Spring Break
A broken IM playoff system
by Charlie Gandelman
Sports | 3/13/07
Posted online at 10:58 PM EST on 3/12/07
/ Last updated at 12:10 AM EST on 3/12/07
Imagine if the Brandeis men's basketball team faced mighty seven-footer Greg Oden and the Ohio State Buckeyes in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Facing a team of future NBA starters, the result wouldn't be much different from a scrimmage between my Jewish high school team and McDonald's All-Americans.
It's clear, though, why this scenario is ridiculous: Most Division III schools and Division I schools are in different basketball stratospheres.
But this just happens to be exactly how the men's intramural basketball season was arranged at Brandeis. For the first time in years, the intramural playoffs didn't match teams of similar skill level against one another, as matchups had been arranged during the regular season. Instead, all teams were combined into one bracket. This meant that C-league teams with players no taller than my grandmother faced lineups of A-teams who could dunk over them in the early rounds of the postseason. And plenty of people were mad.
This snub hurt my team in particular. I was part of a B-league team, the Grundmans, which went 5-0 in the regular season and finished second in the standings. I felt pretty confident entering the playoffs, figuring that our undefeated season would place us ahead of the bottom-dwelling A-league teams.
But I couldn't have been more wrong. Every single A-league team, including one that lost every single one of its games, was ranked ahead of us in the bracket and given easier playoff matchups. While my team was given the 10th seed and didn't make it past the second round, the A-league team with no wins got to beat up on the worst C- and B-league teams all the way to the quarterfinals.
According to Tom Rand, the Assistant Director of Athletics, because no other intramural sport at Brandeis has separate playoffs, basketball shouldn't either.
"The first reason I chose to not have a separate men's B-division playoff tournament for IM Basketball this year was to make it consistent with all the other sports we offer," Rand said. "All the other sports have one men's playoff."
It's clear, though, why this scenario is ridiculous: Most Division III schools and Division I schools are in different basketball stratospheres.
But this just happens to be exactly how the men's intramural basketball season was arranged at Brandeis. For the first time in years, the intramural playoffs didn't match teams of similar skill level against one another, as matchups had been arranged during the regular season. Instead, all teams were combined into one bracket. This meant that C-league teams with players no taller than my grandmother faced lineups of A-teams who could dunk over them in the early rounds of the postseason. And plenty of people were mad.
This snub hurt my team in particular. I was part of a B-league team, the Grundmans, which went 5-0 in the regular season and finished second in the standings. I felt pretty confident entering the playoffs, figuring that our undefeated season would place us ahead of the bottom-dwelling A-league teams.
But I couldn't have been more wrong. Every single A-league team, including one that lost every single one of its games, was ranked ahead of us in the bracket and given easier playoff matchups. While my team was given the 10th seed and didn't make it past the second round, the A-league team with no wins got to beat up on the worst C- and B-league teams all the way to the quarterfinals.
According to Tom Rand, the Assistant Director of Athletics, because no other intramural sport at Brandeis has separate playoffs, basketball shouldn't either.
"The first reason I chose to not have a separate men's B-division playoff tournament for IM Basketball this year was to make it consistent with all the other sports we offer," Rand said. "All the other sports have one men's playoff."
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