Tournament style and rules

---

Comments about this discussion:

Started 12 Apr 13:32

It does not make sense to standardize the format of the tournament since it will depend on amongst other factors the number of teams participating but can we dictate a process for determining the format of the tournament (e.g. the directors will decide the format of each game and publish the brackets at least 1 week prior to the start of the tournament)

Comment 22 Apr 11:56

What would be the use of such a section? Is it just that players should be informed in advance (e.g., schedule published at least x days prior to the start of the event)? Or do we want to ensure some fairness between the teams (e.g., initial placement of the teams in the pools and brackets chosen uniformly at random)? Or some quality of the event (e.g., elimination games at least 20 minutes long, at least semi-finals and finals)?

Comment 06 May 15:56

So finally, do we want to specify in the Rulebook minimal requirements concerning the tournament organization? Having flexibility for Unicon 20 was appreciated by Julien and I. It allowed us to formulate specific selection rules (https://www.unicon20.fr/basketball/) due to the risk that there could have been too many registered teams. But leaving flexibility is not incompatible with providing at least guidelines. What do you think and what do you propose?

Comment 06 May 16:44

I like allowing the flexibility in the structure (e.g. Unicon 20 with 11 teams should be different from Uncion 21 with only 6).  I do think we should adopt some of the selection rules from Unicon 20. Rules I would like to copy with modification

1. A team is represented by its captain, whose own registration payment validates and sets the registration date of the team’s registration. By the online registration deadline, the team must include at least 5 players (otherwise it will not be included in the tournament) and a maximum of 12 players. If the team has more than 12 players, the captain must indicate which 12 players will remain on the team.
2. Each team is considered to be representing a country. This country will be determined by the most common nationality among the team’s players (in case of a numerical tie, the team will choose between the two most common nationalities) I am ok to change this from most common nationality to any nationality or nationality of the captain, I would suggest that the basketball director makes the final decision in which country a team is considered to represent.
3. If there are more teams that want to compete in a tournament than can compete according to the directors then teams will be selected according to the priority rules below.
4. Priority rule 1: At least one team per country will be selected. If there are more countries interested in competing than we can support in the tournament I will be so happy and we can figure out the qualifications, I would suggest that we do not worry about this case.  
5. Priority rule 2: Only one team per “club” has priority for each tournament. If a second team from a club is registered, it will automatically have a lower priority than the first teams from the same country. And the same applies to the following teams (third, fourth, etc.).
6. Priority rule 3: Once the priority rule 2 has been applied, the teams of a country are ranked according to their best results in the last 3 UNICONs (the results of tournaments A take precedence over the results of tournaments B). In case of a tie between 2 teams, the second best result is taken into account, then the 3rd best result.
7. Priority rule 4: Once priority rule 3 has been applied, and in the case of remaining ties, the UNICON organization will ask the corresponding national organisation to prioritize the teams.
8. Priority rule 5: If the national organisation is not able to prioritize teams (priority rule 4), then the remaining teams of the nation will be chosen in the order of their captain’s registration payment.
9. In all cases, the basketball directors have the right to ask a team to change tournaments if they believe it is a better placement for that team.

The second proposal I would make is for the A tournament:

1. Team rosters are finalized prior to the first day of unicon
2. The schedule for qualification rounds is made public to all competitors prior to the first day of unicon

Comment 09 Jun 08:32

Thank you Joshua for your input. Overall, I agree with your propositions. Here are my comments.

The selection rules mainly concern the B tournament, because there are usually too few teams in the A tournament (even for the Unicon in France).

Concerning the nationality, it is not easy to find the good balance between flexibility and preventing abuse. For example, we would like to avoid that it is enough to find a player always sitting on the bench with the appropriate nationality to choose that one (Troub could avoid being classified as a French team by using the Mexican co-nationality of Gaby). On the other hand, we do not want to give too much power to the director (choosing a nationality with too many teams to be able not to select that team).

In the last list, I would require that knowledge several weeks before the start of Unicon. By the way, do we want to add these rules only for Unicon? (The IUF Rulebook is usable for other competitions as well.)

Comment 09 Jun 15:16

Not sure how much we want to codify into the rulebook, but here are some thoughts -

-During first round/round-robin play and particularly when there are fewer teams (such as 6 at Unicon 21)- I would prefer a format in which each team plays more but shorter games instead of fewer but longer games. For example, at Unicon 21, I would rather play 10 games (2x 5 other teams) of 20 minute duration rather than 5 games (1x 5 other teams) of 40 minute duration. This creates a larger sample size for seedings within elimination rounds and to establish tiebreakers listed in priorities above.

-Elimination games can and should be longer.

I strongly agree with these two proposals from Josh Ehrlich-

'The second proposal I would make is for the A tournament:

1. Team rosters are finalized prior to the first day of unicon
2. The schedule for qualification rounds is made public to all competitors prior to the first day of unicon'

Comment 11 Jun 12:56

> This creates a larger sample size for seedings

I kind of disagree because the duration between two teams remains the same: 40 minutes. On the contrary, a single match gives a clearer result of the respective ranking of the two teams and you don't need to handle the case when both teams won one of the two shorter games. Also some people argue that 40-minute games more closely match the on-foot basketball sport.

Comment 11 Jun 13:39

I would not codify either approach and leave it up to the directors of the tournament as this will depend entirely on the number of teams, relative skill levels and the amount of court time.