Counting number of ways to makes teams

combinatorics

Alice, Andrew, and six other students are to be divided into two teams of four people. How many ways are there to form the teams so that Alice and Andrew are on opposite teams?

I have an answer of 120 from doing this:

On Alice's team we have
6 ways to choose the next person, 5 ways to choose the next one after that and 4 ways to choose the final person
we have ( 6 * 5 * 4) = 120 possible ways of choosing Alice's team and then the rest of the students go to Andrew's team.
However 120 is incorrect. Can someone help me?

Best Answer

You are correct in saying that the first person can be chosen in $6$ ways, the second in $5$ & the third in $4$ ... BUT

This group of $3$ people could have been chosen $3!$ ways ... SO

there will be $6 \times 5 \times 4 /3!$ ways.

Another way to think about it is ... how many ways could you choose $3$ people from $6$ ... $\binom{6}{3} = \color{red}{20}$.