ND Women in, Men out
Women: #5 in the East/Men: NIT= Not In Tournament
ND Men 65, WVU 64: The men were probably thinking ahead to UConn towards the end of this game, and it showed. Chris Thomas shot a staggering 66% from the field (and by "staggering," I mean "about twice his season average"). Colin Falls got to play hero, but only because West Virginia missed their last shot.
UConn 66, ND Men 58: This game was over when ND cut the lead to 41-40, then proceeded to throw up highly contested threes until UConn once again had a comfortable lead. Thomas did have a good game, but if he would have just drove to the basket after that steal, two free throws give the Irish a 42-41 lead and big time momentum. Chris Quinn still needs to learn that he's allowed to drive against the good teams, too. Rick Cornett was a man on a mission, but we needed more of him. Colin Falls is still playing the "I'm an overmatched freshman so I'm just going to run around like a crazy man" role. We need him to be a scorer, but at least he hustles now. There was a play where he outrebounded UConn's three tallest guys just because he had good position. That's good position. Look into it.
Whining about the brackets: Everyone likes to complain about the bracket matchups. "They broke their own procedural rules!" "There's no reason why (so and so) should have the (easiest/toughest) path through the tourney!" If you want to complain about something, here's the only thing worth complaining about: 5, count 'em 5, conferences didn't finish their tournaments until the day the brackets were set! The Big 12 wasn't done until half an hour before the brackets came out! If you're going to get mad at someone, get mad at the conference idiots who think they're so special that they can have a Sunday afternoon final.
Whining about the brackets, Women's edition: Boo hoo, UConn got a #2 seed. Oh, boo hoo. Their first two games are in Bridgeport, CT. Now, I'm not saying these are virtually home games for UConn, but Bridgeport is where the visiting bands stay when the Big East tourney is in Storrs. Uconn's next two games, assuming they win? Hartford, CT. UConn uses Hartford as their home for big games. Connecticut doesn't come close to a neutral site until the Final Four! Porlas Piedras.
RPI is just a guide, Women's edition: The ND Women's SOS of 22 earned them a final RPI of 30 and a #5 seed against the Fighting Jackie Stiles of SMS on Saturday. Coincidentally, if the ND Men win their NIT tournament debut against Purdue, they'll have to play on the road in round 2 due to Women's NCAA games in the EPJACC.
RPI is just a guide, Men's edition: The ND men had the 26th toughest schedule in the nation, which gave them a final RPI of 49. Three teams with higher RPIs didn't make the tournament: LSU (38), the Utah State Fighting Lane Weavers (43), and Georgia (48). Washington (RPI 60, SOS 69) and Air Force (RPI 70, SOS 183) were the only at large's lower than the Irish.
First Annual KankaNation Bones (and others) Internet Tournament Challenge officiated by Hatton
Since I'm so incredulously terrible at filling out an NCAA tournament bracket (how incredulously bad, you ask? Bad enough to use the word "incredulously"), I decided to enlist the help of mini-Kanka. Since tourney picks are mostly a craps shot anyways, we used the following formula:
1. If I was undecided, I left the decision up to mini-Kanka. He mostly picked schools named after geographical areas that he's heard of before (Florida, Pittsburgh, etc.).
2. If it was really close, we looked at RPI, mainly number of wins and SOS (team A had 28 wins against a tougher schedule, while team B had 27 wins against an easier schedule).
3. If we still couldn't decide, it went to a coin flip.
4. If we didn't like the outcome of the coin flip (this happened often), I gave mini-Kanka the two teams' nicknames, without saying which was for which schools. This lead to discussions like, "Bulldogs are tough, but Wildcats are wild. Hmm... I'll say Bulldogs."
KankaMatic Thoughts
- The draft is going incredibly well so far. After round 25, we'll be in the home stretch - basically drafting AAA guys from now on.
- I'll relax the draft over the next couple days. Basically, I'll put a new round up whenever we complete a round, but there will be no deadline to put up your pick until next Monday (or so).
- A note on autodrafts: if we run out of players for a position, but there are still favorite team players left, the favorite teams rule will be thrown aside and those players will be autodrafted. (After that, remember, autodraftees will come from players on favorite teams that are not on the list).
- Once the draft is done, I'll email each of you a list of your players and their salaries. You'll have until March 29 (the day before opening day) to send the list back to me with the following 2 things: 1. Which 25 players will be on the active roster, and which 15 will be "AAA." 2. For how many years would you like to sign this player? If I don't get your rosters back by the deadline, I'll automatically put your first 25 draft picks on the active roster, and sign all 40 players to 3 year contracts.
- I'm having trouble finding an easy way to manage fielding stats, so we have 2 options: 1. Include fielding stats at 10%, calculate stats every 2 weeks, and listen to me complain how much of a pain this is, or 2. Ignore fielding stats (except maybe as a tiebreaker at the end of the year), and calculate stats once a week.
- Notes on scoring: percentages/averages (ERA, OPS, etc) will be scored year-to-date; that is, if your team has the lowest ERA for the year at the time scoring is calculated, your team is 1st in ERA. All other stats (HRs, wins, etc) wil be scored on a week to week (or 2 week to 2 week) basis; that is, if your team hits 25 HRs in a week and no other team hits more than 20 that week, you get first place points in HRs, no matter how many total HRs any team has over the course of the year.
- Yes, there will be trades, free agents, releasing players, etc. I'll try to post a more complete rulebook some time before the season starts.
Well, we're finally done with MLB previews. I'll have a Transaction Wire later this week. Then, I may or may not take it easy this week to put some hard work into KankaMatic baseball.
