Akaoni Destroys Christmas

In the seventh week Akaoni rose from his slumber and destroyed Christmas, earning in one week 25% of his total points for the season. How did this happen??? It started with a disappointing Northwestern loss to St. Johns (Babblemur) in the MSG Holiday Festival, but quickly turned around on Wednesday with teams going 7-0, followed by a 3-1 Thursday, his only loss to himself (Butler over Florida St). On X-Mas Eve Southern Miss dropped the Cancun Cup to Colorado State, but on X-Mas day Butler took the 4 point Hawaii Diamond Head and Florida State won the consolation game giving him a total of 26 points for the week on a 14-3 performance.

There was no change at the top of the leader board as Gunz (+11), Boaris (+13) and Mad Mader (+11) all maintained their top 3 spots. Mooseye tied up Mad Mader in points (114) to rise from 5th to 4th, McGrumps hanging on 1 point back in 5th thanks to a strong Richmond defeat of Seton Hall on Sunday.

The CEO and Babblemur moved from 7th and 9th to 6th and 7th off of strong performances this week. The CEO picked up 15 off big wins and a 7-1 record - Gonzaga over Xavier and Missouri over Illinois, plus a couple of wins out of Wash St in the Diamondhead. Babblemur grabbed 19 points off an 11-2 record led by St. Johns in the MSG Tournament.

Jaybird (+9) and Jutdog (+10) fell to 8th and 9th place respectively, 4-5 points behind Babblemur. Akaoni's huge week powered him out of 12th place and into 10th place just 4 points down from Jutdog. Some Guy in Illinois was bumped to 11th, Slake B's tough week (+5, 3-5) dropped him to 12th, and Musashisan's +12 moved him just 11 points away from getting off the floor.

Standings after Week Seven:

• 1. Gunz 139 (69-21)
• 2. Boaris 120 (71-23)
• 3. Mad Mader 114 (69-23)
• 4. Mooseye 114 (64-26)
• 5. McGrumps 113 (69-24)
• 6. The CEO 109 (65-24)
• 7. Babblemur 108 (67-26)
• 8. Jaybird 104 (67-27)
• 9. Jutdog 103 (63-30)
• 10. Akaoni 99 (69-23)
• 11. Some Guy in Illinois 89 (59-33)
• 12. Slake B 82 (52-35)
• 13. Musashisan 71 (57-36)

Oh Shit, More Tournaments

That's right - Five Tournaments are left for points, four this week, one next. Here's the breakdown:

MSG Holiday Festival (Dec. 20-21) - 2 points

Northwestern (Akaoni) vs. St. Francis
St. John's (Babs) vs. Davidson

Both of these guys could use the two points.

Las Vegas Classic (Dec. 22-23) - 2 points

Northern Iowa (Musa) vs. Indiana
New Mexico (Mooseye) vs. Colorado (Babblemur)

Cancun Governor's Cup (Dec. 22-24) - 3 points

St. Louis (Mad Mader) vs. Northeastern
Southern Miss (Akaoni) vs. East Tenn St.
Ole Miss (SGII) vs. Texas St.
Colorado St. vs. Appalac St.

Hawaii Diamond Head Classic (Dec. 22-25) - 4 points

Miss St (Jaybird) vs. Washington St (CEO)
Baylor (Musashisan) vs. San Diego
Butler (Akaoni) vs. Utah
Florida St (Akaoni) vs. Hawaii

Cable Car Classic (Dec. 29-30) - 2 points

Santa Clara vs. Northeastern
Wofford (The CEO) vs. Kent St

Its all CEO's to win or lose!

Everyone Gains on Gunz and Boaris

Week Six was supposed to be a slow week, but a slew of upsets and fulfilled curses held #1 Gunz to 9 points and #2 Boaris to a mere 5 points and a rare losing record for the week (5-6).

8 others scored in double digits, led by Mooseye who nailed 18 points off 8 wins due to knocking off two Top 10 teams for 5 pts each. Lowly Charlotte stung #7 Tennessee on Friday, followed by Florida taking down #6 Kansas State on Saturday.

Jaybird rose 3 spots with 17 points and an 11-1 record for the week. CEO scored 14 off an 8-1 week, and Akaoni actually beat other players' teams to score 14 off an 8-1 week. McGrumps had the biggest coup of the week with an Oakland win over #7 Tennessee helping him to 13 points.

Biggest losers this week: Boaris +5 (5-6), Jutdog +6 (6-3), Musashisan +7 (7-4).

