Fantasy Sports Adventures (CFB, CBB, EPL)
 

So back in 2012, I was an inaugural member of the NCFA-FCS, the FCS fantasy league over at sportslogos.net. It's just what it sounds like, fantasy football head to head but for FCS rather than FBS.



It's completely insane as a concept, mostly because the lack of information makes competing week to week more difficult than a conventional league. After the first year, I left my stacked roster because I just didn't have the time to participate.

Which was kind of dumb, because my team was literally stacked and I could've skated to a few titles by making relatively modest changes.

Someone kept the Minnesota A&M moniker for two more years before changing it in Year 4. So this season (Year 5), I reapplied to join the league and took over some terribad team that wasn't Minnesota A&M and repurposed them into my old team.

The team was awful though, so I spent the off-season trying to replace the roster of seniors and have been scrambling all year.

I figure I'll do a running dynasty of the team here because if nothing else, you all can help me make sense of FCS and picking better players into next year too.

Think of Minnesota A&M as a FOFC team. ;)



Past seasons:

Here's the link to the 2016 NCFA-FCS season standings & coaches poll.

There are only two conferences now, the Big 4, the conference Minnesota A&M dominated each of the three years it existed no longer exists. The only two conferences are the Super West, where Minny A&M now belongs and the Great 8.

Great 8 Conference
Albany College Patroons
College of the Holy Ghost Dons
Greensboro University Militia
Maxwell State University Griffins
New Hampshire State University Rascals
Stapleton University Admirals
Twin Cities College RailCats
University of Northern Indiana Pioneers

Super West Conference
Anaheim State University Halberdiers
University of Anchorage Kodiaks
Audubon Nature College Naturalists
Dual Spires University Fightin' Owls
Minnesota A&M University Redhorse
The South Texas State University Rangers
University of Washington-Lower Columbia LumberKings
Yuba State University Fighting Prunes

Here's the link to the active NCFA-FCS rosters in case you want to know what the other teams look like.

Here's the current (as of Oct 31st) roster for Minnesota A&M. We're 0-9 and I've been struggling to get engaged. Hell, last week I forgot to submit my roster so we sent the same hapless POS team out to get beat again like we did the week before.



My strategy the past weeks once it was clear the year was over, was to start dropping seniors in exchange for productive underclassmen that aren't already claimed. I figure if nothing else, I can get us into position next year and we'll see what else falls to the FCS level because there's always a decent amount of transfers and being this bad ensures a good waiver position as well as the draft next year.

Here's our season recap so far. You can see weekly box scores here.


Week 10 is the last week of the regular season (thank goodness) and we go on the road to play UW-Lower Columbia who are 3-6 on the year.

MINNESOTA A&M ANNOUNCES DEAL WITH UNDER ARMOUR, UNVEILS "LEGACY PREVIEW" UNIFORMS

ROCHESTER, MN -*Despite an uncharacteristically drab season in Rochester, the Minnesota A&M Redhorse football program has reasons to be upbeat. The 2-time national finalist and 2012 National Champions are just happy to be playing top-tier football again. "We knew returning after a year off is unprecedented, to do so with the gentlemen we've had this year has been difficult but we're proud of them," said new Vice President for Athletics Sandy Jorgensen. After spending the entire season in Nike, the school's deal with Nike expired and they began shopping for new deals. In an unprecedented move, the school inked a one-year deal with Under Armour as a "trial run" for both parties.

Next weekend, the Redhorse travel to UW-Lower Columbia for their final regular season game in 2016. Labeled by coaching staff, "the Comeback Bowl" they have gone out of their way to treat the players with the experience of traveling to post-season football including working with faculty from the TV Journalism division to simulate press conferences, busy practices and other trappings of traveling to a playoff game. "We want these guys to know that we won't always be bad. They've been working hard all year. They see those trophies and the banners that hang from our rafters and they want to be there someday soon. Getting a W at the end of a long year against a heavily favored opponent is a huge way to do that," said defensive line coach John "Puck" Wiens.*

With a new coaching staff expected for 2017, this year's staff intends to finish on a high note. Through the 'legacy preview' jersey, Under Armour hopes to roster some simplicity to the Minnesota A&M brand. "We're excited to be partners with Redhorse athletics. It's a championship winning legacy across sports and football has historically been a big part of that. This is a throwback uniform envisioning an era of football that's modern but hard-nosed. We're excited for brighter days in Rochester," said D.J. Canter, a market manager with Under Armour.

