CHICAGO, Ill. - The Conference USA Athletic Directors recently approved a
new tiebreaker policy for the men's and women's basketball tournaments,
effective immediately.
The first criteria in the breaking of ties in the standings shall be
head-to-head competition of tied teams. The following procedure will be
used to establish the tournament seeds if ties exist.
(a) If two teams are tied and they are from different divisions, the
winner of the game between the two tied teams shall be the higher seed.
(b) If two teams are tied and they are from the same division, the team
with an advantage in head-to-head competition shall be the higher seed.
(c) If two teams remain tied, there will be a comparison of overall
record against division teams only (10 divisional games).
(d) If two teams remain tied, there will be a *comparison of record
against the highest ranked team(s) (based upon Conference winning
percentage) in the division and proceeding through in order of divisional
record.
(e) If two teams remain tied, there will be a *comparison of record
against the highest ranked team(s) (based upon Conference winning
percentage) in the opposite division and proceeding through in order of
divisional record
(f) If two teams remain tied, the higher seed will be chosen by draw.
(g) If three or more teams are tied, ties among divisional opponents
will be broken first by using steps (b) through (f) and the head-to-head
results will be used to break ties between non-divisional teams. When three
or more teams from the same division are tied step (b) will consist of a
mini-round robin among the tied teams. At any point during the process of
breaking ties among three or more teams that the number of tied teams are
reduced to two, head-to-head competition would be used as the primary
tie-breaker, followed by steps (c) through (f).
(*Note: When comparing against the 'highest' ranked team(s) in either
division, the comparison will be based upon how tied teams did against all
teams in a given placement, rather than a team that wins a tiebreaker at
another position. For example, if two teams are tied for fifth and two
teams are tied for first, the head-to-head comparison would be how the first
place teams did against the first place teams combined, and vice-versa.)
The tiebreaker will continue to stay in place for men's basketball. However,
the tiebreaker will not apply to women's basketball next season when they go
to a one division, 14-team format.