Proposal for 2017 BTSH Playoff Format

by Emeritus and Isaac

Well, with this year’s playoff format already decided and settled, can we get a show of hands from you, the greater BTSH Community, that finds it to be pretty stale? Like, eye rolling worthy as if they were wrestling centric previews from the past four or five years? Yeah, same here (Emeritus note – Let’s not hate on the wrestling centric previews, okay?). So here’s a modest proposal for next year’s playoff format…

The 2017 BTSH Playoffs will seed teams in a bracket with four five-team regions. The top seed in each region will be awarded to the regular season division winners, giving all teams an additional incentive to win the division. The fourth and fifth seeds in each region will be the teams that currently feed into the Opening Round in the current format (namely, the 13-20 seeds).

The second and third seeds in each region will be decided by ranking the remaining eight teams in descending order based on their final regular season points total (all ties broken using current tiebreakers). Using the final 2016 regular season standings for illustrative purposes only, the second and third seed pool is as follows:

Rehabs
LBS, Inc.
Fresh Kills
Mathematics
Gouging Anklebiters
Sky Fighters
Instant Karma
Denim Demons

From that pool, the team with the best point total (Rehabs) will be the second seed in the region whose top seed is the division winner with the lowest point total (Mega Touch). The team with the fourth best point total (Mathematics) will be assigned the second seed in the region with the top overall seed (Fuzz). And so forth for the other two second seeds.

In order to be fair and equitable, the third seed in each region will be paired as follows: the team with the lowest point total (Denim Demons) will follow the team with the best point total (Rehabs), 7th following 2nd, 6th following 3rd, and 5th following 4th (LBS, Inc. with Instant Karma, Fresh Kills with Sky Fighters, and Mathematics with Gouging Anklebiters, respectively).

The winners of each region will advance to the Frozen Four (or whatever name Sam comes up with) with the Northwest squaring off against Southeast and Southwest against Northeast. (Why East versus West? Because I’m a child of 90’s gangsta rap and the debate over which coast did (or still does) it better is worth checking out. (SPOILER ALERT: it’s the east coast, Cherie.))

Based on that format, here is how the regions would be constructed using this year’s data. And Here…We…Go!