[Tristan Lall]

I think there's a bit of a problem with the alliance selection process at VCU: the announcer just stated that a top-8 team must accept an invitiaton, or withdraw. This is not supported by the rules, unless a Q&A response changed this since Revison A was posted.

Each of the Alliance Leads will designate a student to be the Alliance Captain. Each remaining team will choose a student to act as Team Representative. Each Alliance Captain and Team Representative will proceed to the Playing Field at the designated time to represent her or his team. In descending order, each Alliance Captain will invite to join them, a team ranked below them in the standings, which has not already accepted or declined an invitation, to join an Alliance. The invited Team Representative will step forward and either accept or decline the invitation. If the team accepts, it is moved into that Alliance. If the team declines, it is not eligible to be picked again and the Alliance Captain extends another invitation to a different team. If an invitation from a top eight alliance team to another top eight alliance team is accepted, the team currently ranked ninth will move up to become the number eight alliance. The process continues until Alliance Eight makes a successful invitation. The same method is used for each Alliance Captain’s second choice. This process will lead to eight alliances of three teams.

The relevant point: "it is not eligible to be picked again", with nothing about that team itself picking. Also, note the sentence that follows above--that would be redundant if the declining top-8 team had to withdraw. This may turn out badly, because of the apparent misunderstanding.

Of course, we won't actually see the results of this, because a team in this position will probably just accept, rather than face (incorrect) withdrawal.