I'll assemble my roster after waivers are approved. I have two more moves to make, but no idea who I want and I figure I'll just let my seniors leave and wait until the off-season to figure out how to replace them rather than being stuck with potentially unproductive underclassmen.

Final regular season lineup of the season:


Minnesota A&M
QB: Stephen Calvert, Liberty
RB: Joey DeFloria, Bucknell
WR: Xavier Borishade, Chattanooga
WR: Jean Rene, Valpo
FLEX: Christian Summers, Towson
FLEX: Jerry Louie-McGee, Montana
DEF: San Diego
K: James Madison

We're down 59.20-52.94 but my defense and at least one other player haven't been scored. I messed up because I started a Chattanooga guy, but they have a bye this week and I'm an idiot because it might cost us the game.

But it evened out because UW-Lower Columbia started Idaho State RB Jakori Ford, but he somehow didn't play in a game that ended up being a 62-44 game (Montana won) and I had a WR start in that game.

So we'll end the season with a W. Wow.

Looks like the final score will be 74.44 Minnesota A&M to 59.20 UW-Lower Columbia. Box score below.

A few days ago, while I was traveling for work, I got an email from the college basketball fantasy league over at CCSLC if I wanted to take over a team that a guy started with, but hadn't managed to participate early in the year, so they stripped him of his team and I was apparently first-runner up.

Master Rosters | Scoreboard/Schedule

TL;DR: Minnesota A&M joined the league in time for Game 2 of the regular season.

Here's my roster. I need one more player. Preferably a good scorer from an obscure D1 program or a good rebounder or something.


Here's the score so far from Game 2 of the season:


So yeah, calling all college basketball experts of mid-majors to help me uncover some talent! ;)

We'll lose to Erie Tech 122-157. Dominique Collier got injured this week and so he didn't play much at all and that's what cost me in the end, especially after a big night last night from TJ Leaf for UCLA put the nail in the coffin for us. Plus Melo Trimble just didn't play much on Thursday night.

Oh well, we're down to 0-2, but at least I have a handle on how to play in this league. Will have to release Collier, add some other players and see how next week goes.

LATEST TRANSACTIONS

9/18:

I'm going to drop Collier (Colorado) in exchange for G Paul Miller (JR), North Dakota State

We also have an open roster spot, so I need to sign one other guy. Instead of just looking for a scorer, I went looking for a glass eater.

This college basketball fantasy league sounds pretty fun. I'm interested, I just don't know if I'd have the time. Sounds cool though.

As for mid-major talent.. look no further than Wichita State. They have a guy named Connor Frankamp.. one of the best shooters.. ever. He's struggled a bit at the college level, but I think he's got his confidence up this season, because he's been draining them like crazy so far.

Also, sticking with Wichita State, guy named Markus McDuffie. He's pretty good. Made the Missouri Valley All-Frosh Team last season and has been predicted by several sources to be the Missouri Valley Player of the Year this season. I'd definitely take a look at those 2.

And, although not a mid-major, take a look at Josh Jackson of Kansas. He's probably a one and done. Supreme talent, but a bit of a prima donna hothead. He showed signs of the type of player he can be before fouling out against Duke Tuesday night. So there you go, there's 3 for you to check out. :)

Josh Jackson plays for Erie Tech in this league. McDuffie and Frankamp are both free agents at the moment though, I'm going to take a look for sure. Thanks for the advice.

I'm going to redshirt Ivan Rabb (Cal) since he's been hurt and hasn't played this year. That frees up a roster spot and I'm going to probably take one of those Wichita State dudes.

Here are my total transactions from today:

Drop: G Dominique Collier, Colorado
Add: G Paul Miller, North Dakota State (JR)

Add: (Open Roster spot) G Nick Dixon, UT Rio Grande (JR)

Redshirt: F Ivan Rabb, California
Redshirt: G Tyler Dorsey, Oregon

Add: F Markus McDuffie (So.), Wichita State
Add: G Sam Cassell, Jr. (Sr.), Iona

I'm obviously trying to double-down on these mid-major dudes, because most people don't seem to be doing as much of that outside of the "Search for leading scorers in the nation and add them to your team" crowd.

I might need to adjust my strategy as the season goes on, but I'm still trying to get my bearings and it's too early in the year to really get a sense of what will work.

Yea, those fantasy leagues and stuff are always a crapshoot. I've tried fantasy football before but I can never stay involved and my teams usually end up sucking anyways. It's fun though. I hope McDuffie works out for you. As a hardcore Wichita State fan, I could tell you about pretty much all their players. I took a look through the other teams rosters, I didn't see any other Shockers on there. I was disappointed with that. Well, good luck, I'll be following for sure.

