The tournament schedule has now been finalized. Please look it over in detail.

Also… is the roster you have online in the USAU system perfect? The roster system is set to lock sometime in the next 24 hours. Please make sure your roster is perfect. Today.

Here’s a written summary outline of the game schedule:

F-M A Division: 8 teams are split between two pools of 4. Everyone plays everyone in their pool on Saturday. Teams are re-ranked inside their pools after pool play is done on Saturday. On Sunday the 8 teams play a standard 8-team elimination bracket. All teams play 3 games on Saturday and 3 games on Sunday.

F-M B Division: 12 teams are split into four pools of 3. Everyone plays everyone in their pool on Saturday. Teams are re-ranked inside their pools after pool play is done on Saturday. On Saturday, after re-ranking, there is a crossover round where teams that finished second in their pool play teams that finished 3rd in their pool. The winners of those crossover games become/stay 2nd and the losers become/stay 3rd. For example, the winner of the 2Cv3E game becomes/stays 2C and the loser becomes/stays 3E. On Sunday, the teams that finish in the top two positions in each pool will play in a standard 8-team elimination bracket. The teams that finish 3rd in their pools on Saturday will play a 4-team round robin on Sunday. All teams will play 3 games on Saturday and 3 games on Sunday, except for four teams that win their pools on Saturday: Those four teams will only have 2 games on Saturday.

Open A and B Divisions: 16 teams are split into four pools of 4. Everyone plays everyone in their pool on Saturday. Teams are re-ranked inside their pools after pool play is done on Saturday. The top two teams in each pool advance to a standard 8-team elimination bracket on Sunday. The bottom two teams in each pool will play in a standard 8-team consolation elimination bracket on Sunday. All teams will play 3 games on Saturday ad 3 games on Sunday.

Open C Division: 14 teams are split into two pools of 4 and two pools of 3. Everyone plays everyone in their pool. Teams are re-ranked inside their pools after pool play is done on Saturday. The two pools of 3 play one round of crossover games on Saturday where the teams that finish second in each 3-team pool play the team that finish third in each pool of 3. The winners of those crossover games become/stay 2nd and the losers become/stay 3rd. For example, the winner of the 2Iv3J game becomes/stays 2I and the loser becomes/stays 3J. On Sunday, the top two teams from each pool play in a standard 8-team elimination bracket. The teams that finish 3rd or 4th in their pools on Saturday will play in a 6-team consolation round robin on Sunday.

Other notes:

• I worked hard to create geographically diverse pools.
• Teams were ranked based on RRI ratings, last year’s results, as well as some specific game and tournament results from this season. Ranking a group of teams this large and spread out is effectively impossible to do perfectly, but I feel as though everyone is in a solid initial position that maximizes the number of quality games everyone will play.
• While I am confident in this final schedule playing out as planned, there is always a chance that with an event of this size (195 games!) that something could change on the schedule. If that happens, all impacted teams will be immediately notified and the change will be noted on the change log tab of the the schedule spreadsheet.
• Games this year are hard capped at 75 minutes instead of 70 minutes like last year. Please make sure your team clears the field immediately after your game ends. Unless you’re playing in a pool of 3 on Saturday, you never have games in back to back rounds at any point during the weekend.
• There are several open fields available for teams to use during their byes. You can check for which fields are open each round on the field allocation tab.
• There is no awards ceremony this year. Trophies will be awarded to the top three finishers in each division (F-M A, F-M B, Open A, Open B, Open C) immediately after final placement games. Spirit award notifications will be sent out on Sunday night once all calculations are finished. Spirit award trophies will be sent out/delivered in the week after the tournament.
• There will be a closing ceremony on Sunday at tournament central at 5:20pm. This ceremony will be short and is completely optional for attending teams, although we’d love to see lots of you there to say goodbye!
• The tournament program will be available soon.
• This year we have two shower locations (Northampton HS and JFK Middle School) which are both open from 4-6pm. If you finish 1st or 2nd in your pool, please shower at Northampton HS. If you finish 3rd or 4th in your pool, please shower at JFK Middle School. At each location teams should park in the school parking lot and look for signs and volunteers directing them to the shower location in the school.
• The dinner and social happen at Northampton HS. The dinner runs from 6-8 and the social runs from 6 to 9:30. (It takes 10 minutes to drive from JFK to Northampton HS.)