"I think that one of the strengths of
single-elimination play is that it allows for upsets. The certain
degree of randomness and uncertainty make the game more
fun. [SNIPPAGE] It's nice to see teams other than
Maryland-CP and Michigan in tournament finals, and this can
only happen with single-elimination."
Careful!
There are those elements of our community who don't
want us to have any fun, especially when it means that
The Best Teams (TM) Aren't Guaranteed To
Win.
Cross-division round robin among the top teams works when you
have a 27-team field, like they did at MLK last
weekend. But I can't see a way that anything but single
elimination would be practical with a behemothian field like
that at Penn Bowl, while still getting the tournament
done in a reasonable amount of time. You could
severely restrict qualifying for the top bracket (take
only the winner of each division), but that has its
own problems, e.g. you can be effectively eliminated
by one bad game early in the tournament (at least
with single elim., you KNOW the playoff game is
all-important). Are they any concrete suggestions?
Doug