It's worth noting the scoring mechanism isn't "cumulative scoring" it's "best game of the week for your player" apparently. I had no idea, but glad I figured this out in Game 2 and not late in the season. ;) Should go back and read the rules...

Game 3 we lost again to fall to 0-3 on the year:



Need to drop Chris Brady for someone actually useful.

Going to drop Brady for Hayden Dalton from Wyoming. I don't have anyone who is a primary rebounder or even a ball distributor and we need to do that if we're going to have any luck this year. Also dropped another player the other guy drafted -- G Evan Payne from Long Beach State -- in exchange for another interior presence, Hassan Martin from Rhode Island.

Oh and I realized we had another bad player on this team, I have no idea what the fuck this guy was doing drafting this roster. This team is so bad.

Drop: F Montaque Gill-Caesar, San Diego State
Add: G Jeremy Hemsley, San Diego State (SO)

Hemsley is SDSU's leading scorer so far this year.

Here's my updated roster as Nov. 21st. This week's "game" is from today through next Sunday.

Game 4
 

We're going to beat Coastal California to notch our first win of the season, which is delightful because I think otherwise the barriers to getting a possible post-season berth would've slowly been out of reach. Not out of the woods yet, but super happy for the strong showing.

Gonna plot my roster for Game 5 right now.

Here's my Game 5 roster at UC Long Beach (3-1) which lasts from tomorrow through Thursday.

Minnesota A&M (1-3)

I considered Sam Cassell Jr., Goodwin from FGCU or even the dude from North Dakota State (Miller) but the latter two have been inconsistent lately, Cassell had a decent Alaska tournament but Iona doesn't play this week.

Minny A&M win our second straight, this time against 3-1 UC Long Beach. Turns out that my picks of Dixon and Martin were difference makers and now we'll move to 2-3 on the year after tonight's games (neither of us have players on the board tonight.)

Pretty pumped to be turning a corner, probably need to check and see if there's some moves we need to make at some point to solidify things, but...pretty happy to right the ship and get near post-season contention.

This weekend is Game 6. I dropped FGCU's Goodwin in exchange for Baylor's Johnathan Motley who has double-double potential most nights. Got rid of my homer pick Hayden Dalton from Wyoming in exchange for F Tanner Leisner from New Hampshire, who is an offensive weapon low-key. We'll see how these picks do over the weekend.

ACTUALLY Leisner played for someone else. So I couldn't claim him on waivers.

We'll see how this roster goes. Dixon is playing lights out lately, running with two new guys isn't usually my deal but figured I should see what they can do in the non-conference against opponents where they ought to score well. Trimble has been consistent and Martin has been a good addition so far.

GAME 6 ROSTER
We're playing against Dennison State who lost last week and are now 3-2, so we're trying to get to .500 and get into what should probably kick us into the tournament bubble with a win. Not bad for a team that started off the year with a loss before I even took over. Fingers crossed.

G Sam Cassell Jr., Iona (F, Su.)
G Melo Trimble, Maryland (Sa.)
G Nick Dixon, UT Rio Grande (Sa.)
F Johnathon Motley, Baylor (Sa.)
F Hassan Martin, Rhode Island (Sa.)

Since I couldn't get the New Hampshire kid, I went with Cassell and a 3-guard lineup this week. It's risky, but Cassell is scoring regularly and unlike anybody else, he's going to play twice this weekend against competition that I expect him to be able to score on. No guarantees and we do lose something with not getting the other kid, but...if he can put up 20 points and have decent assists at all, he'll have earned his keep relative to anybody else on the roster.

Here's hoping.

We're up by 47 in Game 6. Tomorrow I have Cassell Jr., playing again and Dennison State has Khalid Hart (Marist) and Thomas Bryant (Indiana) but again, they're down by 47 so that'd be a hell of a lead to try to cover. For the 3rd straight game, they've started Cameron Morse (Youngstown State) who must be injured or otherwise not playing, so only starting 4 dudes is a killer in this league unless you get really lucky.

I'm more than happy with it, though because it means we'll move to .500 on the year and given our first loss was the forfeit before I took over, that's not a bad spot to be in with two games left before the conference schedule takes over.

I like where we are, barring injuries. I won't be able to make many more transactions barring injury, because I'd like to keep the roster relatively consistent even if I'm tweaking the lineups as people play, etc.

One game at a time, but I like where we're headed.

