How do I set up a volleyball tournament?

Question

How do I set up a volleyball tournament?

Answer 1

There are two main ways, one for an odd number of teams (5) and one for an even number of teams (6). These are very similar, just change the number of teams that begin waiting accordingly. The average numbers are 5-7.

Once the season is over, teams will be in first place, second etc. that is what these numbers represent.

--- --- ---

For odds:

Teams # 1,2,3,4,5

#1 waits

#2 vs. #5

#3 vs. #4

winners of these games vs. each other.

winners of this game vs. team #1

winner of this game is the campion team.

--- --- ---

For evens:

Teams # 1,2,3,4,5,6

Teams #1 and #2 wait

#3 vs #6

#4 vs #5

winners of these games vs. each other.

winner of this game vs. #2

winner of this games vs. #1

winner of this game is champion.

Answer 2

ask a local school

Answer 3

Depends on how many teams, the competition level, and how serious you are.  I'll assume you have 9 teams: 1)  Set up 3 pools with 3 teams in each pool.  2)  Have each team play the other two teams in their pool.  3)  After this, seed each team in a tournament bracket according to their win to loss record.  Make it so the #1 team plays the #9 seed and so on.  Good Luck!

Answer 4

Most tournements follow the same format:

1. Divide teams into pools, with either 4 or 5 teams per pool, (more is possible, but is less preferred). Distribute teams across the pools according to their seed.

2. Have each pool compete in a round-robin (everybody plays everybody). This is also called pool-play

3. Take the top two teams from each pool and create a single-elimination playoff, re-seeding teams by their pool-play (round-robin) results.

Other formats...

* Straight single-elimination (like the NCAA basketball tournement... lose, and go home. The finals consist of the last two unbeaten teams)

* Double-elimination (lose once, drop to the losers bracket; lose twice, and go home. The finals consist of one unbeaten team, and the last remaining team with one loss.)

Details

1a. Divide teams into pools

If you want to have a tournement with 16 teams, for example, you would create 4 pools of 4 teams each. If you had 17 teams, then you (still) have 4 pools, but now one of them would have 5 teams, while the other 3 had 4 teams. if you had 15 teams, then you would make 3 pools of 5. If you had 14 teams, the you would make 2 pools of 5, and 1 pool of 4.

1b. Distribute teams by their seed

Instead of putting all the good teams in one pool, and all the bad teams in another, the best plan is to equally distribute the good and bad teams. Let's say we have a 12 team tournement. Start by seeding all the teams from best to worst. Then, put the 1st seeded team in pool 1, the 2nd seeded team in pool 2, and the 3rd in pool 3.

1st seeded --> pool 1

2nd seeded --> pool 2

3rd seeded --> pool 3

Now, watch-out! Most people would take the 4th seeded team and put it in pool 1. Nope! This is not correct. You should reverse your order, placing the 4th seeded team (the next highest seed) in the pool with the lowest (total) seed. This would be pool 3, the last one in which you placed in a team.

Next round looks like this...

4th seeded --> Pool 3

5th seeded --> Pool 2

6th seeded --> Pool 1

As you can see, after two rounds of distributing teams, all the pools have the same level of seeding: pool 1 has 1+6=7, pool 2 has 2+5=7, and pool 3 has 3+4=7. See the how reversing the second round of team distribution makes for a more equitable tournement? Great!

For the remaining seeds, distribute as above.

7th seeded --> pool 1

8th seeded --> pool 2

9th seeded --> pool 3

10th seeded --> pool 3

11th seeded --> pool 2

12th seeded --> pool 1

Now you have successfully created pool structures.

2. Pool play is round-robin.

Now, for each pool, you need to construct the round-robin schedule for pool play.

This is easy, too.

Continuing with our example, a 12 team tournment with 4 teams in 3 pools...

For each team in a four team pool, create an initial set of pairings as follows...

1 vs. 4

2 vs. 3

...where 1, 2, 3, and 4 are the "relative" seeding in the pool (not the overall seeding in the tournement.

For example, in pool 3, the 1 team is the 3rd seeded team, the 2 team is the 4th seeded team, etc...

Then, construct the next round by keeping team 1 in its place, and "rotating" the other teams around it. That is, take the team that was (just) playing team 1, and move it to the next slot below team 1. This would give you...

1 vs. 3

4 vs. 2

Then, rotate once more...

1 vs. 2

3 vs. 4

To clarify, let us show the pairings for a 6 team pool

Round #1

1 vs 6

2 vs 5

3 vs 4

Round #2

1 vs 5

6 vs 4

2 vs 3

Round #3

1 vs 4

5 vs 3

6 vs 2

etc...

Now you have successfully completed the round robin schedule.

3. Single-elimination play-off.

Remember the initially seeding you did way back in step one. Good! Now throw-away it. You have to re-seed all the teams based upon pool play results.

Take the top two teams from each pool. (Everybody else gets the lovely consolation prize that Carol has backstage, and goes home.)

During pool play, you will need to keep track of the scores of each match.

Take all the teams that went undefeated and put them together. Take all the teams with one loss, and put them together. Take all the teams with two losses, and put them together. In each bucket, compile the point differentiation. That is, take each team, and subtract the total number of points scored against them from the total number of points that they scored. Use this number to re-seed teams in each bucket, but regardless of differential, now team with one-loss should ever be seeded above an undefeated team.

Then create another set of pairings, much like the way we distributed teams throughout pools.

The highest seed plays the lowest seed.

The second highest seed plays the second lowest seed,

etc...

If you have an uneven number of teams, then take the top teams and have them play no one -- this is called a bye.