The first of two games of Week 18 just ended as the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Las Vegas Raiders on the road. That Chiefs win results in them locking up the top playoff seed in the AFC. This also now means that if the Pittsburgh Steelers were to make the playoffs on Sunday, they would play the Buffalo Bills in a Super Wild Card game.
The Steelers’ path to the playoffs does not change based on what happened with the bosses saturday. The most likely scenario includes Pittsburgh beating the Cleveland Browns on Sunday and both the New England Patriots and Miami Dolphins losing or tying their respective Sunday games. The Patriots will play the Bills on the road Sunday while the Dolphins host the New York Jets at the same time. The Steelers can also make the playoffs by tying the Browns but by doing so, both the Patriots and Dolphins have to lose their respective games.
How NCAA seeding works
68 Team Selection
The NCAA is a massive league of 353 Division I college basketball teams and only 68 teams will be able to participate in the single-elimination tournament, commonly known as March Madness.
The Seeds of College
Another area where seeds matter is the NCAA Tournament. As with the NBA, how well they do during the regular season determines who they play with and shapes their path to the championship.
Schedules can be anywhere from one seed to sixteen seeds, with one for the best teams and sixteen for the weakest. In the first round, one plays sixteen, two plays fifteen, three plays fourteen, until seven plays eight.
What does 7 seeds mean in the NBA?
The seventh seed in the NBA play-in tournament played against the eighth seed on Wednesday, and it was a close battle all game long. To qualify for the playoffs as one of these teams, they faced a grueling regular season schedule that included many tough games.
This is an important step for some of these lower-seeded teams who might not have made it past the first round were it not for this detour into the playoffs. Even though they didn’t win, their performance shows that they are still contenders and are looking forward to qualifying for next season’s playoffs by winning this tournament later this month.
Professionals
- Gives a chance to the other teams in the middle, especially those that are 8th to 12th, to compete for a place in the play-in tournament. This gives them a fighting chance to reach the playoffs via the play-in tournament.
- This format gives fans more games to watch. When a team is in contention for a playoff spot, they tend to give it their all. Thus, matches will be fun to watch as teams battle it out.
- More matches mean more risk of injury. As you may have noticed, this season is full of injuries. And we blame condensed games with little to no breaks in between. Instead of having time to rest before the playoffs, some teams still have to make the play-in tournament.
- This format gives the 7th and 8th place teams a slight disadvantage as they still have to compete for the play-in tournament. In the play-in series, they could lose two in a row and be eliminated. As Luka Doncic protested, “I don’t understand the play-in idea. You play 72 games to make the playoffs, then maybe lose two in a row and you’re out of the playoffs. I don’t see the point of that. Mark Cuban supported him and also disagreed with him.