2019 playoff race

Discussion in 'NWSL' started by SiberianThunderT, Aug 29, 2019.

  1. SiberianThunderT

    Sep 21, 2008
    DC
    Club:
    Saint Louis Athletica
    Nat'l Team:
    Spain
    If I've done my numbers correctly, I think we have the potential for our first playoff elimination this week. According to SportsClubStats, we might have seen Sky Blue eliminated last week, but A) they won, and B) even if they had lost, I'm not sure if it would have been a statistical elimination or an honest mathematical elimination, especially with other matches to have considered. BUT - I do believe that the Orlando Pride can be eliminated this week if they lose to the Washington Spirit. Here's how:

    If the Pride lose, then their maximum possible points would be 29
    If the Spirit thus also win, the table above the Pride would look like: POR36, NC31, CHI29, DC28, UTA28, SEA27 HOU22 NJ16
    Obviously, the Pride would be unable to catch POR and NC, so they'd have to hope no more than one team of the next four (all of whom are already within a win of 29pts) passes 29pts.
    The problem? CHI and SEA both play DC and UTA down the stretch. The only way for only one of them to surpass 29pts is if CHI is the allowed team - SEA would then have to draw DC+UTA, for a massive tiebreak at 29pts. Why's that a problem? In that scenario, HOU would necessarily pick up wins against DC and twice against UTA, putting them on 31pts.

    TL;DR - this lone week 20 game is officially an elimination match for the Pride.

    I'll take a closer look at Sky Blue next week, plus we can later talk about the home semifinals and the Shield races.
     
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  2. SiberianThunderT

    Sep 21, 2008
    DC
    Club:
    Saint Louis Athletica
    Nat'l Team:
    Spain
    Alright, so the ORL-DC game didn't happen... But that's not a real reprise for Orlando at all, as next week they face SEA. If they lose to SEA next week, I believe they are eliminated by a similar argument to the one posed above.

    NJ also face NC next week. Sky Blue must win to keep their similarly slim playoff hopes alive - even a draw drops their maximum to 29pts.

    Worth pointing out the NJ and ORL have already been eliminated for the Shield. HOU are close to getting eliminated from the Shield as well - NC is currently on 36 while Houston's max is 40, so if NC wins and HOU fails to win, HOU loses the possibility of 1st.
     
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  3. SiberianThunderT

    Sep 21, 2008
    DC
    Club:
    Saint Louis Athletica
    Nat'l Team:
    Spain
    Sorry I didn'tupdate this sooner! But there's not much to say at the moment: Houston can't be eliminated tonight, even with a loss. That said, a win by Utah would not only put them out of range of the Reign (for the week), but would also really clog up the standings 2nd-4th. I'd love to see POR fall down to 4th (or worse) if possible!
     
  4. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Don't know why anyone would root against the likely most fouled team, especially bad fouls, in the NWSL.
     
  5. SiberianThunderT

    Sep 21, 2008
    DC
    Club:
    Saint Louis Athletica
    Nat'l Team:
    Spain
    As I alluded to in the other thread, I don't think the stats tell the whole story when it comes to POR and fouls for/against.

    Also, I just like seeing not-the-same teams in the playoffs each year, and of the four teams currently in playoff position, I'm a fan of two and a third has games in hand.
     
  6. SiberianThunderT

    Sep 21, 2008
    DC
    Club:
    Saint Louis Athletica
    Nat'l Team:
    Spain
    #6 SiberianThunderT, Sep 15, 2019
    Last edited: Sep 15, 2019
    Playoff update: no changes in locks/eliminations from the first three games of the weekend, but even though the Royals are currently above the Reign on tiebreaks, SCS now ranks the Reign as more likely to make the playoffs (56%) than the Royals are (49%). This is a *massive* swing from two days ago, when the numbers were respectively 43% and 66%. Even though the Royals have a better strength value than the Reign, the Reign have a much better RPI.

    I believe that, if the Stars lose at Sky Blue tomorrow, then the Courage are in the playoffs.... as such:

    If SEA want to pass NC outright, since they don't have the tiebreak, they need 10pts, so the worst they can do against UTA (or any of their last 4g) is draw. That means, to get even 9pts out of their last 4g, UTA must win all three non-SEA games (since two draws from the last 4g give a maximum of 8pts to gain). CHI needs at least 4pts from their last 3g, so if they lose to UTA then they must at least draw NJ for there to be any chance of NC missing the playoffs (and I haven't looked the potential of a multi-team tiebreak on 40pts, but CHI at least beat NC 1-on-1 in a two-team 40pt tiebreak). That is, if CHI lose to Sky Blue, NC clinches the playoffs.

