After the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees beat the Ryerson Rams in the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) men’s basketball quarterfinals, there was debate on Twitter about the OUA’s playoff format–a format that does need to change.
The OUA basketball playoffs consists of 12 teams. The league consists of three divisions (East, West, and Central) of six teams, each based on geography. The top three teams in each division make the playoffs, plus the next best three teams, totalling 12. The top team in each division makes up the top three spots. This is where the problem lies.
While on the women’s side the three division winners happened to be the best three teams, this wasn’t the case for the men’s. The Gee-Gees have the second best regular-season record, but are seeded fourth behind division winners Western and Lakehead, who have worse records.
The OUA also uses a bracket format for the playoffs (the winner of 1/8 plays the winner of ⅘, for example). So Ottawa would have to face Carleton in the semi-finals. Meanwhile, on the other side of the bracket, Western will play Wilfrid Laurier.
This system is flawed, as it doesn’t reward teams with the best record. Instead, by virtue of geography–which division and part of the province you happen to be in–you could have an easier or tougher road to the finals and nationals.
In UOttawa’s case, since they’re in Carleton’s division, they would theoretically always be stuck playing Carleton in the semi-finals if those two schools had the two or three best records in the OUA. It happened this year.
Given that Ottawa would be second, Ryerson—the fourth-best record but seeded fifth—wouldn’t play Ottawa in the quarterfinals if the seeding was based on the best record.
Whether your metric for determining good teams is national rankings (both Ryerson and Ottawa are nationally ranked), analytics, or regular-season record, it simply doesn’t make sense to have them play each other in the quarterfinals.
Some have argued in favour of Laurier and Western in the debate, saying they earned their spot in the semifinals and deserve respect. That is true. Under the current system, those two teams absolutely deserve to be in the semifinals.
However, at the same time, the system is flawed and should be fixed. Both statements can be true.
As for the argument about how this is good for the OUA and allows for more parity within the league, I disagree with that. Yes, people may be tired of Carleton, Ottawa, and Ryerson’s dominance in recent years. But, that doesn’t mean those teams should be punished for it with an unfair playoff system. Parity can’t be forced.
As much as I like seeing less prominent teams reach the semi-finals and finals, that should be done through a fair system. As “Muted Madness” podcast co-host Mitch Robson pointed out, if Western wants to earn a top-three spot in a new format based on best records, they should win enough games for a top-three record.
Instead, Western has the sixth-best record in the OUA but are seeded third because they’re OUA West champions.
The debate shouldn’t be centered around individual school fandom–as some of the tweets are–but rather the system as a whole. Today, Ryerson and Ottawa are the victims of the format. Maybe in the future, if the West division is the strongest, Laurier and Western will become the victims of unfair playoff matchups. Then, their fans will be the ones complaining.
The one silver lining is Ottawa has the host spot for nationals this year, which means they’ll make it regardless. Usually, only the two OUA finalists are guaranteed spots for nationals, while the semi-finals losers’ fate is up to the U Sports selection committee for the wild card spot.
However, given nationals are usually hosted in Halifax, an extra OUA host berth likely won’t be there in the future. Hopefully, the OUA changes to the best-records format before another deserving team—from any division—loses out on the chance at nationals simply because of geography.
Feature image from file.