Game 6 Recap
 

That forfeit is really messing with our scoring differential, but so it goes. Really sucks, but we'll have to overcome it and if we keep winning, we will. We won again with a final score 132-100 to end up 3-3 on the year and get to .500. We're not in the projected February Frenzy standings (2nd image) but we've got hopes of getting there with more key OOC wins.

Gonna see if I can pick up somebody to help the roster out this week, Game 7 lasts from tomorrow through next Sunday. Would like to keep the scoring/win streak up, at all costs though.

Here are my latest transactions. Turns out, Ivan Rabb isn't injured anymore and I shouldn't have redshirted Tyler Dorsey because now the only way I can play him this year is to release him and hope he doesn't get claimed by someone else for 24 hours.

I'm probably not willing to take that risk. I burned the redshirt on Rabb because he's way better and doubtful he'll be around next year. Dorsey has been inconsistent.

Turns out, we're a lot more stacked as a club than I thought...but it just takes a matter of looking at your roster to figure it out.

This week's game is against two-time defending national champion California A&M, who are kinda the Kentucky of this league having won three national titles in their history. Their tactics are dudes who rebound heavy and score a lot. I think we can take them, though, if the odds are in our favor schedulewise.

Here's my tentative Game 7 Roster, provided my transactions go through:

Considered using Nzekwesi but Oral Roberts only has one game this week.

The transaction hadn't been processed yet, so I removed the Naar/Hemsley swap, because after looking more closely, Hemsley is a lot more useful scoring wise than Naar who comes up cold more often than not.

Seems likely that the next guy for me to drop would be Cassell Jr., he's a solid scoring output guy but doesn't do anything else and really the best way to win this league is to get dudes who are double/double capable each night and who fill stat sheets. So you want #1 or #2 options who start and nobody else. And bonus points for teams that score a lot in bad leagues because ultimately, a SEC point is worth just as much as Big West or MAAC or WCC points/assists/blocks, etc.

Things bode well for us in Game 7, so far. We're up by about 30 points after the 2nd day of the week and that's without Hassan Martin playing at all. If I read the rules right, I'm able to replace him because he never tipped off. If that checks out, I replaced him with F Emmanuel Nzekwesi, Oral Roberts (W, Sa), so we don't even end up losing any points for having him in the lineup before I realized he was hurt.

110-122, we're down after Markelle Fultz last night. I've got four players playing on Saturday, so do they, but they also have someone playing on Sunday. So we've just got to hope 1 or 2 of our guys have a big weekend in them to give us enough of a cushion to pull out a W, but either way, it's good we can go toe-to-toe with a top non-conference foe at this stage of the year.

We're gonna lose and our 3 game win streak is over. California A&M was too strong, but at least we know how to compete against a team like that and it's OOC anyway. We just didn't have my normal Rhode Island guy who would've helped. Many of our other scorers just didn't have a game this week. Can't win 'em all.

Really would like to win this one. I've just been suspect about picking the wrong dudes and leaving the wrong guys on the bench. I think the matchups favor this week's lineup.

GAME 8 ROSTER

Minnesota A&M University

G Nick Dixon, UT-Rio Grande (M, F, Sa)
G Kenrich Williams, TCU (Su)
G Jazz Johnson, Portland (F, Su)
F Reid Travis, Stanford (F)
F Johnathan Motley, Baylor (W, Sa, Su)

Game 8 is going to be a walkover. Kentucky Tech didn't fill out their roster. I think there is a rule that you can't just not post a roster for more than two games or something like that, so you actually have to post and he didn't post but one player so I'm going to beat him given there's only today and tomorrow's games and I'm up by over 100 points.

That'll put us up to .500 and probably within striking distance of a post-season spot, but not actually into the Top 8. Still with the non-conference waning, it'll be good to be close and a good sign especially as I'm testing out this newer roster.

So he did decide to post a roster after all. We're down by 18 points, but his whole slate is done. I need Kenrich Williams to somehow combine for at least 19 points to notch the win. Doable since he's kind of a double/double machine and has notched four straight games of 10 or more rebounds.

But...if Jazz Johnson or Johnathon Motley manage to have a better game tonight than they did the other night, they could also help close that 19 point gap, too. Doesn't matter how we cobble together the points, we just need to chip away at it.

I like our chances and I've learned line construction in this league is almost as much as playing the schedule as it is picking the right dudes.

We're going to win. Williams totals tonight are already at 20 (points/assists/rebounds) and we're not even out of the 1st half yet in that game. Motley added two points overall to his total too.

So regardless, we'll notch our 4th win of the year. Nice.

