Bracket Builder

BracketBuilder tries to make adding games as easy as possible, but that can be pretty hard sometimes. It tries to do what you want when you insert a game, but sometimes you might want it to do something automatically, and sometimes you want it do just do exactly what you told it to do.

Select cell A1 (if its not already selected), and then click the Add Game button ( ) to insert the game. Since this is the very first game being added to the bracket, your selection will automatically be moved to Column D.

Notice that the game was given a start time of 9am and it was put on Field #1. The time and field were automatically guessed. Take a look at Guessing Field Times for more information.

Now that you have a game inserted, let's take a moment and see what has changed.

The most obvious change after inserting a game is that a game is now on the grid. To learn more about the structure of games on the grid, check out Bracket Game Structure

Another thing that has changed is the BracketBuidler taskpane on the right side. The game you just inserted is now shaded gray. Games without gray shading are still waiting to be placed on the bracket while games shaded gray are already on the bracket.

Note that the Add Game button still works even if the game is already added to the bracket. If you click Add Game for an already inserted game, then the game will first be removed from the bracket, and then inserted.

The TeamsAndFields sheet has also been updated with the time and field for the game you just inserted.

Our bracket can play 3 more games on Saturday -- the first 8 teams can play on Saturday, and the 9th team (which hsa a bye) will play on Sunday.

Go ahead and Click the + (Add Game) button for Game 2. This will insert Game 2 in the next available location on the bracket on Saturday. Notice that since we have 2 fields for this tournament, this game also plays at 9:00am on Saturday, but on Field #2

Now Click the + button for Game 3. With only 2 fields, we can't play this game at 9:00am on Saturday (we are out of fields), so we now move the the 12:00pm slot and start over with Field #1. Lastly, Add Game 4.

At this point we have placed all the games on Saturday that can be played. Go ahead and try to add game 5 by Clicking on the + for Game 5. BracketBuilder will notice that you can't place Game 5 in the same column as Game 1 -- Game 5 needs to connect with the winner from Game 1 (W1).

When you try to place this game you will get an error message telling you why the game couldn't be placed, and in this case it will suggest where you need to place the game.

Now we want to play the next set of games on Sunday. To do this, Click on Cell G1. Clicking in Column G tells BracketBuilder that you now want to insert games in this column, which is Sunday.

Insert Game 5 into the bracket. Notice how the bracket was adjusted so Game 5 would fit at the top of the Sunday Column? All of the games on Saturday shifted down a little bit to make room for Game 5.

Now let's Add Games 5, 6, and 9 to the bracket. We can't add Games 7 or 8 because they require Games 5 and 6 to be played first. Notice that when you added game 6, it put it at the bottom of the Sunday column, and when you added game 9, it automatically placed it connecting to Games 2 and 3.

Now Click on Cell J1 in order to start adding games to Monday. Add Games 7 and 8. Notice how Game 8 need to be connected to Game 6. In order to make that happen without overlapping other games, BracketBuilder rearranged the bracket by swapping some games around, which made it possible to insert Game 8 at the bottom of Monday, and connect it to Game 6.

Add Game 10. Notice that Game 10 is played at 9:00pm on Field #1. This is probably not a great time, but you can adjust it later. Also notice that in order to connect Game 4 and Game 5 to Game 10, the grid had to be rearranged again to make things work.

Now let's take a look at our grid. The bottom of the bracket looks a little weird. Game 7 is sort of on its own. We can do better. This is a good time to take advantage of the undo feature and try things again. Click on the Undo button 3 times . This will undo the last 3 actions we took (which were inserting Games 10, 8 and 7). Notice how all the bracket rearranging was undone as well.

Now let's see if we can make things a little better. Many times, you can get a better outcome just by changing the order you insert the games. Let's try that out.

Make sure J1 is still selected and Add Game 8 instead of Game 7. This let's Game 6 easily connect with Game 8 without having to worry about moving Game 7 around. Now Add Game 7. This puts Game 7 at the bottom of the column. Lastly Add Game 10. Now our bracket looks a little nicer.

Now we are going to finish adding all the games to the bracket.

Click on M1 and then Add Games 11 and 12. Next Click on P1 and then Add Games 13 and 14. This will finish off the days where we can play two games in a day. Now we will be down to one game a day.

We are just going to click on the next day and add the next game for each game until we are done with the tournament. Click on S1, add Game 15 then Click on V1, add Game 16. Now we are down to the final what-if game. This game will only need to be played if team from the Winners bracket loses the game. Otherwise, it won't need to be played.

Click on Y1 and then Add Game 17. Notice that this game has extra text at the top of it indicating If first loss.

Lastly, we want to place our Champion Game. This isn't really a game, but we want to have the winner of the tournament designated, so we have one final game we call the Champion game. Click on cell AB1 and add Champion. This will automatically format the champion at the end of the tournament.

All the teams still have their default names (Team 1, Team 2, and so on). Presumably you have the names of the 9 teams involved in the tournament. You probably also did a blind draw to get an order for the teams, which means you have an order for the teams, 1 to 9.

Click on the TeamsAndFields sheet so you can edit the team names. You will see a table at the bottom of the sheet. This table has a list of the team ids ("team 1, team 2, etc") and their names. Change the team names to match your team names. Make sure to put them in according to the order of the draw. This will ensure the correct teams get any bye games, and the correct matchups happen according to the official bracket.

Now let's change the inforamtion about the tournament so our bracket has the right information at the top of it.

Click on the Games sheet so we can get back to the bracket. On the left side, notice that there is information like the title for the tournament, subtitle, etc.

Click on Cell B12 to edit the Tournament Title. Change the title to "9 Team Tournament". Let's continue and edit the remaining information. Click on Cell B14 and change the Sub-Title to "Sample Walkthrough". Click on Cell B15, enter "Al Houghton Stadium". Click on Cell B17, enter "Little League Dr, San Bernardino, CA".. Lastly, Click on Cell B19, enter "LITTLE LEAGUE".

As you edited each of these cells, the actual tournament information at the top of the bracket should have updated to match what you typed in.

At this point, the bracket is done but it still doesn't look great. Printing the bracket would not look good at all. Go ahead, Go to Print Preview, and notice how really bad it looks. There are a number of formatting changes that have to happen to make the bracket look good.

Click on the Finishing Touches button ( ). This will format the print area, merge all the title cells, add the hosting information, and a couple other final adjustments.

Now go back to Print Preview and notice how much better the bracket looks, fitting on one page and ready to print or convert to PDF for sharing.