Re: Fore! I Mean, Four! Shout Out to Bill Tierney -- <h1>IVY LEAGUE SPORTS BOARD</h1>

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Subject: Re: Fore! I Mean, Four! Shout Out to Bill Tierney

Author:
sparman

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Date Posted: 13:38:38 03/12/26 Thu
In reply to: An Observer 's message, "Fore! I Mean, Four! Shout Out to Bill Tierney" on 11:25:05 03/12/26 Thu

I think there is a signficant advantage in Big10 for higher finishes because (1) top 4 seeds don't polay until round 4; (2) seeds 5-8 don't play until play until round 3; (3) seeds 9-12 don't play until round 2, and the bottom seeds must play in a round 1. So, for example, while 17th versus 18th doesn't make much difference other than possible advantage in opponents if they keep advancing, 15th versus 14th does - fewer rounds to qualify for the NCAA (however unlikely), less exhaustion from repeatedly having to play consecutive days. Maybe some other conferences operate similarly.

I had not known the 4-team playoff approach is called the Shaughnessy Playoff and was first devised in 1933 for minor league baseball. https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/frank-shag-shaughnessy/ (his major league baseball experience is oddly similar to Moonlight Graham's). Glad to see that Tierney was able to convince the IL to adopt it, although it has been said his main goal was to increase the chances of securing multiple ivy NCAA bids at a time when it appeared Cornell was likely to be the #1 ivy force for a while, and having everyone participate probably would have meant that the second ivy team had an more difficult challenge to winning the tournament while team #1 in regular season would have had a bye.

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