YESTERDAY'S WAIVER MOVES

DROP:
F Emmanuel Nzekwesi, Oral Roberts (FR)
G Jeremy Hemsley, San Diego State (SO)
F Ivan Rabb, California (SO)
F Hassan Martin, Rhode Island (SR)


ADD:

Martin was my favorite go-to guy, but he's injured and no indication of when he'll be back. Hemsley I've been wanting to drop for a while, just didn't have anyone to drop him for. We pick up some rebounding and some go-to scoring as a result.

GAME 9 LINEUP

We're 4-4 and in 10th place, just two spots out of a playoff spot. We're into conference play now and would really like to start it off right. Calvert, the team we're facing this week is 6-2 and lost last week but they are powered by two of the leading scorers in the country - Marcus Keene (CMU) and Damon Lynn (NJIT).

Both are playing not especially good opponents meaning both should -- in theory -- have big nights. For our luck, they've only got one game.

So we'll need to average around 150 points (so each guy notching 30 points apiece) to win. I think it's doable with this roster if these dudes do what they're supposed to.

I debated who to put in that last spot including UT-Rio Grande's Dixon who are playing a NAIA opponent this week, but I was afraid the coach would sit him to give him rest and he won't score a ton against them.

FIU's new player I signed, McGill is tempting for me to put into the lineup but they're playing North Florida and in general, FIU doesn't score a ton of points and they only have one game this week.

If I have to trust a one-game guy, I'll rely on Rutgers Freeman. They've only lost one game this year, they're playing an in-state rival which should mean big minutes to their leading scorer and rebounder and even if he somehow comes up dry on the scoring side, he'll surely get rebounds because that's been his bread and butter all year.

I like that three of my guys are playing two games this week, too. Gives me extra options. If we can average 30 game points per guy total across all of the stat categories (P/A/R) then I think we can pull out a win based on what I've seen research wise.

Here's hoping.

Minnesota A&M
G Jazz Johnson, Portland (Tu, Th)
G Ryan Taylor, Evansville (Th)
F Sebastian Saiz, Ole Miss (M, Th)
F Reid Travis, Stanford (M, Th)
F Deshawn Freeman, Rutgers (F)

Here's the Game 9 opponent's roster:


Marcus Keene is the nation's leading scorer. Lucky for me, all but one of his guys have already played. We're down by 68 points, but I still have two players who haven't scored any points at all. He has one guy left playing tomorrow (Portland) but I also have a Portland player who I played deliberately as they're the top two scorers for that team in the hopes it'd cancel out.

The wildcard for me is Freeman. If he sticks to his double/double pace, we're in good shape. Same with Taylor, if he can produce...then we'll beat them.

The real risk with Taylor is that he's streaky. He's had two 20+ games this year, but he also only scored 7 the other night. My bet here is they're playing a NCAA D3 team on Thursday, so I was hoping that he'd get some run and score quite a bit. But it's a risky move because I could've played Baylor's guy tonight and left almost 30 points on the bench that will come back to haunt me if Taylor doesn't show up.

Fingers crossed that my gambling pays off here.

My latest move:

MINNESOTA A&M
DROP: G Nick Dixon UT-Rio Grande (JR)
ADD: G Damyean Dotson Houston (SR)

He wouldn't have saved us even if he did play last night so it worked out okay even though we lost...I feel like Keene is the only reason we lost so I can take solace in that.



In the standings, we're still just 4-5 and didn't lose a lot of ground in the February Frenzy race. The playoff situation works is the three conference champions get into the post-season automatically. Then the next 5 teams with the best overall record get in after that.



We play an 18 game season. I think our chances are good that if we keep up our scoring pace, we can get into the post-season.

My "preferred" lineup going forward is gonna look something like:


But I like our chances even at 4-5
(considering one of those losses is a forfeit before I took over.)

The nerdiest thing I did to end 2016 was develop a RPI and SOS calculator for this league. Well luckily somebody had already made a spreadsheet for RPI that I was able to adapt, but I had to still input and check all the data!

Anyway, it's not that league will use it...it's just nice to see how the teams/matchups stack up since it's an unbalanced schedule.

As for this week's games, we're up by 23 points with tonight's games to go, so unless his guy somehow doubles his output from a few nights ago to tack onto his score, we should be safe. I have Reid Travis playing tonight again too, he put up 30 total game points for me in his last outing, so it's possible he pads our lead to get us to .500.

We're 5th in RPI right now. 2nd in SOS though. I figured we were playing a tough schedule but I couldn't confirm until now.