Standings after Week Six:

• Current with all Dec 19 (Sunday) Games
• 1. Gunz 128 (62-19)
• 2. Boaris 107 (62-20)
• 3. Mad Mader 103 (60-20)
• 4. McGrumps 101 (61-21)
• 5. Mooseye 101 (57-22)
• 6. Jaybird 95 (60-22)
• 7. The CEO 94 (58-23)
• 8. Jutdog 93 (57-26)
• 9. Babblemur 89 (56-24)
• 10. Some Guy in Illinois 79 (51-29)
• 11. Slake B 77 (49-30)
• 12. Akaoni 73 (55-20)
• 13. Musashisan 59 (47-32)

Tennessee Leads Boaris to Top of Boring Week of Basketball

Week Five Recap

Week Five resulted in little to no change to the Leader Board, as players saw an average of 12.3 games and a total of 25 head to head match ups (averaging 3.8 each). Given these meaningless statistics, an average "perfect week" for week five would result in 20 points.

Boaris was the only player this week to reach this target, going 12-1 and 3-0 against other players, with an additional 2 points for popping Top 10 Pittsburgh. #6 Kansas State, #7 Tennessee, #21 Louisville, and #22 UNLV are testament to his success. He narrowed the gap between himself and Gunz by 3 points to 17.

Gunz held onto the top spot with 17 pts (9-4) thanks to a 4-3 performance against other players (i.e. it could have been worse for the rest of us). Mad Mader held onto the #3 position with 17 of his own.

In the "Cluster" McGrumps held onto 4th place with 17 pts, Jut flipped into 5th place with 18 points, Mooseye stayed in 6th with 13 points, The CEO tumbled into 7th with 9 pts, Babblemur and Jaybird stayed at 8th and 9th with 12 points each.

No change in the Cellar where Slake B's 8-1 record gave him 10 pts, SGII matched that with 10 off an 8-4 week, Akaoni squeeked out 8 pts (6-4) and Musashisan struggled for 7 pts (5-6).

Week Six Preview

It is Finals Week on many campuses, another week of fewer games and fewer point opportunities. Players will average only 9.8 games this week, with 21 head to head matchups (3.2 average per player) so an average "perfect" week this week will result in 16 points, not a lot of room to move up and down the Leader Board.

At the top of the Leader Board, Gunz has only 8 games with 2 head to heads, and assuming Stanford beats struggling Butler he is looking at 12 points. Boaris can gain more ground with 11 games including 5 head-to-head matchups, 4 of which are winnable, but Kansas State vs. Florida (Mooseye) is the important one.

Down in the Cellar, Musashisan has some big opportunities as Baylor takes on struggling Gonzaga (The CEO), but Alabama will need a Crimson Miracle to beat Oklahoma State (Gunz). A 10 point week won't do much toward catching Akaoni, who could get 3 from Florida St vs. Loyola Marymount (Boaris) and Texas Tech vs. UTEP (Jaybird) and don't be too surprised if Missouri State knocks off St. Louis (Mad Mader). Slake B and Some Guy in Illinois won't be caught by those two yet though, but won't climb out of the Cellar, either.

Also, watch out for Mooseye who has a potential 24 points, but that includes Charlotte playing a red-hot Tennessee team so lets call it 19 potential points.

Standings After Week Five

• Current with all Dec 12 (Sunday) Games
• 1. Gunz 119 (55-18)
• 2. Boaris 102 (57-14)
• 3. Mad Mader 91 (52-19)
• 4. McGrumps 88 (54-19)
• 5. Jutdog 87 (51-23)
• 6. Mooseye 83 (49-20)
• 7. The CEO 80 (50-22)
• 8. Babblemur 79 (48-22)
• 9. Jaybird 78 (49-21)
• 10. Slake B 68 (42-27)
• 11. Some Guy in Illinois 67 (43-27)
• 12. Akaoni 59 (47-19)
• 13. Musashisan 52 (40-28)

ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzz

After two tumultuous weeks of high stakes (and high points) tournaments, Week Four returns us to a more routine 13-16 games-per-week schedule, less fluctuation in point differences between players, and slower movement on the Leaderboard, particularly at the top and at the bottom.

Almost everyone picked up between 12-18 points, almost everyone won between 8-12 games, almost everyone lost between 4-7 games. Here are our standouts:

• Gunz had a routine 9-5 week but led the field with +23 points thanks to a 5-0 record against other players last week, including Duke's win over then #2 Michigan State.
  
• Boaris picked up a mediocre +15 points, but his teams went 13-3, best record of the week. Unfortunately those three losses were all against other players.
  
• Slake B's teams took a nose dive this week, going 5-9 overall, 2-7 against other players, for a total +9 for the week.

