2014-15 PBA Philippine Cup standings and magic numbers

You guys know the drill. If you don't, check out what magic numbers are, see this.TL;DR: The magic number is the number of wins a team has to earn for them to qualify; the "tragic" number is the number of losses the team has to get before it is eliminated.


First, a primer of the format. The elimination round is quite simple. Twelve teams, eleven games per team, and they'd face each other once. Top ten teams advance to the playoffs, top two teams advance to the semifinals outright, then the eight other teams figure in the quarterfinals with the higher seeds have the twice-to-beat advantage.

Then this is where it gets blurry. According to Snow Badua's article that has been used as the basis for all of the news articles about the format, the quarterfinal winners advance to the best-of-seven semifinals. So there are already 2 semifinalists, then 4 more from the quarterfinals, you'd get three semifinals series since there are six teams. Wait, what?

Ah, whatever. Let the PBA clear that up once people take notice. Either way, the road to the playoffs is quite clear. Top 2, semifinals; next 4, twice-to-beat in the quarterfinals; next 4, twice-to-win quarterfinals; bottom two, eliminated.

Team	W	L	PCT	GB	SF	QF+	QF-
Rain or Shine	9	2	.818	--	IN	IN	IN
San Miguel	8	2	.800	0.5	1	IN	IN
Alaska	8	3	.727	1.0	1	IN	IN
Talk 'N Text	8	3	.727	1.0	1	IN	IN
Ginebra	6	4	.600	3.0	OUT	IN	IN
Purefoods	5	5	.500	3.5	OUT	1	IN
Meralco	5	5	.500	3.5	OUT	1	IN
GlobalPort	5	5	.500	3.5	OUT	1	IN
Barako Bull	4	6	.400	4.5	OUT	OUT	IN
NLEX	4	7	.364	5.0	OUT	OUT	IN
Kia	1	10	.100	8.0	OUT	OUT	OUT
Blackwater	0	10	.000	8.5	OUT	OUT	OUT

Key: SF: outright semifinals berth; QF+: twice-to-beat in the quarterfinals; QF-: twice-to-win in the quarterfinals; green number: magic number; red number: tragic number.

Note: Previous versions of this article had teams playing 10 elimination round games. This has since been corrected to 11 games.