    That said, 3pts to NJ would nearly guarantee that ORL gets the Wooden Spoon this year.
     
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  7. SiberianThunderT

    Sep 21, 2008
    DC
    Club:
    Saint Louis Athletica
    Nat'l Team:
    Spain
    So, CHI won today's match, meaning no official qualification updates - but CHI are temporarily up in home-playoff position, while the loss also officially means NJ are stuck in the bottom 2 for the season. (They had an outside shot of rising to 6th before today.)

    The NC-HOU game on Tuesday is "big" in the sense that any result for NC makes them officially qualify for the playoffs (by many of the one-point-margin-of-error arguments made in the previous post). The Spirit would be eliminated from Shield contention with a NC draw, and the Reign would be as well with an NC win.

    The SEA-UTA game on Wednesday is a MASSSIVE six-pointer: if the Reign win at home, they'll have an 88% chance of making the playoffs vs. the Royal's 13%; if the Royals win away, they'll have an 80% chance of making the playoffs vs. the Reign's 21%. A draw honestly doesn't help DC that much, but they'd prefer that (8% of playoffs) versus otherwise (5%).

    We are down to only 16 remaining games. Getting close to the point that you could map out all remaining possibilities!
     
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  8. Gilmoy

    Gilmoy Member+

    Jun 14, 2005
    Pullman, Washington
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    It'd be a table with 3^16 = only 43,046,721 entries!
     
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  9. SiberianThunderT

    Sep 21, 2008
    DC
    Club:
    Saint Louis Athletica
    Nat'l Team:
    Spain
    Hahaha true, but to a trained data cruncher, that's not much. X-D

    Also, that number can go down very quickly if you want to consider specific scenarios.
     
  10. SiberianThunderT

    Sep 21, 2008
    DC
    Club:
    Saint Louis Athletica
    Nat'l Team:
    Spain
    So something was brought up on the recent EQZ made me realize that an NC draw isn't as clear-cut as I made it out to be above. I think NC still clinches with a draw, but it gets messier.

    Both SEA and UTA have a max possible of 43pts. If they draw their match tomorrow, both have a max possible of 41pts.
    DC also currently has a max possible of 41pts. POR and CHI can both reach 41pts exactly but have a current maximum at 44 or above.

    Obviously, if NC wins, they're in, since they'd get to 43pts, which 4 teams can reach individually - but not as a group, since one of SEA or UTA will knock the other's max below 43pts.

    If NC draws, we open up the possibility of a bunch of 41pt tiebreaks. Now, if SEA-UTA has a winner, NC's 41pts will get them in, since DC and the SEA-UTA winner can't both get to 41+ without knocking one of CHI+POR down. If SEA-UTA draws and they both win out, you could have a three-way draw between NC/SEA/UTA on 41pts - but NC would win that tiebreak. So you'd need to somehow set up a massive 4+team tiebreak at 41pts to have a shot at knocking NC out of the playoffs. I'm fairly certain you can't do it, but IDK if I'll have the time to map out the possibilities* before the game tonight. I might do a retroactive post tomorrow (or maybe not retroactive if NC somehow drops points tonight!)

    *It wouldn't be /too/ many scenarios to consider, since although there are 16 games left in the season right now, we'd be assuming both midweek matches (2) end in draws, assuming that NC loses out (3), and that both SEA and UTA win out (3 each but one is against NC) - so that's 10 of the 16 remaining games decided, leaving only 3^6 possibilities. On top of that, we'd need to engineer at least one other team getting to 41pts with whatever games they have left to work with, so the number of scenarios to consider after that is relatively small.
     
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  11. SiberianThunderT

    Sep 21, 2008
    DC
    Club:
    Saint Louis Athletica
    Nat'l Team:
    Spain
    #11 SiberianThunderT, Sep 18, 2019
    Last edited: Sep 18, 2019
    Alright, we came agonizingly close to actually seeing the Dash draw the Courage, but a ref had to ruin it...

