Re: Birds migrate to Marano...not Capistrano..Oswego vs. Platty..WHITEOUT WEEKEND...
Ok ranked #1 all around and up and down,not that there needed to be any extra incentive for Platty but there ya go......Not sure how all the numbers play out,if we win loose or tie as far as the YAC goes but I am sure Toto has is all square rooted..Bottom line this game again will come down to discipline and special teams........and lets hope the refs dont get involved
To put it simply, Oswego wins a tiebreaker in all likely scenarios. Plattsburgh needs a win in Marano on Friday, or they can pretty much kiss the #1 spot goodbye. If Oswego beats Plattsburgh, then it's over. Oswego will have the #1 spot guaranteed and the Cardinals will get the #2 spot guaranteed. The Saturday games will be warm-ups for the playoffs and have zero playoff significance for either team (they're still important to the #3-6 ranked teams though!).
Even if Plattsburgh DOES pull of a win on Friday, which of course is certainly possible, they're not out of the woods yet. They need to win against Cortland the next night too to guarantee themselves the #1 seed. If Plattsburgh beats Oswego, but then stumbles and loses to Cortland, then they'll need Oswego to lose or tie Potsdam. In the case where Plattsburgh beats Oswego but loses to Cortland, and Oswego ties Potsdam, Plattsburgh would win the second tie breaker of conference wins, with 13, to Oswego's 12.
Now here's where the situation gets REALLY weird. Let's say Oswego loses to Plattsburgh on Friday, let's say by a 2 goal difference. But then Oswego beats Potsdam by 2 goals, and ends the season with 27 points. Plattsburgh somehow ends up TYING Cortland. NOW things are going to get interesting. Both Oswego and Plattsburgh will have 27 points, so that's a tie. The first tiebreaker is a head-to-head comparison. Their record would be 1-1. The next tiebreaker is conference wins. Both would have 13. Next tie breaker is goal differential against each other. That would also be tied as Oswego beat Plattsburgh by two goals earlier this season, then Plattsburgh beat Oswego by two goals. The next tiebreaker is goal differential in all conference games. Right now, Oswego stands at +44, and Plattsburgh stands at +42. If Plattsburgh beats Oswego by 2 points, then those will switch, with Plattsburgh having +44, and Oswego +42. But then if Oswego follows up with a 2-goal win against Potsdam, it'll be back tied at 44 again, and Plattsburgh's tie against Cortland wouldn't move its goal differential. The last tiebreaker is a coin flip.
So to break it down:
If Plattsburgh beats Oswego by exactly 2 goals,
AND if Plattsburgh ties Cortland,
AND if Oswego beats Potsdam by exactly 2 goals.
Then the regular season champion will be decided by coin toss. None of those three things are impossible, though Plattsburgh tying Cortland does seem rather unlikely. The chances of all three happening is probably pretty remote. But is it possible? Oh certainly. It's remarkable that it's even possible for it to be this close.
Let's do a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation here. The odds of Plattsburgh beating Oswego is (according to KRACH, take that for what its worth) roughly 1 out of 3. In that scenario, a 2 goal differential is probably one of the most likely scenarios, so I'll say there's a 50% chance that a Plattsburgh win would be by exactly 2 goals. So now we're down to a total of 1 in 6 chance of these events happening. The chance of Plattsburgh LOSING to Cortland is only about 1 in 8, according to KRACH, and I can estimate that the chance of a tie is probably similar to the chance of a Cortland win. So 1 in 8 chance of a tie in Plattsburgh-Cortland. That makes a 1 in 48 chance of these events occuring. Oswego is already favored against Potsdam, with approximately a 9 in 10 chance of winning. But a 2 goal differential may only happen in half of wins, so let's cut that in half to 9 in 20. That puts the chances of this occurring at roughly 3 in 320, or somewhere around 1%.
So that means that there is approximately a 1% chance of this happening. This gives us a ballpark estimate, like a Fermi estimation. We can be fairly certain the probability is not as high as 10%. But we can also be pretty certain the probability is not as low as 0.1%. There is a very real non-zero chance of this happening. And it becomes more and more likely with each event that plays out according to that plan. For instance, if indeed Plattsburgh beats Oswego by exactly two goals, suddenly there's around a 5.6% chance of the coin flip occurring. If Plattsburgh then ties Cortland, that means there's about a 45% chance of the coin flip happening, since all that would be left is for Oswego to beat Potsdam by exactly 2 goals.
Personally, I'd like to see the regular season champion decided on Friday night, since that would mean an Oswego win. But if Plattsburgh does happen to win by exactly two goals on Friday, I'm kinda excited to see what happens next.
