By Ellis Einhorn and Joey Zocco
As the madness of March snatches everyone’s attention for the next three weeks, it all just leads up to the real mayhem that is set to take place in April between the 16 teams in this season of the Legacy Leagues. All 16 teams will qualify for the single-elimination playoffs, so every team has a chance to “survive and advance.”
Teams will be seeded based on their record after the nine-week regular season, with two tiebreakers in place should any teams finish with the same number of wins. The first tiebreaker is head-to-head if the teams played during the season. If the two tied teams did not face off, whatever team had the larger margin of victory throughout the season will claim the higher seed. Stay tuned for a post with playoff seedings listed as the regular season winds down.
No teams get a bye this season, so everyone will be playing in the First Round, scheduled to take place Monday, April 3 or Tuesday, April 4. The full playoff schedule with dates and times for each round can be found here. Matchups will look similar to a region in the NCAA Tournament, featuring the 1-seed playing the 16-seed, 2-seed playing the 15-seed and so-on.
All four quarterfinal games will take place on Monday, April 10, and both semifinal games will take place on the next night Tuesday, April 11. The Winter 17 Finals will be played the following Tuesday, April 18 at 9:15pm, and the game will be streamed live on our Facebook page.
All-Star Night (Monday, April 17)
The playoffs skip Monday night, April 17 to make way for All-Star festivities. Back again is the Three-Point Contest, Dunk Contest and All-Star Game. Five players will participate in the dunk contest, and six will try to knock down as many threes as they can in the three-point contest. Both contests will have a spot for the fans to vote their favorite player into each.
The All-Star Game features two eight-man rosters of the best players putting on a show. Voting for the Dunk and Three-Point Contest, as well as the All-Star Game, is done by the Legacy Leagues analysts, as well as other prominent people who help make the league as success as it is. When voting for this season’s All-Stars, players must be from at least ten of the 16 teams
Once the 16 All-Star are voted on, the top-two vote-getters are named captains of the two teams, and draft the pool of players into two teams. All-Stars and the draft will be broadcast live on our Facebook page at a time to be announced.
The same voting system is used to determine the season’s regular season award winners. Those awards include the Burns Tire Most Valuable Player, Rookie of the Year, 5th Man of the Year and Offensive and Defensive players of the year. Players can also be named to All-First and Second teams, as well as an All-Defensive Team based on their performance this season. These honors are then listed in the bio section on each player’s player page. Regular season award winners are announced sometime during the playoffs.
DJ Stillo will be there during the All-Star festivities, as well as during the Finals, helping create an awesome atmosphere during the two most important nights of the season. An All-Star Game and Finals Most Valuable Player will also be named after each contest, and as always, the team who wins the Finals will get to cut down the nets and hoist the Napa Auto Parts of Stratford Championship trophy.
For the first time in Legacy Leagues history, a team not named The Brotherhood will win the title this season. Who that team will be is very much unknown, setting up what should be an exciting playoffs.
