There is an upside, though: a wild card play-in restores the premium of winning your division.
That proved the last of Pompey's forward play - in fact they then firmly hit the self-destruct button.
Major-college football has no play-in games, no wild cards, no automatic-qualifying tournaments.
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The first round of the Ohio state high school football playoffs are over, with Ashtabula Edgewood and Mayfield beating Beachwood and Cleveland Heights in the all-important legal play-in game.
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The only school in the Sweet 16 not sponsored by either Adidas or Nike is La Salle, the play-in No. 13 seed that has picked up shocking upsets over Kansas State and Ole Miss.
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Then I checked how many games they won in the NCAA tournament, compared to how many games teams of their seed usually win (not counting play-in games to get into the round of 64).
According to the projected playoff odds from Baseball Prospectus, 25 of the 30 Major League teams entered the season with at least a 10% chance of either winning their division or securing one of the wild card play-in game spots.
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Those teams are No. 4 Michigan, No. 5 Wisconsin, No. 6 UCLA, No. 7 Notre Dame, No. 8 North Carolina State, No. 10 Cincinnati, No. 11 Bucknell, No. 13 New Mexico State, No. 14 Northwestern State and the play-in contender, St.
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Cook, who scored in the play-off semi-final against Coventry, will be remembered for special solo goals against Manchester in the play-offs and Coventry in the league.
And Colin Montgomerie partners Chris DiMarco, both of whom have lost twice in play-offs in the majors.
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The Welsh side led by Richard Moriarty, coached by Tony Gray and including Jonathan Davies finished third after beating Australia 22-21 in the third-place play-off in Rotorua.
The three were replaced by Norwich, West Brom and Crystal Palace, who beat West Ham in the play-off in Cardiff.
Henry twice handled the ball before crossing to William Gallas, who scored the equaliser against the Republic in the play-off in November to put France into next year's finals.
"I should have knocked that putt in 99 times out of 100, " said Furyk, also beaten in a play-off in this event, who has now finished second three times on the tour this season.
The joint managers saw their side heavily beaten by Offaly in Saturday's relegation play-off in Dublin.
Meanwhile, in the third-place play-off in Caracas, Uruguay captain Diego Lugano was sent off in the 38th minute and Mexico took full advantage, winning 3-1.
Not pension officials, to be sure, but we here at Forbes have documented a pervasive culture of pay-to-play in the securities class-action bar, in which lawyers wine and dine union and government pension officials to get in on obscenely lucrative business of settling securities lawsuits.
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The public is getting the full play-by-play in virtual real time, leaving Carnival playing catchup from an increasingly defensive posture.
The Dragons sit last of the four Welsh sides in the Magners League and face the prospect of a play-off in Italy.
The Blues' victory leaves the Scarlets and Newport Gwent Dragons to scrap it out in the Magners League's final week to avoid a play-off in Italy.
However, there was no celebrating in the league, where City just missed out on the Conference play-offs in 2004.
The Chargers beat Indianapolis - and league Most Valuable Player Peyton Manning - in the play-offs for the second year in a row, Darren Sproles sprinting 22 yards for the overtime touchdown that guided them to victory.
The French club, currently second in the French Championship, are keen to have Thomas available for the end of season play-offs in June.
Summerall became a play-by-play announcer in 1974, and it was strictly by accident.
Thomas Bjorn, who beat the 19-year-old in a play-off for the Dunlop Tournament in Japan on Sunday, has leapt to 39th.
The 30-year-old Ontarian appeared in 320 regular-season and play-off games in the American Hockey League and has spent the past two seasons in the Asia League, a championship he won twice.
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Instead he tells about getting picked off first base during a play-off in Ottumwa, Iowa.
The team improved, but Miami drummed New York out of the play-offs in five games.
Have you thought and talked about how this stage will play-out in your lives?
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The former Wales international also achieved promotion to League One via the play-offs in the same year.
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