Unlike football, there is a formula put into place when determining basketball brackets that is relatively easy to follow, but the rules are very complex. Football has it's formula, but with such a large number of schools, it is very hard to predict the field.

WRAL has had a few requests for this information over the past few days, so we hope this will help answer your questions.

To determine the number of teams that will go to the playoffs from any particular conference, you take the total number of teams in that conference, divide it by two, and add one. If there is a .5 on that number, you subtract it. So, for example, a conference with seven teams would send four teams to the state tournament, while a conference with eight teams would send five.

When the N.C. High School Athletic Association determines the playoff brackets, they use the final regular season conference standings. These must be reported to the NCHSAA, as well as the results of the conference tournament, after the conference tournament has completed, but before the NCHSAA playoffs if there is no conference tournament.

As we have learned and discussed on numerous occasions this season, ties can occur between two or more teams. There is a complex tie-breaking procedure in place that the NCHSAA will use to break all ties. All ties must be broken before the brackets are released.

The first criteria to break a tie is head-to-head competition. If three or more teams are tied, the team which advances the furthest in the conference tournament will get the higher seed in the state tournament.

After head-to-head competition has been used, and a tie still exists, the NCHSAA requires a special playoff game be played. You can consider this a "play-in" game - sort of. This game can be avoided in two ways. First, the two coaches may mutually agree to break the tie using other means, or if one of the teams goes to the conference final, there is no need to play the game.

The playoff game cannot break the weekly limitations rule (three games). If the two teams played one another in the conference tournament, the winner of that game will get the higher berth. That game will be considered the special playoff game.

Confused yet?

If a tie STILL exists, previous head-to-head competition is used to break the tie. This means the NCHSAA would look at non-conference play between the two teams. For example, if the two played each other in a holiday tournament, that doesn't count as a conference game, but it would be used to break a tie for the purpose of seeding. Obviously, this cannot be used to break multiple ties.

Moving on to the next criteria, the two teams will be judged on how they did against the rest of the conference starting with the No. 1 team, going to the No. 2 team, etcetera, until the tie is broken.

If by some minuscule chance a tie still exists after all of the above criteria has been exhausted, it will come down to the luck of the draw.

According to the NCHSAA Handbook, "A draw will be held by the tied teams for the seeds available. All tied teams for a position will draw with the numbers of the spots for which they are tied in a hat." How exciting would that be?

As you can see, this is a very complex, very formulated process. We're doing our best to work through it all at WRAL, but if you notice any errors, please let us know.