WCC Tournament Tiebreaker Scenarios for BYU and Other Men’s Teams

Feb 24, 2023 - 10:38 PM

Saturday concludes the WCC regular season, and with one day remaining the only seeds that are set for the WCC Tournament are 3 (Santa Clara), 9 (San Diego) and 10 (Pepperdine).

Below is the WCC tiebreaker criteria, in order. Remember, the top two seeds get a triple bye to Monday’s semifinals. The 3-4 seeds receive a double bye to Saturday. The 5-6 seeds receive a first round bye and open Friday night. The 7-10 seeds receive no bye and open Thursday.

Tiebreaker Criteria

1 — Head to Head

2 — Go down standings, team with better record against highest seeded team wins the tiebreaker. Uneven amount of games versus an opponent are thrown are out.

For example, BYU and USF each have the same record versus the top 3 seeds. USF is 1-0 versus 4 seed LMU and BYU is 1-1; however, that is thrown out since the teams did not play LMU the same amount of times. If BYU and USF finish with the same record, we would go to the third criteria of NET ranking since neither team has a better record versus an opponent against whom they played the same amount of times.

3 — Highest NET Ranking

BYU Seeding Scenarios

Greg Wrubell laid this out Thursday night. If BYU wins, they will be the 5 seed.

If BYU is the 5 seed, they would play the winner of the 8-9 game next Friday in Vegas. The 6 seed draws the winner of the 7-10 game, and the 7 seed opens versus Pepperdine. As the 5 seed, BYU would draw 4 seed LMU in the next round if they beat the 8-9 winner. BYU lost to the Lions by 5 in LA and won by 28 in Provo.

Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s Seeding Scenarios

The Gaels are currently one game ahead of Gonzaga in the WCC standings. The teams play each other in Spokane Saturday night.

In Saint Mary’s wins, they win the outright WCC title and get the one seed while Gonzaga gets the two. If the Zags win, they will split the regular season title and whoever has the higher NET ranking come Monday morning will be the 1 seed. SMC is currently 8 in NET and Gonzaga 10.

LMU Seeding Scenarios

4 seed — LMU beats Pepperdine OR LMU loses to Pepperdine and BYU beats USF

5 seed — LMU loses to Pepperdine and USF beats BYU

San Francisco Seeding Scenarios

4 seed — USF beats BYU, LMU loses to Pepperdine

5 seed — USF beats BYU, LMU beats Pepperdine

6 seed — USF loses to BYU

Pacific Seeding Scenarios

6 seed — Pacific beats Portland and USF beats BYU

7 seed — Pacific beats Portland and BYU beats USF

8 seed — Pacific loses to Portland

Portland Seeding Scenarios

7 seed — Portland beats Pacific

8 seed — Portland loses to Pacific