AUGUSTA, GA – With one more date left in the women’s basketball regular-season schedule it is time to take a look at the seedings as they stand now and what could happen in Saturday’s finale. The top eight teams in the PBC standings advance to the tournament, which begins with quarterfinal games hosted by the top seeds next Wednesday, March 2.
The winners of those four games advance to the semifinals and finals, with all three games hosted by the highest remaining seed. The semifinals will be on Saturday, March 5, with the championship game on March 6.
North Georgia will be the #1 seed, regardless of what happens on Saturday. Even if the Nighthawks should fall to USC Aiken and Lander beat Flagler, UNG will still claim the top spot. Under that scenario, both UNG and Lander would be 15-3 but the Nighthawks swept Lander in their two regular-season meetings to take the top seed.
Lander will be #2 with Georgia Southwestern #3. Even if Lander should lose to Flagler on Saturday, leaving both teams 14-4, Lander’s sweep of the Hurricanes in two games would give them the tiebreak. GSW has completed their regular season.
Things get more complicated with the 4-6 spots. Clayton State and Columbus State are currently tied at 8-9 with Augusta one game back at 7-10.
Columbus State will secure the #4 seed and a home game in the quarterfinals with a win over Georgia College on Saturday. Should the Cougars fall and Clayton State beat Augusta, then Clayton State will take that 4 seed and the home game, leaving CSU as the #5.
An Augusta win over Clayton State combined with a Columbus State win will give Augusta the #5 seed and push Clayton State to #6 as, under that scenario, the Jaguars will have swept the Lakers.
If Augusta beats Clayton State and Columbus State falls to Georgia College, all three teams will be tied at 8-10. The PBC tiebreaker calls for an examination of all three teams in a ‘mini-conference’ where their combined head-to-head records are used to break the tie. With all three tied, Columbus State and Augusta would have 3-1 records while Clayton State would be 0-4. That would remove the Lakers from the tiebreak and they would be the #6 seed.
Augusta and Columbus State would then start the tiebreak over using the two-team PBC policy. The two split their head-to-head games, moving us to the next step in the process: record against the top team. Both AU and CSU were 0-2 against North Georgia and 0-2 against Lander. CSU wins the tiebreak with their win over Georgia Southwestern on Feb. 16. AU was 0-2 against the Hurricanes. So the three-way tie would leave Columbus State as the #4, Augusta as #5 and Clayton State as #6.
Augusta could also finish tied with Flagler for the 6 and 7 spots. To get there, AU would have to fall to Clayton State and Flagler defeat Lander. If that were to happen, Flagler would be the #6 and Augusta the #7. The two teams split their regular-season meetings. Both were also swept by North Georgia, but Flagler’s win over Lander to get to this tiebreak would be the difference as Lander swept Augusta.
A Flagler loss combined with a Georgia College win over Columbus State would leave those two tied for the 7-8 spots with a 6-12 record. The two split their regular-season meetings and both would be 0-2 against North Georgia, Lander, Georgia Southwestern and Clayton State. Flagler holds a tiebreak edge thanks to their season sweep of Columbus State.
Likewise, Flagler could fall into a tie with Young Harris for the 8-9 position. The two teams split their regular-season games and were each swept by the top three seeds. Again, the tiebreak will depend on who is #4. If Columbus State is the fourth seed, Flagler will be the #8 as the Saints swept the Cougars this season while YHC was 1-1. However, if Clayton State is the #4, then Young Harris will make the tournament as the #8. YHC split with the Lakers while Flagler was swept.
The PBC Tournament brackets will be released on Saturday evening following the conclusion of the regular season. Tickets for all rounds of the tournament can only be purchased through the PBC's ticket partner HomeTown Ticketing here.