PAC 10 Basketball Tiebreaker Rules

The PAC 10 basketball tournament is a post-season competition that involves the top eight teams in the Pacific-10 conference, as determined by regular season record, battling against each other. The teams with the top eight win-loss percentages in the regular season receive a spot in the tournament. If two or more teams have the same win-loss percentage, the PAC 10 conference employs a tiebreaker to establish the correct seeding.

  1. Head-to-Head

    • When two teams have the same win-loss percentage, the team with the better record against the other team in the tiebreaker gets the higher seed. Things can get a little more complicated if there are more teams involved. However, the same principle applies, and the team with the best record in head-to-head competition against the other teams wins the top seed.

    Record against Top Teams

    • If the teams' head-to-head records are also tied, their records are compared based on how they did against the top team in the conference. If they are still tied, the conference compares the teams' records against the next best team and so on. According to the PAC-10 Men's Basketball Tournament Structure-Seeding and Tie-Breaking Procedures, if the teams in question must be compared to another set of tied teams in this process, the conference will "use each team's record against the collective tied teams as a group ... rather than the performance against individual tied teams."

    Record against D-1

    • If the teams are still tied after the first two tiebreaker rules, the conference expands the comparison to how each team performed against the other Division 1 teams. The team with the better record against Division 1 teams overall will win the higher seed in the tournament. If the tiebreaker gets to this step, the tie is usually broken quickly, as it is unusual for teams to maintain the same record over such a long list of criteria.

    Coin Toss

    • If two or more teams are still tied after comparing their records against all Division I teams, the tie will be resolved by a coin toss. The toss will be conducted by the conference commissioner or a specific person who has been chosen to carry out the coin toss, known as a “designee.”