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It's great that there's something to play for even in the last round.

@ all HGL managers:
HGL Playoffs of Season 1 are just behind the corner, so here's some last minute advice for all HGL managers (yes, also those not qualified for Playoffs are asked to do a minor edit to their box score posts).



What will happen next?

1. Every HGL manager is advised to update their own box score post for Season 1 Playoffs, the way I did it in my own box score post, here: (326590.44).

Easiest way to do this is to copy paste everything from my post, below the Regular Season schedule/scores, on other words starting from words "HGL Season 1 Playoffs:" till the end of post, including all abbreviations explained)

After you have copy-pasted that, please add and/or keep on adding either scores from that Round with a match link (like during Regular Season, and during RS match organizing process), or an appropriate abbreviation, for the full duration of Playoffs.
For instance:
-Santa Eufemia Ducks would use AQR2 abbreviation for First Round,
-Buckner Bandits NQP, and
-Madrid Chotis wouldn't yet write anything as his team is qualified for playoffs but First Round opponent and score are yet to be determined - he would update his own box score post and add a match link to that post, once the challenge has been sent and accepted.

If these sound tricky, please do check out my post, abbreviations are explained, however they're also more or less self-explanatory.

2. After last Round of Regular Season, I will create ORSR (Official Regular Season Rankings).

3. Based on ORSR, home teams (team, that has a higher Regular Season Ranking) send correct (time and court balance home/away!)challenges to away teams. Yes, this time they really are home and away teams - remember, that Playoff games played on neutral court do not count!

Also an away team can send a challenge if they want to speed up the process, but they will then lose one extra token. If it's fine for them, then by all means anyone (home or away team) can send the challenge on those cases.

4. Again, please remember that official HGL match times remain the same during Playoffs as well.
So as we are utilizing Daylight Savings Time (DST, a.k.a. Summer Time) in Eastern Europe and therefore current official HGL match time is now 15.30 or 3.30PM EET due to that, that would mean for instance 14.30/2.30PM in France, Spain, and so on.

If you are hesitant about time, just ask me a question or check out that aforementioned timeanddate.com for example. If you enter for example "Helsinki" in there, which is located in EET time zone, and enter 15.30/3.30PM there to make a time conversion to your own city, you should find a correct match time.

Please do not accept match offers during Playoffs in which times are way off (more than maximum of 1 hour).

Same kind of "maximum 1 hour off from official HGL match time" (as used during Regular Season match organizing process) can be accepted/tolerated during Playoffs, but please do not willingly/on purpose abuse this tolerance, but try to play matches on correct times.
For most remaining teams knowing correct match time shouldn't be a problem as we all have organized Regular Season matches fairly successfully (within 1 hour tolerance), and for Heywood Big Dogs they also seemed to find a correct time for sending challenges (time differences between Australia and Europe are especially challenging, but that's another story for another day).

Official Regular Season Rankings (ORSR) and Playoffs schedule will be published here: (326590.7).

Last edited by Wagner at 5/26/2025 5:46:50 AM

PO Round 1 Sunday, June 1st, 2025

Elan Demars vs. Club Trouville

Rajdersi vs. Holy City Hoopers

Suuret Muinaiset vs. Les Gueux du Marais

Wagner College vs. Madrid Chotis

The first round of the playoffs should look like this, but it will only be official when Wagner confirms it.....

Santa Eufemia Ducks or Svätý Jur Snakers are far ahead. it would be surprising if the title escapes one of these two teams, espacially with the home advantage

Anything can happen.....

PO Round 1 Sunday, June 1st, 2025

Elan Demars vs. Club Trouville

Rajdersi vs. Holy City Hoopers

Suuret Muinaiset vs. Les Gueux du Marais

Wagner College vs. Madrid Chotis

The first round of the playoffs should look like this, but it will only be official when Wagner confirms it.....

Thanks for your message Hadár!
Indeed it should look like that, I did confirm that myself and created Official Regular Season Rankings-table to Official HGL Playoff post, here: (326590.7).

We are now ready to start our Playoff match organizing process for teams ranked from 5th to 12th on Regular Season.
Please refer to earlier post (326589.260) which includes some memory refreshers, and Official HGL Playoff post (link above) if you are even a bit hesitant about the process, or preferably even if you aren't.

Sometimes it's funny how person can forget something that feels even quite some obvious, but it turns into understandable thing when we consider it from the standpoint that maybe "1000000 things" have visited his mind after he read those instructions last time... so it's hardly a time badly spent, if one reads instructions again. :) And having said that, anyone please feel free to add something to my posts, if you feel like I forgot to add some important reminder here or there.

So please send correct match challenges (use same official match time that you successfully used when organized Regular Season matches, and use correct home/away court balance!) to teams as soon as possible, so they have enough time to accept that challenge and then you both have enough time to set up customized lineups for the match (or otherwise your default matchup will be set up for the Pickup match if you don't set it up manually, if I'm not completely mistaken).

So to all HGL managers:
please do as I suggested in one of my previous messages (here: (326589.260), especially part 1.) so that when you have created that Playoff section to your own box score post, you can then update match links there as soon as possible (when match offers have been accepted), and from every manager's own box score posts I will copy match links to the Official HGL Playoff post, just like we did during Regular Season match organizing process.
Then match box score link (and eventually score in written text form when match has ended) will be added to Official HGL Playoff post, here: (326590.7)

I also would strongly encourage all of you to set some kind of reminders to phones/computers/calendars during playoffs, so that we would be able to make this as smooth and fair process as possible, as success of this league relies on managers being committed enough, especially during playoffs.

