Regionals Update - Northwest

A few wacky upsets in pool play and Washington defeating Oregon has resulted in a really interesting looking quarterfinals round.

UW vs. Humboldt - The Hags gave Cal a run for their money in pool play, but Element should be able to take care of business quickly in this game.

UBC vs. Davis - The Thunderbirds get the benefit of the draw with what should be the most lopsided matchup of the quarters. Both UW and UBC should be well-rested for the almost certain semifinals matchup.

Oregon vs. Cal - The bottom half of the bracket is rough. At least both winners will have had tough games before semifinals. Amazingly, these two teams haven't faced each other this year. Oregon should be the heavy favorite.

Stanford vs. Western Washington - Stanford's reward for winning all their games is a matchup with Chaos. Ouch. Superfly beat them in their one and only matchup this year.

The losers of the bottom half of the quarterfinals will face each other in an elimination game. That seems ridiculous when the other half of the backdoor will feature two considerably weaker teams. I think the reseeding creates unnecessary problems in this particular format and frankly, I'm not sure that the crossover matchups between the 1 seeds is necessary. I'm guessing that it is done to balance out the number of games, but I think it causes more potential problems than whatever benefits it is intended to bring.

The real problem here is that whoever wins the bottom two quarters has a big advantage because even if they lose in the semis, they will have a fairly easy matchup before the backdoor game-to-go. What will likely be a very interesting UW-UBC grudge match in the semis will mean a lot for the winner and loser. Win and you have a bid to Nationals; lose and you have to go through Western Washington or Cal (or if there's an upset, Oregon or Stanford) in order to get to the game-to-go.

The other semis will likely be another grudge match between Oregon and Stanford. If Cal and/or Western Washington has the game of their lives in the quarters, they will create havoc with the bracket and make their path to Nationals considerably easier.
I'm willing to bet a good amount of money that whoever loses the semis in that half of the bracket will still end up winning the game-to-go.

All of this further underscores what a tough, tough region the Northwest is this year. I think the Southwest will look something like this next year, but that's another post for another time.

For those who hated my predictions, it seems only fitting that UW and UBC will face each other with so much riding on the line. Sure, I think Element is favored in that matchup, but I think it'll be an interesting game to follow.