ultimate on Sundays. Famously so.
BYU is one of the teams that earned a bid for the region
Normally, they would decline it, and it would go to a different region or play their conference championship and allow another team in the region to take their bid by earning the last spot at regionals
This year is different as every Big Sky Conference championship games will be played on Saturday, allowing BYU to play out an entire championship series tournament for perhaps the first time in program history
There are two conferences in the NW, and 12 total teams competing. Five in the Big Sky, and seven in Cascadia
This means that all 12 teams will earn a bid from conferences, setting the stage for this scenario to play out
Assumptions:
All 12 teams accept their regional bids (the NW is a 12-team tournament as they have 12 teams attending their two conference championships)
NW Regionals is run under the six-team advancing from a 12-team field format as outlined here in the USAU Format Guide
NOTE: The directions say, “Follow the format for 16.8 with pools of 3 instead of pools of 4.” This means there will only be two rounds on Saturday dedicated to pool play, out of a maximum of four allowed on the day by USAU.
AND, that means we can move up rounds that would've taken place early Sunday to late Saturday
Tournament Formats:
According to the USAU Format Guide, a twelve-team tournament in which six teams advance would follow the format of 16.8, with pools of three instead of four.
This would create four pools of three as represented below [Note: we are using frisbee-rankings with the assumption all teams advance from their conferences to regionals]
*Possible problem child
Note that there is a discrepancy between the Google Sheet and the PDF regarding which bracket format to use. We are going to defer to the Google Sheet as it is more recent.
Another thing to be made aware of is that the rounds at the top of the bracket would be “moved” back one (Sat Rd. 4 is actually Sat Rd.3). USAU requires that no more than four games are played per day.
Based on that the following schedule changes would be made
Potential problems:
Forfeit Rules
Here are the overall rules USAU lays out as regards to forfeiting games during the series and what that means for a team that does so:
Even if both teams are mathematically qualified for nationals, BYU would be disqualified if they forfeit multiple games on Sunday since one of those games would not be “the last game of the tournament for both teams,” a requirement for an allowable forfeit in both Cases 1 and 2 below.
UBC B does not go to regionals
Even more so than any one team deciding not to go, a B team not attending D1 regionals is not a big stretch. Now granted, the location is closer, but if the pool drops to 11, or even ten or fewer teams, this becomes much harder as tournament structures are much more strict on day one and day two of games.
Here’s how it plays out:
Now, admittedly, there are at least three to four serious spots where this goes wrong before the games even get going. But assuming we make it to regionals weekend with BYU still fully believing and being given hope that they can make nationals, here’s what they need to do.
Step 1: Win the pool.
This is a pretty obvious first step, but for any team winning their pool in this format, it takes them straight to the first-place semifinal, and if they were a team that played on Sunday, the only thing that would prevent them from making nationals by this point would be if they went on a truly stunning four-game losing streak. With all of them being games-to-go.
Step 2: Win the winners-semifinal (game a/b).
On-field, this is already a challenge as it will most likely require BYU to beat a team they previously lost to (UW, Oregon) or the number one ranked team in the division (UBC).
NOTE: This round would actually take place during Saturday's Round 3 instead of Round 4, thanks to the one-less pool play game in the 12-team format vs. the 16-team format the bracket accounts for.
But, with a win, BYU is in the regional final (game c) and can do no worse than third place in the region.
Step 3 (Step 0???): Get the regional final moved to the last round on Saturday
Again, the critical piece of information is that the actual regional tournament has four, three-team pools instead of the four-team pools that the bracket picture assumes.
The bracket shows that the final takes place on the Sunday Round 2 slot after a Round 1 bye
If you’re keeping up, under our smaller pools, Sunday Round 1 is actually Saturday Round 4.
If you convince USAU and the TD to move the final up to the last round of Saturday1, you ensure that not only is BYU able to play in it, but that they’d only have one game the next day if they lose: the second-place game.
Step 4a: Do it the hard way and win the region
If you win the region all on Saturday, it’d be a miracle but there would be no issue with BYU earning a bid to nationals. No forfeits, no nothing. Just on-field dominance. Tournament over on Saturday.
Step 4b: Permissibly forfeit the second place game on Round 1 of Sunday
Since this is a historically good region, winning it will be a challenge for the region’s fourth-best regular season team.
But if they can get to the regional final, and it happens on day one, that means they’ll enter game i on Sunday. Which, as you can see, is both teams’ last game, with both already qualified for nationals. All that would be left would be for both team’s to agree to make it permissible under USAU rules.
Have some pride, do it for the region.
Watch this Video!
I started picking up some video editing tools and trying them out in an effort to branch out my content in the long term, and I made this Kaela Helton highlight video because I didn’t advocate enough in the WUL Discord to get her a POTW nomination for her Week 2 performance. So watch it! Please!
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About the Author
Special thanks to Rohin for spending two and a half crazy hours of intense theorizing and digging through various USAU documents on the college series and helping put together this wild plan to get the BYU Women’s team to nationals with me. You can check him out on Twitter here!
My name is Noam Gumerman (he/him). I am from Chapel Hill, NC, and studied Journalism and American Studies at Brandeis University. I am a journalist by trade and have been playing ultimate for over half my life. I love nothing more than combining those two interests. Contact me for discussions, feedback, story suggestions, and more on Twitter (@noamgum) or email (noamgumerman@gmail.com).
There is nothing in the rules preventing the TD or USAU from moving it up as it would still fall under the no more than four games per day rule. The only preventing factor would likely be that it is not customary for a finals of a regional to be on Saturday.
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