How a seeded playoff bracket is built from the regular season table

A playoff bracket is not drawn at random. The regular season produces a ranked table, each qualifying team is given a seed number based on its position, and the seeds are paired so that the highest ranked team faces the lowest ranked qualifier, the second faces the second lowest, and so on down the list.

Where the table comes from varies. Some competitions run a single table with every team playing every other team the same number of times. Others split into conferences or groups, rank within each, and only bring the two sides together at the final stage. The split version produces the recurring complaint that a team with a better record missed out while a weaker team qualified from the other side, and it is a genuine cost that is accepted in exchange for shorter travel and a simpler schedule.

Playoff ties are usually decided over a series rather than a single game, most often best of five or best of seven. The higher seed gets the extra home game, and in a seven game series the venue pattern is commonly two home, two away, one home, one away, one home. That last game, if it is needed, is the reward for finishing higher in the table, and it is the main reason teams keep competing in a regular season that has already qualified them.

A series changes how the games are coached. In a single knockout match a team plays its general style and hopes. Over seven, both coaches adjust after every game: a defensive coverage that worked in game one is attacked in game three, a substitution pattern gets exposed and changed, a rotation shortens from ten players to eight. Games four and five in a long series often look nothing like game one.

Some competitions add a qualifying round between the regular season and the bracket proper, where the teams placed just outside the automatic places play off for the last one or two spots. It keeps more teams competitive late in the season and it means a team can finish in a qualifying position and still go home without playing a single bracket game.

There is one structural question that separates formats: whether the bracket is fixed or reseeded. In a fixed bracket, the pairings are set at the start and an upset carries through, so a low seed that wins can face another low seed in the next round. In a reseeded bracket, the surviving teams are re-ranked after each round and the best remaining always plays the worst remaining. Fixed brackets produce more surprise finalists. Reseeded brackets protect the top seed.