Philly Women's Summer League: These are the Ties The Guru May Need to Unbind

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

HATBORO, Pa. -- The final night of the regular season of the Philadelphia/Suburbsn NCAA Certified Women's Basketball Summer League will occur Tuesday night and when the smoke clears things may still be not determined when it comes to all the qualifiers and seed positions for the eight team playoffs that begin Thursday night here at Kelly Bolish Gym, home of the AAU Renegades.

Longtime commissioner David Kessler hates seeing a team eliminated off the court from participating but concedes due to the constraints of time with people ready to take a brief vacation or already head back to school there is no other way.

Deputy commissioner Steph Michielli has already alerted to a nightmare potential of a six-way tie for fifth causing the need to determine which two get knocked out, or to be positive which four get in, and how do they line up in the seeds.

Yep, he's right. But not to worry. And though everything will be redone from this post once the final standings are determined your Guru has already went through a bunch of the potentials.

So this will help somewhat but the Guru is leaving you to answer your questions off the post here in the cases if we do this and they do that -- as NFL Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis once said, "Just win, baby!"

But even that might not be enough but certainly considering four teams must still qualify and the seeds are certainly all unstable off the current standings winning is the only thing to even have a shot at Thursday night except the four that clinched and it may turn out someone might lose but still survive a tiebreak.

So here are some things you might need to know in terms of schedule and standings as of pre-game to help you answer your own what ifs and then we will get into the scenarios.

Actually, in doing the schedule I now add this sentence to say I did put an implication note on each game).

Standings as of July 26th at sunrise.

Team W. L. GB

^-Gold 9-1 --

^-Maroon 8-2 1.0

^-Pink 7-3 2.0

^-Purple 6-4 3.0

Royal Blue 5-5 4.0

White 5-5 4.0

Black 5-5 4.0

Orange 4-6 5.0

Sky Blue 4-6 5.0

Red 4-6 5.0

#-Hunter Green 3-7 6.0

#-Kelly Green 0-10 9.0

^-Clinched playoff berth

#-Eliminated from postseason

Tuesday Schedule

7 p.m.

Black (5-5) vs. Red (4-6), Court 1 -- (Black wins will be in playoff, loss in trouble, Red must win)

Pink (7-3) vs. Sky Blue (4-6), Court 2 -- (Sky Blue must win to become part of the deliberations)

Gold (9-1) vs. Maroon (8-2), Court 3 -- (Game of the night because winner top seed loser second)

8:15 p.m.

Purple (6-4) vs. Royal Blue (5-5), Court 1 -- (Purple gets better seed with win, Royal Blue with a loss could survive the six-way tiebreak if it occurs)

White (5-5) vs. Orange (4-6), Court 2 -- (Orange needs to win. White could survive six-way tiebreak potentially involved through a loss.

Hunter Green (3-7) vs. Kelly Green (0-10) -- Both teams already eliminated so its a pride game.

Tie-Breaking Scenarios

1. Gold (9-2) and Maroon (9-2) tied for first off Maroon win, which gives them top seed from head-to-head triumph and Gold drops to second.

2. Pink (8-3) and Maroon (8-3) tied for second, which gives Maroon second seed from head-to-head triumph and Pink gets third seed.

3. Pink (7-4) and Purple (7-4) tied for third, which gives Pink third seed from head-to-head triumph and Purple drops to fourth.

4. Purple (6-5), Royal Blue (6-5), White (6-5), Black (6-5) tied for fourth. Within the group, Royal Blue at 2-1 gets the fourth seed, and now the other three are tied for fifith at 1-2 in the three-way after all were 1-2 in the original four-way. 

Moving to next step, Purple with a forfeit win over Gold and a win over Maroon, either or would do it, owns best win and gets the fifth seed. White then with a head-to-head win over Black gets the sixth seed and Black gets the seventh seed.

5. Here we go -- A six-way tie for fifth among Royal Blue (5-6), White (5-6), Orange (5-6) Sky Blue (5-6) and Red (5-6) gets created because Red beats Black, Sky Blue beats Pink, Royal Blue loses to Purple, and Orange beats White.

So within the group, White is 4-1 and gets the fifth seed. Red and Orange are 3-2 so Red with a head to head win over Orange gets the sixth seed and Orange drops to seventh. 

Black by the way is eliminated right off the mark in this logjam at 1-4. That leaves Sky Blue and Royal Blue at 2-3 and, unfortunately Dave, the final spot gets decided at the table with Sky Blue landing No. 8 off its head to head win over Royal Blue.

There are a couple other ties that could occur but they can be handled on the fly since the others would more than likely speak to seed only and not elimination. 

Notes

The commissioner in Tuesday's newsletter notes that the league fielded nearly 140 players  representing over 50 college programs in all divisions and some past tense and they have an average height of 5-9 and average age of 20.

Those of you interesting in playing in the next year in 2017, the deadline for registration is May 1 and the forms will be mailed April 1.