    Anyway, if we did see both midweek games drawn, and then see UTA+SEA win out and NC lose out, here's the resulting table (w/ unset games):
    NC-41 , UTA-41 , SEA-41 , CHI-38(*) , POR-36(**) , DC-29(****) , HOU-26(**) , NJ-19(*) , ORL-14(**)
    To eliminate NC, we'd need to add at least one more team to the 41pt tiebreak, and if we add only one we'd need to have at least one team pass 41pts as well. POR, in this situation, cannot hit 41pts, so either we push them up to 42pts or see about getting both CHI and DC to 41pts.

    But wait! CHI's last unset game is against DC, so they can't both hit 41pts - therefor we have to put POR on 42pts. Since POR's last two are against HOU and DC, that means DC can't hit 41pts - so CHI has to be the fourth team in the 41pt tiebreak (and POR wins the Shield). Thus, in a bit of a shocker, there's only one way for the 3 applicable games (of that last unset 6) to go if we want to eliminate NC in the midweek-double-draw scenario.

    Now, a four-way tiebreak is broken by looking at the four teams' H2H against each other, i.e. a mini-table, and hope that one team comes out ahead - i.e. the mini-table itself does NOT determine the standings, only who would get 2nd place, sending the remaining three teams to another multi-team tiebreak for 3rd.

    CHI, NC, UTA, and SEA have a mini-league that would look like this:
    NC 1-1 CHI ; CHI 3-0 SEA ; UTA 1-0 CHI ; CHI 3-1 NC ; CHI 0-1 SEA ; CHI 2-1 NC ; SEA 0-4 CHI ; CHI 2-1 UTA ; CHI v UTA ; NC 1-1 UTA ; SEA 2-1 NC ; NC 2-0 SEA ; UTA 1-2 NC ; NC 1-0 SEA ; UTA v NC ; UTA 0-2 SEA ; SEA 1-3 UTA ; UTA v SEA
    This gives a table of:
    CHI-16 , UTA-14 , NC-11 , SEA-10
    CHI advances from the mini-table for 2nd place, and then you're left with a three-team mini-table with
    NC-10 , UTA-8 , SEA-7
    NC advance from this mini-table for 3rd place and thus still qualifies for the playoffs, followed by 4th place being decided by full-season GD, where UTA is currently beating SEA. (Side note: even if the four-team mini-table 100% determined the standings, NC would be in 4th and also still in the playoffs with SEA being the eliminated team. Also, if you shaved teams off the bottom of the mini-table instead of the top, SEA would still be the eliminated team, letting NC qualify)

    THE BIG TL;DR IS
    NC didn't need to win last night to qualify for the playoffs - they just needed to not lose. But the ref let them win anyway. (And, SEA does not want to get involved in a 41pt tiebreak situation.)
     
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  12. SiberianThunderT

    Sep 21, 2008
    DC
    Club:
    Saint Louis Athletica
    Nat'l Team:
    Spain
    #12 SiberianThunderT, Sep 21, 2019
    Last edited: Sep 21, 2019
    Alright, we missed out on a big six-pointer this midweek, but let's take a look at what can happen today. First, here's the current table along with the max possible points for each team:

    NC -- 43 - 52
    CHI - 38 - 44
    POR - 36 - 45
    UTA - 31 - 43
    SEA - 31 - 43
    DC -- 26 - 41
    HOU - 25 - 34
    NJ -- 16 - 25
    ORL - 14 - 23

    As for what that all means for the playoffs:
    HOU will be eliminated with a loss to POR and a draw or win by UTA over NC
    HOU will be eliminated with a draw to POR and a draw or win by SEA over NJ and a win by UTA over NC
    NC will win the Shield with a with over UTA
    NC will clinch a home semifinal with a win over UTA
    NC will clinch a home semifinal with a draw to UTA and one of CHI or POR failing to win
    CHI will clinch a playoffs spot with a win over DC

    If you can't tell, UTA/NC and POR/HOU are the game to watch today for playoff implications, with CHI/DC being a good third. SEA/NJ doesn't mean much except in potentially eliminating HOU. Of course, UTA and SEA are sill interesting in the race for the final playoff spot, but without that six-pointer decided, that particular race is quite muddled.
     
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  13. SiberianThunderT

    Sep 21, 2008
    DC
    Club:
    Saint Louis Athletica
    Nat'l Team:
    Spain
    BIG correction: since that UTA-SEA was postponed, I missed it in my considerations (I was looking at an older schedule). Because of that, it means that HOU's situation is even worse than what I posted above.

