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A bracket or tournament bracket is a tree diagram that represents the series of games played during a knockout tournament. Different knockout tournament formats have different brackets; the simplest and most common is that of the
ing.
In some tournaments, the full bracket is determined before the first match. In such cases, fans may enjoy trying to predict the winners of the initial round and of the consequent later matchups. This is called "bracketology", particularly in relation to the
Image:NSB-doubleelim-draw-2004.png, The
A bracket or tournament bracket is a tree diagram that represents the series of games played during a knockout tournament. Different knockout tournament formats have different brackets; the simplest and most common is that of the single-elimination tournament
A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final mat ...
. The name "bracket" is American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances ...
, derived from the resemblance of the links in the tree diagram to the bracket
A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or 'r ...
punctuation symbol ] or (called_a_"square_bracket"_in_British_English).__The_closest_British_term_is_draw,_although_this_implies_an_element_of_chance,_whereas_some_brackets_are_determined_entirely_by_Seed_(sports).html" "title="British_English.html" ;"title="(called a "square bracket" in British English">(called a "square bracket" in British English). The closest British term is draw, although this implies an element of chance, whereas some brackets are determined entirely by Seed (sports)">seed
A seed is an embryonic plant enclosed in a protective outer covering, along with a food reserve. The formation of the seed is a part of the process of reproduction in seed plants, the spermatophytes, including the gymnosperm and angiosper ...NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament
The NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, branded as NCAA March Madness and commonly called March Madness, is a single-elimination tournament played each spring in the United States, currently featuring 68 college basketball teams fro ...
. This prediction is not possible in tournaments, such as the FA Cup and the UEFA Champions League
The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competi ...
knockout phase, in which the pairings for a later round might not be made until after the previous round has been played (UEFA Champions League
The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competi ...
makes its ultimate bracket draw at the quarterfinal stage ).
Usage in North America
Brackets are commonly found in major North American professional sports leagues and in U.S. college sports. Often, at the end of the regularseason
A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and ...
, the league holds a post-season tournament (most commonly called a playoff
The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eithe ...
) to determine which team is the best out of all of the teams in the league. This is done because often in American professional sports there are at least two different conferences
A conference is a meeting of two or more experts to discuss and exchange opinions or new information about a particular topic.
Conferences can be used as a form of group decision-making, although discussion, not always decisions, are the main ...
, and teams mostly play other teams in their own conference. Examples of this are the American Football Conference
The American Football Conference (AFC) is one of the two conferences of the National Football League (NFL), the highest professional level of American football in the United States. The AFC and its counterpart, the National Football Conference ...
and the National Football Conference
The National Football Conference (NFC) is one of the two conferences of the National Football League (NFL), the highest professional level of American football in the United States. The NFC and its counterpart, the American Football Conference ( ...
in the NFL, the American League
The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the American League (AL), is one of two leagues that make up Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada. It developed from the Western League, a minor league b ...
and the National League
The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team s ...
in Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (A ...
, and the Eastern Conference
A conference is a meeting of two or more experts to discuss and exchange opinions or new information about a particular topic.
Conferences can be used as a form of group decision-making, although discussion, not always decisions, are the main p ...
and the Western Conference
A conference is a meeting of two or more experts to discuss and exchange opinions or new information about a particular topic.
Conferences can be used as a form of group decision-making, although discussion, not always decisions, are the main p ...
in the NBA or NHL.
When there are only two different conferences, there are two sides of the bracket. One conference is on one side, while the other is on the opposite side. Each side is organized according to a team's seeding; higher-seeded teams are matched against lower-seeded teams. Teams that qualify for the post-season tournament only compete against teams in their own conference, until only one team from each conference remains. These two teams, called the conference champions, play each other to determine the best in the league. Other leagues, like the NHL, have two conferences, each of which is divided into divisions, usually by region. In the post-season tournament, only the teams with the best records qualify, except the division winner (and also #2 and #3 in the division in the NHL) having an automatic entry into the tournament.
Some North American professional post-season tournaments are single-elimination format. If a bye is required, the top seeded teams usually get the bye. There is usually no third place match to separate the third and fourth place teams.
The concept is even more visible in college sports, most notably in reference to the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament
The NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, branded as NCAA March Madness and commonly called March Madness, is a single-elimination tournament played each spring in the United States, currently featuring 68 college basketball teams fro ...
, in which millions of casual and serious fans "fill out brackets"—predict the winners of each game in the tournament—in both formal contests, sponsored by various corporations, and informal betting pools among friends or colleagues. The brackets are much larger than those in North American professional leagues—while no more than 16 teams qualify for the postseason in any major North American league (this is the case in the NBA and NHL), 68 teams (out of over 350) advance to the NCAA men's tournament, with most bracket contests involving 64 of these teams.
Examples
The diagrams for formats other than single-elimination are more complex than a simple tree.double-elimination
A double-elimination tournament is a type of elimination tournament competition in which a participant ceases to be eligible to win the tournament's championship upon having lost ''two'' games or matches. It stands in contrast to a single-elimin ...
bracket from the 2004 national Science Bowl uper BallImage:Basic3e8p.png, A triple-elimination tournament.
Image:AFL finals v2.png, Australian Football League finals incorporating a bye for the highest two seeded, first round winners.
Image:PSL_Playoffs.svg, The Page playoff system
The Page playoff system is a playoff format used primarily in softball and curling at the championship level, the Indian Premier League and Pakistan Super League cricket tournaments. Teams are seeded using a round-robin tournament and the top ...
used in various T20 cricket leagues.
Types of brackets
;Single Elimination: Teams play "Pool Play" games in order to be "seeded" for the Brackets. Once in the brackets, teams play. Winners advance within the brackets to the right, whereas losers are eliminated in "Single Elimination" ;Double Elimination: Teams play "Pool Play" games to gain their "seeding" going into the brackets. Each team plays its first games. Winners advance to play the winners. Losers play a consolation round.Versions of advancement
;March Madness Seeding (Best v Worst in a division): Divisions are broken into pools (e.g., North, South, East, West) and within each pool teams are ranked. The top seed plays the worst seed, the second best seed plays the 2nd worst seed within the pool, etc., until all teams play their first round. If the pool has an odd (not divisible by 2) number of teams, there will be a "play in" game of the worst vs the 2nd worst team. Such a seeding system produces a wide variety of matches, but requires many games to determine an outcome. ;Jacobian Ladders (Best in pools play, 2nd best in pools play each other, 3rd best in pools play each other, etc.): Within each pool, the number 1 team plays all the other number 1 teams within the other pools. Number 2s play number 2s, numbers 3s play number 3s, etc. :* Assuming an even number of pools (e.g., pool A, B, C, and D), each of the #1 ranked team based upon their pool play results play an initial game (A1 vs B1, C1 vs D1). Winners go to the championship. Losers play for 3rd and 4th place. :*Assuming an odd pools number of pools (e.g., pool A, B, and C), Seed 1 from Pool A (A1) plays seed 1 from Pool B (B1). C1 plays the "Wildcard" from the second best finishers from within all 3 pools based upon the ranking criteria. :* All #2, #3, etc., ranked teams play in "Consolation Rounds" to determine their ranked order :Winners of these pools play at most two games to determine the champion of the division. The end result can be sensitive to ranking criteria and allocation of teams to pools.References
{{Reflist Terminology used in multiple sports Tournament systems