SOS through Week 9 games

STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE
UC Long Beach 30.38
Minnesota A&M 28.54
California A&M 28.53
Calvert 27.93
Continental 26.08
UW Lower Columbia 26.08
Dennison State 26.08
Bloom State 25.43
Redmond 25.42
Erie Tech 24.17
Irvington 24.17
Coastal California 24.17
Southern Atlantic 24.17
Deutschtown 23.57
West Texas 23.57
Golden Isles 22.97
Kentucky Tech 21.11
Lakeshore 19.87

Scored 163 points in my win last week to move to 5-5.



Made a few moves with conference play starting in earnest and lucked into two of the Top 50 scorers in the nation that nobody had claimed. I swapped the Evansville guy for an IU guy because they're in my backyard and figured it'd be cool to have a reason to care about their output, at least through February.

Senglin is averaging 20.4 PPG through 12 games this year, Ross is at 20.9 PPG. The big thing I wanted to do in case we do make the tournament is shore up the line so we're getting around 30 game points a night from each guy or at least as close to that as possible. More ideal are guys who can get you into the 40s, because you win ballgames that way but it's the 15-20 point guys that kill you week to week.


Here's my Week 10 roster, this week's game goes through Thursday.
G Jalen Ross, Hartford (M)
G Damyean Dotson, Houston (W)
G James Blackmon, Indiana (Tu)
F Johnathan Motley, Baylor (W)
F Sebastian Saiz, Mississippi (Tu)

Still out of a post-season spot, but right on the cusp of the bubble

I look like a genius. Jalen Ross of Hartford scored 31 points, had 4 rebounds, a steal and an assist in Hartford's loss to Yale today. But that's 37 game points for a dude that wasn't on my roster 12 hours ago. I don't think of the three dudes I dropped today any of them had a 37+ point night the entire year.

So I'm feeling pretty smart right now.

I get to see Blackmon of IU tomorrow night live against Indiana, which is kinda why I added him, but also he's IU's leading scorer and nobody had him because it probably didn't occur to them to blow up their rosters.

Much like the year that I won the FCS football title on this same forum, if I do well in basketball it's going to be the fact that I'm spend time paying attention to this stuff. Doesn't guarantee a victory obviously, but...I think the only carryover on my roster from when I took the team over is Melo Trimble from Maryland and my redshirt from Oregon.

Got too cute. The IU guy was useless and we're gonna fucking lose by a few points because I didn't use one of my more reliable 20+ scorers. Such an idiot.

Wait, no stock cars? No pageant winners? No top singles charts?

Sorry, wrong thread. Carry on. (Fun stuff)

Haha.

Here's my Game 11 roster. We've gotta stop losing conference games starting immediately. We have a few more games (it goes to 18 I think) but it's just the principle of it that it's time to tinkering with cute and go for max production from proven dudes, last week we let one game away when it was winnable as hell.

Wasted.

ANYWAY THERE IS GOOD NEWS.

This league does not have many vultures who troll the waiver wire looking for moves. My roster only has two guys on it that I started the year with, noted that we started the year 0-3 or something before I started managing to win games so clearly that shit he gave me to start wasn't very good.

Anyway, Freeman's production has dropped and Blackmon lost me the game this week so both are gone. I replace them with Nate Mason, a relatively consistent assists machine at Minnesota who went for 31 a couple of nights ago and SOMEHOW NOBODY SIGNED IVAN RABB, who I dropped back when he was hurt in November and then completely forgot about him.

He's 10th in the nation in rebounds. He's had three straight double-doubles in his past three games. I think I'll take my chances with him.

Seriously, the Rabb acquisition coupled with my guard combos make us a title contender. We'll still need a bit of luck, but...I'm saying...this is a HUGE move. To be fair, he was already on the roster and I dropped him like an idiot but the fact that nobody thought to claim him might have been the best luck I've had.

Oh here's my roster for this weekend's games:

G Jalen Ross, Hartford (Su)
G Jeremy Senglin, Weber State (Sa)
F Ivan Rabb, California (Su)
F Sebastian Saiz, Ole Miss (Sa)
C Michael Buchanan, SC Upstate (Sa)

On the bright side, there are 7 more games left in the regular season. Golden Isles is the top team in the conference and we lost to them by 13 points.

We'll get them the next go-round, but my goal is to go 6-1 or 7-0 in the last clip of games. Ambitious, but we've got the roster to do it.

Weber State's game was postponed tonight so I had to replace Senglin with Nate Mason from Minnesota. Which sucks, because Senglin would've scored more probably. Mason will get assists, but his scoring we'll just have to see.

