Really Random March Madness Question

[switch842]

Does anyone know how the brackets are determined? I've tried googling, but have really bad google-fu. I have this idea for a little fandom-ish project thing and need to figure something like that out. I have the rankings, I just need to figure out how to match them all up....

Comments

[brihana25.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't know exactly how basketball is done, but I can tell you how wrestling does it.

I'm going to assume a simple 8-man bracket, because if you get into the larger bracket sizes (16-man, for instance) then you get into the realm of wrestlebacks, which are confusing as all hell.

Okay, so you've got 8 wrestlers, and a blank bracket sheet that looks like this - http://www.pes-sports.com/08_1st-5thSemi3rd.pdf

They're split into 4 initial 2-man matches (obviously, since wrestling is a 1-man sport).

The wrestler with the best overall record of the 8? His name goes on the top line of Match 1.

The wrestler with the second best overall record goes on the bottom line of Match 4. (This is to prevent the #1 and #2 ranked wrestlers from eliminating each other early in the tournament; the base assumption is that these two will earn their way into the Championship round and so won't face each other until then.)

The third highest ranking gets the top line of Match 2, and the fourth gets the bottom line of Match 3. #5 gets the bottom line of Match 1, #6 gets the top line of Match 4, #7 gets the bottom line of Match 2, and #8 gets the top line of Match 3.

Now, if there are only seven wrestlers entered, #5 moves down to the top line of Match 4, #6 to the bottom of Match 2, and #7 to the top of Match 3. This leaves a blank line under Match 1, and gives #1 a first-round Bye.

The wrestlers who win their first matches will be the 1st-4th place finishers. The ones who lose the first match can go no higher than 5th. If you lose two matches in a row (which would result in either 7th or 8th place), you are eliminated (because they don't give medals for places under 5th {or occasionally 6th}).

So, to follow the bracket sheet:

The winners of Match 1 and Match 2 will wrestle Match 5. The winners of Matches 3 and 4 will go to Match 6. The losers of Matches 1 and 2 go to Match 7, and the losers of Matches 3 and 4 go to Match 8.

The losers of Matches 7 and 8 are eliminated and are done for the day (the bracket sheet I linked shows them wrestling off for place, but they don't).

From here on out, they wrestle in ascending order of the winner's place.

The winners of Matches 7 and 8 will wrestle Match 10, for 5th and 6th places. The losers of Matches 5 and 6 go to Match 11, where they will wrestler for 3rd and 4th. The winners of Matches 5 and 6 go to Match 12, the Championship Match, and wrestle for 1st and 2nd (and, hypothetically, these will be the two wrestlers that started out at the very top and very bottom of the bracket sheet at the start of the day).

But... this is wrestling, which is unnecessarily complicated (even without 16-man brackets and follow-the-leader wrestlebacks). I think basketball is a much, much easier single-elimination bracket, isn't it?

[switch842.livejournal.com]

I do have a 32 person match-up going. But I think this helps me figure out how to do the pairings. Basically 1 in bracket 1, 2 down in bracket 16 and then bounce back and forth getting the first spot filled in in the 16 brackets. So then 17 would get matched with 1, 18 with 2, etc. I think that should work....