I have expanded on my prior projects to determine the likelihood that a team will make the playoffs this season. As I said previously, the ability to be comprehensive in all possibilities of match outcomes eats into years of computing time, so simulation is an obvious answer.
I created a simulation that attempts to model all the matches in the remainder of the USCL season.
The goal was the same -- what is the chance that a team will make the playoffs. This time, however, I included by match points and the game points tiebreaker. (If a team was tied for a playoff spot with the same match and game points, I said they both would make the playoffs -- I didn't go beyond the first tiebreaker.)
To do this, I made several other assumptions.
- All teams have the same strength. Therefore, they have the same chances in each match against their opponents.
- The game point results of the match follow the historical distribution of USCL matches (which is here). That is, 2.5-1.5 is more common than 3-1, which is more common than 3.5-0.5, etc.
I ran 100,000 simulations for both the Eastern and Western division. Here are the results, where the percentages indicate a tie for fourth place or better.
Eastern Division (Chance to make playoffs)
| New England | 100.00% |
| Boston | 98.43% |
| New York | 97.49% |
| Baltimore | 70.27% |
| Manhattan | 24.79% |
| New Jersey | 6.92% |
| Philadelphia | 2.69% |
| Carolina | 0.61% |
Western Division (Chance to make playoffs)
| Arizona | 97.18% |
| Chicago | 86.54% |
| San Francisco | 78.07% |
| St. Louis | 45.24% |
| Seattle | 35.50% |
| Miami | 27.39% |
| Los Angeles | 23.44% |
| Dallas | 12.92% |
I also included the chance that a team will receive draw odds in the first round of the playoffs (tied for second place or better).
Eastern Division (Chance have draw odds first round of playoffs)
| New England | 98.37% |
| Boston | 55.19% |
| New York | 41.63% |
| Baltimore | 4.90% |
| Manhattan | 0.23% |
| New Jersey | 0.00% |
| Philadelphia | 0.00% |
| Carolina | 0.00% |
Western Division (Chance have draw odds first round of playoffs)
| Arizona | 80.94% |
| Chicago | 50.92% |
| San Francisco | 40.50% |
| St. Louis | 13.13% |
| Seattle | 7.55% |
| Miami | 6.01% |
| Los Angeles | 3.60% |
| Dallas | 1.25% |
Any scenarios you want me to run? Things like: If NJ wins the remainder of their matches 4-0, what's their chance to get in the playoffs... things like that....
Let me know in the comments...
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