We're down by 63 points with 3 guys to play tomorrow (For me) and 1 (for him) and so we'll see. The guy he has tomorrow is a Wake Forest guy who averages somewhere in the 20+ range for this game, so...I think my 3 guys could net me somewhere in the 80 point range, but it'll take a big night from somebody to drag out the W.

But we'll see how it goes, I guess.

Probably gonna lose again. Senglin going down was a tough blow. Mason played shitty. Ivan Rabb pretty much needs to lose his mind to give us any chance, but I think we're DOA.

Lost again.

Ugh.

GAME 13 roster

Minnesota A&M
C Michael Buchanan, USC Upstate (Th)
F Ivan Rabb, California (Th)
F Sebastian Saiz, Mississippi (W)
G Curtis Cobb, Fairfield (Tu)
G Jeremy Senglin, Weber State (Th)

Gonna lose again. Officially giving up, by and large. Just too hard to predict this stuff week to week. I think I've done a decent job for showing up new to the league and being able to put together a solid roster week to week, but we just don't have enough 40+ guys to be able to compete with the big dogs. I'll do better next year.

You need productive guards early and often.

We lose again this week and we're at 5-9, so the playoff dream is for real over. I tinkered too much with the lineups and it took me like 5 games to really figure out how to play. We lost a few we should've won, much like a real team and it cost in the end. We'll try to finish strong, but in general, we suck and I'm over it.

GAME 15 ROSTER (UGH)

MINNESOTA A&M
F Ivan Rabb, Cal (Th)
F Sebastian Saiz, Ole Miss (Tu)
F*Johnathan Motley, Baylor (Tu)
G Jalen Ross, Hartford (Th)
G Jeremy Senglin, Weber State (Th)

The losing streak is over. Johnathon Motley put up 32-20 the other night for a total of 58 game points. We're up 86-82 with only two dudes playing, he has one guy playing tonight, I have 3 guys playing tonight.

Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. I'm pretty much going to ride my best players the rest of the way out, rather than getting cute with alternate lineups by and large.

Still not bad for having never done fantasy college basketball and it taking me like 5 or 6 games to get my roster into at least decent shape to compete in this league. If I'd kept the roster he had originally I would have probably have lost like...most of my games this year.

MINNESOTA A&M
DROP:
G Nate Mason, Minnesota
G Jalen Ross, Hartford
G Damyean Dotson, Houston

ADD: G Victor Sanders, Idaho (JR)
F Khalil Thomas Rider (JR)
G Trevon Bluiett, Xavier (JR)

Up by only 14 with that roster thanks to some dude from Central Michigan have a 42-point (game score) night and he still has one guy to play tomorrow (Clemson) so we'll lose unless that dude just doesn't play at all. Oh well.

It's FCS season again, so I might as well updated this. I'm not as good as I used to be with this, though if you like FCS and wanna help me scout better talent, I will not complain. The name of winning this game is literally just having better time to scout guys and making the right moves weekly.

Here's the list of 2017 Rosters, it's a Google Doc that stays updated.

Here's my current roster:



Yes, I have too many QBs and need to drop them. I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Last week, we lost.


This week. Another loss.


I need to get this team together before we get into conference play. At least I was smart enough to drop all of my seniors from last year and sign only young guys before the draft so there wasn't as much work to do, but...I'm surely missing talent if I spent some time looking at the rosters at what other people are missing on, I could waiver my way into a conference title and once we get into the playoffs, all bets are off after that.


Help?

I picked up two waiver claims on Friday:


We still have a lot of work to do, but both proved useful in this week's games. Those numbers are tentative until someone checks them, but I don't think there's anyway we lost this week, which is huge heading into conference play.

I see a lot of potential players we could still get that could be useful, the key to this game is really finding guys in underrated conferences that people aren't paying attention to, who play for high scoring offenses and get a lot of playing time.

Winning will mess us up on the waiver wire, I should've OD'd on waivers last week when we were #1 in the order, but...historically, I tend to be better at finding gems than the other players in the league who seem to overly rely on searching "Top FCS players" in google or overloading on their favorite FCS teams players or FBS transfers.

I did indeed win, not only did I win, it was the highest score of anyone last week. I have confidence that if I can manage the waivers well, that I can adjust enough to put a playoff team on the field. Also, the real key to this game is paying a bit more attention than other people are to breakouts, paying attention when a team has a bye and also injuries, because FCS teams reports don't often get out, so you won't know until too late.

Still, after the disaster that was last season, I have a bit of hope in this one heading into conference play.

