Tournament formats
Most collegiate leagues now have the same basic format, introduced by the UAAP with success in 1994 (implemented on 1995) that has now been emulated by majority of the collegiate leagues with 8 members or less:
- Double round eliminations
- Top four advances to the semifinals
- Top two seeds have the "twice-to-beat advantage," wherein they only need to beat their opponents once while their adversaries needs to win twice (diagram A).
- The finals are in a best of three series format.
- Ties are broken by holding an extra game or via points difference.
- If ties are broken by holding an extra game, it may have interesting implications:
- For the #1 seed (diagram E), the winner may face a "weaker" opponent in the semifinals, although the loser will still have the twice to beat advantage.
- For the #2 seed (diagram C), the competing teams will still face each other in the semifinals, thereby technically they're playing a best-of-3 series.
- For the #3 seed (diagram D), the winner may face a "weaker" opponent in the semifinals, although they'll still have to win twice against their semifinal opponents in order for them to progress. Note that this is not played at all times, and leagues would rather use the points difference tiebreaker.
- For the #4 seed (diagram B), it will be a knockout game, therefore the loser will be eliminated; the winner still has to win twice against their semifinal opponents in order for them to progress.
- If ties are broken by holding an extra game, it may have interesting implications:
- In most leagues, if a team sweeps the elimination round, the team will either be automatic champions, progress automatically to the finals (diagram F), or would have to go through the usual playoff format.
- If the sweeping team progresses to the finals, their opponents would either have to win twice consecutively (the twice to beat advantage, used in the NCAA) or a best of 3 series will be used (used in the UAAP).
- Breaking ties are also critical in when the swept team advances outright to the finals (diagram F):
- For the #2 seed, the loser will have to go through a knockout game against the #4 seed, while the winner will have twice to beat advantage.
- For the #4 seed, it is basically the same scenario when no team swept the eliminations, but the #4 team has to win 4 consecutive times against 3 different teams in order to advance to the finals.
- The first-round knockout game and the semifinal stages is collectively known as the "stepladder series".
- In 2023, the NCAA added a battle-for-third beginning with Season 99, which is contested between the two losing teams in the semifinals.[2]
- League champions do not face each other U.S. NCAA style to determine one national champion, although several off-season tournaments exist but these are not taken seriously by the schools.
Examples
- Diagram B: NCAA Season 80 seniors' playoffs - San Beda defeated Mapua for fourth and forced an extra game against UPHDS in the semifinals before being eliminated.
- Diagram C: UAAP Season 67 men's playoffs - La Salle defeated Ateneo in the 2nd seed game to gain the twice-to-beat advantage; La Salle beat Ateneo again at the semifinals en route to the championship (although La Salle has forfeited their 2004 championship in 2006 after 2 players were found to have used fraudulent papers)
- Diagram D: UAAP Season 69 men's playoffs - UST defeated Adamson to face #2 UE; Adamson was eliminated in the first game by #1 Ateneo, while #3 UST upset UE en route to the championship
- Diagram E: UAAP Season 62 men's playoffs - La Salle defeated UST in the 1st seed game 84-79. Both La Salle and UST breezed through their semifinal opponents as La Salle held on to win the finals after 3 games.
- Diagram F: UAAP Season 70 men's playoffs - UE's sweep in the eliminations gave them an outright finals berth, bypassing the semifinals where they've always been beaten since its inception. La Salle defeated Ateneo on the 2nd seed game, which defeated UST on the first round which had qualified by beating FEU on the 4th seed game. La Salle needed their twice to beat advantage to eliminate Ateneo in the semifinal.