Of course, if any problems arise, I don't mean that you shouldn't approach me on the forums (of course you should, if problems such as "he didn't challenge me in time", or "he didn't accept my challenge", etc. arise) but I'm just saying that sometimes in such situations there might not be real winners even if the guilty part is found, and in some other cases it could prove to be difficult to prove who the "guilty" part was anyway, so let's hopefully skip that part altogether by being considerate towards each other by acting out in time (when sending match challenges and accepting them).
On other words, I'm just encouraging everyone to try to do their part as carefully as possible and on time so we can get this most critical time of the Season to become as smooth sail as possible.

It's great that there's something to play for even in the last round.

Absolutely, I'm glad to see there are many even matchups.
I think it also does help in making most Regular Season games meaningful (and to have more teams involved longer into the season) to have 12 teams included in Playoffs (compared to "regular setting" where only 8 teams would qualify for Playoffs).

It's also going to be interesting to see how teams win-loss records will evolve during couple of next seasons, but let´s not get ahead of things though, as we're going to have an interesting playoffs ahead - while there is no doubt in my mind (either) that you and GM-Enzo are huge favorites to win the HGL, I want to remind everyone that every win in Playoffs will be recorded to all-time HGL Playoff wins-stats category, so give it your all on every game even if it feels tough... speaking of tough, if all home teams win on Playoffs Round 1 (including myself), then I'll face Hadár with perfect 15-0 record on Round 2!

Santa Eufemia Ducks or Svätý Jur Snakers are far ahead. it would be surprising if the title escapes one of these two teams, espacially with the home advantage

Indeed, they have very strong teams.
While in my role as a HGL Commissioner I'm a neutral manager in that sense, I'm simultaneously only a human with my own opinions and preferences and I usually hope that we'd see some surprise results as well during Playoffs, as at least to me that's the salt of any sports as they keep it more interesting.
Having said that, I also hope at least not too many games won't be decided because of bad luck (injuries) - fouling outs are another story, which could help an underdog team to create a proper Cinderella story (if I may lend a term used in NCAA basketball).

I haven't really made any "studies" or read long conversations about home advantage in BB, but some bookmakers consider it to be around 3-3,5 points... So I wonder if that's even close approximation what's home advantage "worth" in BB, does anyone have more experience/clear views on this?

Santa Eufemia Ducks or Svätý Jur Snakers are far ahead. it would be surprising if the title escapes one of these two teams, espacially with the home advantage

Indeed, they have very strong teams.
While in my role as a HGL Commissioner I'm a neutral manager in that sense, I'm simultaneously only a human with my own opinions and preferences and I usually hope that we'd see some surprise results as well during Playoffs, as at least to me that's the salt of any sports as they keep it more interesting.
Having said that, I also hope at least not too many games won't be decided because of bad luck (injuries) - fouling outs are another story, which could help an underdog team to create a proper Cinderella story (if I may lend a term used in NCAA basketball).

I haven't really made any "studies" or read long conversations about home advantage in BB, but some bookmakers consider it to be around 3-3,5 points... So I wonder if that's even close approximation what's home advantage "worth" in BB, does anyone have more experience/clear views on this?

More like 8-10 points.

More like 8-10 points.

Do you mean in BB and/or in real life?

What that 3-3,5points meant, is that if teams are given a strength number/value that tries to reflect how many points they likely score in a match, then depending on playing home or away, it will be added to their strength rating.

2 examples, the way at least I have understood situation.

Team A is a better team, rating 83, while team B has a rating of 78. In this case on neutral court team A would be 5 point favorite.

If team A plays home and we assume home court giving 3 point advantage, then team A would be 83+3=86-78= 8 point favorite in that match.

If match is played on team B's home court on the other hand, then team B's strength rating would receive +3 as follows:
78+3=81-83= -2: team B would be only 2 point underdog playing in the home court (as opposed to being 5 point underdog on neutral arena and 8 point underdog on away court).

This is at least the way I've always "calculated" that suggested home court advantage, whether it's a right interpretation of it or not.

More like 8-10 points.

Do you mean in BB and/or in real life?

What that 3-3,5points meant, is that if teams are given a strength number/value that tries to reflect how many points they likely score in a match, then depending on playing home or away, it will be added to their strength rating.

2 examples, the way at least I have understood situation.

Team A is a better team, rating 83, while team B has a rating of 78. In this case on neutral court team A would be 5 point favorite.

If team A plays home and we assume home court giving 3 point advantage, then team A would be 83+3=86-78= 8 point favorite in that match.

If match is played on team B's home court on the other hand, then team B's strength rating would receive +3 as follows:
78+3=81-83= -2: team B would be only 2 point underdog playing in the home court (as opposed to being 5 point underdog on neutral arena and 8 point underdog on away court).

This is at least the way I've always "calculated" that suggested home court advantage, whether it's a right interpretation of it or not.

I'm not sure about all that, Wagner...

...but over the seasons I have found that in BB, where two teams are evenly matched, then HCA is approximately 8-10 points. This is without Crowd Involvement PR staff. It is an approximate figure quote by many over time. I have always found it to be relatively accurate but not absolute.

I have noticed this even more so in some 3-game final series over the years where the two teams were so close that the 3-game series (taking into account the HCA and Enth expenditure) have had series where the difference between the 3 games swings were around 8-10 points for each game.

Again, this is only an approximate. Maybe it's less these days than what it was many years ago...I don't know.

If I were asked to commit to an absolute value, I would say 8 points.



Last edited by MrJ at 5/27/2025 7:40:17 AM