I had a question last night of whether an 0-2 team in the IST is already eliminated. They’re not, but their path to the bracket is very steep indeed.

How Might the Groups Shake Out?

There’s ten wins to go around per group, and these are all of the ways they can be distributed in the end that I’m aware of:

A: 4/3/2/1/0

B: 2/2/2/2/2

C: 3/2/2/2/1

D: 4/2/2/2/0

E: 4/3/1/1/1

F: 3/3/2/2/0

G: 3/3/2/1/1

As far as I can tell, any other distribution is impossible for one of a few reasons:

  • There can’t be two 4-win or 0-win teams, of course. Everyone plays each other, so only one team can be undefeated or winless.
  • Similarly, a 4/3/3 at the top, or 1/1/0 at the bottom, is impossible. Firstly, that would force two undefeated/winless teams on the other side. And secondly: in the 4/3/3 example, the 4-win team gave everyone a loss, so it’s impossible for two teams to only have one loss to get 3 wins (and the logic is the same for the 1/1/0).

So, that’s how I came up with these possibilities. I worked it out by starting with every way the top two spots can shake out (4/3, 2/2, 3/2, 4/2, 3/3) and then reasoning out how the bottom can work given those constraints.

The Path to the Group Win

The only scenario above where an 0-2 team can win the group is scenario B. The 0-2 team needs to win their last two games (of course) and also hope that every team in the group is tied in the end. I don’t have any simulations which tell me how likely it is, but it strikes me as being a bit of a long shot. Of course, the 0-2 team would also have to win their remaining games by a large enough margin to win the point differential tiebreak across the whole group.

But while lots of hoops would need to be jumped through here, the group win might actually be the easiest path to the playoffs after starting 0-2.

The Path to the Wildcard

In scenarios B, C, and D, it’s possible to get second in a group by going 2-2. So the 0-2 team would have to win their remaining games, hope that scenario B/C/D happens in their group, and get a good enough PD tiebreak to get the #2 spot in the division (so the 2nd best PD out of 5 2-2 teams in scenario B, or the best out of three 2-2 teams in scenarios C and D).

However, the kicker is that you would also need the other two groups to be in configurations B, C, or D, creating to other second-place teams with 2-2 records. And you’d also need your 2-2 team to win the PD tiebreak over those other 2-2 second place teams.

So the bottom line is that the 0-2 team would really have to run up the score with point differential, and hope that not just their group, but the other two in their conference, align just right to accommodate the possibility of a 2-2 team winning the wild card.