How to Create a Basketball Tournament Bracket
Creating a bracket for a basketball tournament is a fun and easy way to have teams compete and come to an exciting finish to a season. Basketball tournaments generally follow a similar pattern, and the brackets can be very easy to understand. For the purpose of this article, a single-elimination bracket will be explained, as it is the most commonly used basketball tournament bracket.
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Instructions
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Making the Bracket
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1
Rank the teams that will be competing. Do this in order from best to worst depending on the number of teams in the tournament (eight teams = rankings 1-8). Rankings can be determined based on a regular season record, or at random.
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2
Create the pairings. Using the rankings, match the best team available with the worst team. Follow this format to pair up each team, so for an eight-team tournament, the pairs would look like this:
1 vs. 8
2 vs. 7
3 vs. 6
4 vs. 5 -
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3
Set up the bracket. Assign each pairing to a side of the bracket. For an eight-team tournament, the pairings that involve the (1) team and the (4) team will be on one side of the bracket and the (2) and (3) on the other.
1 v 8 2 v 7
4 v 5 3 v 6 -
4
Create the rounds. When a team wins its first game, it will advance in accordance to the bracket. For the eight-team example, the winner of the 1 vs 8 game will advance to play the winner of the 4 vs. 5 game. And conversely, the winner of the 2 vs. 7 game will face the winner of the 3 vs. 6 game.
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5
Advance until the end. The winners of each pairing will advance to the next round until there is one final pairing. That pairing will have one team from one side of the bracket and one from the other. The last game is the championship, and the winner is the champion of the tournament bracket.
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Tips & Warnings
It is easiest to use an even number of teams that is divisible by 4.
In situations where there is an odd number of teams or there is a bracket that cannot be situated in format divisible by 4, the team remaining with the higher initial ranking always gets to advance without playing. This is also known as a "bye" round.
References
- Photo Credit basketball image by aline caldwell from Fotolia.com