Our Leaderboard has divided into three tiers, with a big cluster in the middle one. Lets look closer:

Top Tier (82+)

Gunz (102) and Boaris (82) have risen far enough above the rest of the pack so as to ensure their #1-#2 positions for an additional week barring major surprises. Mad Mader could argue that he deserves to be in this Top Tier in 3rd Place but a weak 9-6 record last week for +13 didn't help his case, and only 4 points separate him from 5 other players on the leader board.

Cluster Tier (66-74)

7 players have between 66-74 points, a slim 8 point difference that could put 9th place into 3rd with a solid Wednesday or Saturday performance. Mad Mader (74) sits on top, but close behind are McGrumps (71) who had a solid 11-4 outing last week and The CEO (71) who picked up 20 points of 12-4 record. Following closely behind is Mooseye (70) and Jutdog (69) who had respectable weeks. Babblemur (67) rose out of the Basement Tier off 21 points thanks to USC's upset over Texas, and Jaybird (66) pretty much fell from the top of the cluster to the bottom with a low +12 week.

For these 7 players a solid week could lift anyone of them to the top of the cluster, maybe even gain some ground on the Top Tier.

Basement Tier (45-58)

An extra room was added onto the Basement to accommodate Slake B (58), whose slide from 2nd place two weeks ago has him just one point up on Some Guy in Illinois (57) and clinging to 10th place. SGII has been trying to pound his way up the Leaderboard, and although he went 8-7 last week he gained 18 points by going 5-4 against other players. Illinois knocked off North Carolina and Gonzaga, and Washington beat Long Beach St and Texas Tech. Another +18 week could move SGII out of the Basement.

Akaoni (51) however has to contend with a scrappy and tenacious Musashisan (45), who has been ensuring wins due to his teams playing each other so often. Musa picked up 14 points last week to Akaoni's 13 points, slowly narrowing the gap and raising the floor. These four Basement Dwellers need exceptional weeks to climb out of the Basement. Musa has 4 games against other players this coming week, Akaoni has 4, SGII has 5 and Slake 2, winning these would help but NOT losing the other games is essential.

Week Five Preview

Nothing interesting happening this week. Well, fine -

• Michigan State (Musa) vs. Syracuse (Mad Mader) on Tuesday should be a quality game to watch;
  
• Memphis (McGrumps) vs. Kansas (Mooseye) on Tuesday should be another quality matchup;
• On Wednesday the CEO plays with himself in a double header: Gonzaga (CEO) vs. Wash St (CEO), and Missouri (CEO) vs. Vandy (CEO);
• Georgetown (Gunz) vs. Temple (Jaybird) pits two hot teams this year;
  
• Butler (Akaoni) vs. Xavier (Slake) in a Basement Buster game on Thursday;
• Dayton (Akaoni) vs. Old Dominion (Jut) will be another great mid-major clash.
  

That's it I'm done

Standings after Week Four:

• Current with all Dec 5 Games
• 1. Gunz 102 (46-14)
• 2. Boaris 82 (45-13)
• 3. Mad Mader 74 (43-15)
• 4. McGrumps 71 (45-15)
• 5. The CEO 71 (41-18)
• 6. Mooseye 70 (40-18)
• 7. Jutdog 69 (39-20)
• 8. Babblemur 67 (38-18)
• 9. Jaybird 66 (41-17)
• 10. Slake B 58 (34-26)
• 11. Some Guy in Illinois 57 (35-23)
• 12. Akaoni 51 (41-15)
• 13. Musashisan 45 (35-22)

Dream Team vs Scream Team

This is the squad you wished you had, the top scoring teams from each round of the draft:

1. Duke (Gunz) - 26 pts
2. Georgetown (Gunz) - 20 pts
3. Minnesota (CEO) - 18 pts
4. UNLV (Boaris) - 19 pts
5. (tie) UCONN (Mooseye) / Notre Dame (Mad Mader) - 18 pts
6. (tie) UAB (Boaris) / Wake Forest (Mooseye) - 6 pts
7. (tie) Tulsa (SGII) / VCU (Gunz) - 8 pts
8. (tie) George Mason (SGII) / Bradley (Gunz) - 7 pts

Total: 122 points.

This is the squad you don't want to have, the lowest scoring teams from each round of the draft:

1. North Carolina (Jut) - 4 pts
2. Northern Iowa (Musa) - 2 pts
3. (tie) NC State (SGII) / Wichita St (Mooseye) - 4 pts
4. UCLA (Mad Mader) - 3 pts
5. Cornell (Slake B) - 2 pts
6. New Mexico St (SGII) - 1 pt
7. Weber St (Jut) - 2 pts
8. Maine (Babs) - 1 pt

Total: 19 pts

Your squad doesn't look so bad now, does it?