    HOU will be eliminated with a loss to POR, period.
    HOU will be eliminated with a draw to POR and at least a draw in either* SEA or UTA game

    *Considering that HOU already has two wins over UTA and would need a third to set up a three-way tie at 32pts, HOU would win said three-way tie with an impressive 11pts from 6g. But such a situation would necessitate SEA & UTA drawing their remaining H2H game and losing out otherwise.
     
  14. SiberianThunderT

    Sep 21, 2008
    DC
    Club:
    Saint Louis Athletica
    Nat'l Team:
    Spain
    NC clinched the Shield
    CHI clinched a playoff spot
    POR clinched a playoff spot (I missed that earlier; it depended on DC losing)
    HOU was eliminated

    The two midweek matches actually don't have any direct bearing on clinching/elimination scenarios, but of course the SEA/UTA game is a massive six-pointer nonetheless.
    SCS currently says SEA has a better shot at the playoffs than UTA does, based on strength-of-schedule. Nonetheless, a draw between the two moves the needle more toward UTA (just by reducing the opportunities for SEA to pass UTA).

    Looking past midweek, ORL now have an opportunity to "clinch" the Wooden Spoon if they drop all three points when visiting NJ.
     
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  15. blissett

    blissett Member+

    Aug 20, 2011
    Italy
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    Talk about "opportunities"! :laugh:

    Anyway, this week SEA and UTA stank big time, for being teams that absolutely had to make points to keep their hopes alive! Two home losses, and if the Utah's one was somehow more predictible because of the powerful opponent wanting to clinch the shield, the punishing score was not.

    Whoever gets that elusive 4th spot between SEA and UTA, I can't see that team winning their semifinal, let alone the whole thing.
     
  16. SiberianThunderT

    Sep 21, 2008
    DC
    Club:
    Saint Louis Athletica
    Nat'l Team:
    Spain
    So, NWSL's website hasn't said POR have clinched yet, and I'm not sure why not. They're currently at 39 points, which only two teams can currently catch, since SEA and UTA can both reach 40pts still. However, as we know, SEA and UTA still have to play each other, so at least one team will drops at least two points. As such, POR have clinched. (Local WoSoJourno Caitlin Murray has certainly noticed.)
     
  17. blissett

    blissett Member+

    Aug 20, 2011
    Italy
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    Maybe they made your same mistake from above? ;)

     
  18. SiberianThunderT

    Sep 21, 2008
    DC
    Club:
    Saint Louis Athletica
    Nat'l Team:
    Spain
    #18 SiberianThunderT, Sep 29, 2019
    Last edited: Sep 29, 2019
    It's been very upsetting to me that UTA is now on a four-game losing streak... It's mucked up many of my playoff hopes.

    Anyway, here's an interesting situation that might arise:
    Assume that POR beats SEA tomorrow (moderately likely)
    Assume that DC beats ORL next week (also moderately likely)
    Assume that ORL beats SEA early evening on the 12th (less likely, but assume it for the argument here)

    IF all that occurs, then that sets up massive implications for the final regular season game of the season late on the 12th: POR v DC
    A win or draw for DC would mean they pip SEA for the 4th playoff spot AND CHI hosts a semifinal
    A loss for DC would mean SEA keeps the 4th playoff spot AND POR hosts a semifinal

    One guess as to which scenario I prefer X-D

    Anyway, the long and short of how the rest of the season will play out is this:
    --POR must be perfect through their last two to earn a home semifinal
    --SEA qualifies for the playoffs with any win
    --DC is eliminated with any loss (or 2 draws, or a draw for them + a draw for SEA)
    --DC holds the GD tiebreak over SEA at the moment, and will necessarily still hold it if a tie situation arises
     
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  19. SiberianThunderT

    Sep 21, 2008
    DC
    Club:
    Saint Louis Athletica
    Nat'l Team:
    Spain
    Wow, okay. That "last game suspense" situation I mentioned got completely blown apart today. X-D

    All I hope now is that either Seattle or particularly Chicago win the playoff title. The Shield has been claimed a while ago, but I'd love for a new team to get the silverware (and Seattle already have two Shields).
     
    59Amerinorsk and blissett repped this.

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