Like any tournament, the best fights tend to be the last. That's in any sport or competition. WIth spacetime, usually the higher you place in space time(points wise) the better your chances of getting matched against someone within ballpark range of your BP or against someone much lower. Placing roughly 80 in spacetime is kinda low but not bad if you maintained it with 53k. I'm not sure what your friends bp is but sometimes placement can be influenced with a little luck at times. I'm assuming the algorithim for match making is the higher end gets matched against the lower end placement. While people who stay in roughly the 70-40 range are pitted against one another. Just keep working and trying out different teams. If you use your normal team in space time it may not Auto like you want it to during the preseason. Try different comps for better results.

I didn't really think placement mattered in Space-time as much as the power of the individual. I was in the 50s range of the ranking, but seem to always match with the top powers of the bracket anyway.