Sale from Tennessee Tech looks to be a decent player. (QB Fr)

My roster this week.

I was pretty active on waivers this week getting more RBs than I've truly ever kept on the team in the past. I'm hoping for another big week, Pujals is a guy I had last year before he got injured and I let him go. But he's one of the best QBs in FCS playing on a team that normally puts up a lot of points, so hoping he doesn't make me regret it.

I still have a few moves I'd like to make this upcoming week in waivers, hoping to get back to the post-season after a rough year last year (1-9) and after getting to back-to-back finals my first two years in the league with a title during the 1st season.

For some odd fucking reason, Imeokparia didn't play at all today and that torpedoed things quite a bit. The other big mistake I made was using Montana's defense in a game where they played another highly ranked high scoring offense.

The loss could've been worse if two of the players on the other team and their kicking team had even played. But the bright side is, I know how to fix this. We'll be 1-3, but we're not out of the year yet. But can't really afford to lose much more, I'll need to get smarter about matchups.

One of the theories I've had for a while with this league was to be more flexible about picking matchups rather than riding players week to week, but you just have to be sure that whoever you pick is an actual starter since FCS teams are just not as noisy about who won't play, why, etc.

We're going to end up losing by less than 10 points unless things change dramatically. That's not bad.

This was my lineup this week. Mostly a bunch of fucking duds. Doesn't help we went up against a particular strong opponent that somehow scored over 200 points last week.

We'll lose for sure -- I've already started scoring -- it'll just be a question of how bad. Year isn't over yet for us, but it's not going to be a strong season if I can't find some production somewhere that's consistent.

I'll need to overhaul this roster or just stop caring, one or the other and leaning towards the latter.

POS PLAYER SCHOOL
QB Stephen Calvert Liberty
RB Marquell Cartwright North Carolina A&T
WR Jerry Louie-McGee Montana
WR Keenan Curran Montana
FLEX Rashid Shaheed Weber State
FLEX Darren Johnson SE Louisiana

DEF Tribe William & Mary

TK Dukes James Madison

I joined another fantasy league over at the sportslogos forums earlier this summer. Well two of them, actually. One is the United Soccer Association, a MLS-based fantasy league.

I took over a team that was quite bad, retooled the entire franchise and renamed them Front Range FC.



Our final roster:



We finished the regular season 4th, won the wild card round and lost in the semi-finals. (I just didn't have enough offensive firepower) but not a bad season for taking over a terrible team and having to really retool the entire club on the fly to get where we did. I was pleased.

Final regular season standings:


The season is over in that league, but the IFA season has just started up.

The International Football Association (IFA) is based on the English Premier League. I took over a team that actually finished 4th last season, but I had to entirely retool the roster pretty much from the start since there's a draft, only a few "keepers" for each season and kind of getting a late jump on all of that.

Here's my current roster:
(Ozil and Quaner are on IR, rosters only 12 players.)


With a draw last week, we're on a 4 game unbeaten streak. Still really early in the season, but a really solid start and completely unexpected given my "unorthodox" methods for building a team and given there really weren't a ton of elite players left besides some of my keepers by the time I was able to backlog my draft picks. Before last week's game, I dropped four guys and added six, and two of them were instrumental in that draw we managed over the weekend. I still need to retool, but kind of don't know which way to go yet.


I still need to retool this team in the hopes of staying near the top of the table, but a solid tie for 2nd place at the moment (albeit 5 pts behind the leaders) is a spot I'll take.

Meanwhile in soccer, Toverit Helsinki has only lost once in the past 8 weeks. Somehow. I should put together a team for tomorrow, too. Bleh.


Football team was trash this year. Won only 2 games. It's fantasy basketball season now and I'm mostly over it, but I think I can do better at the basketball game by picking players by matchups than playing where I just keep a traditional lineup of dudes and get invested in them. Problem is, it'll require basically playing daily fantasy style to figure out how to win the league that way.

Here's my current roster:

G Trevon Bluiett Xavier SR
G Curtis Cobb Massachusetts SO
G Victor Sanders Idaho SR
G Lindell Wiggington Iowa State FR
G Kenrich Williams Texas Christian SR
G Cassius Winston Michigan State SO
F Daniel Gafford Arkansas FR
F Kevin Knox Kentucky FR
F Jontay Porter Missouri FR
F Landry Shamet Wichita State SO
F Reid Travis Stanford JR

I'll redshirt two of them. I probably have too many freshman who won't be useful too, but I have no idea yet.

Toverit Helsinki lost a close game 7-6 this week, we remain in a tie for 2nd in the league with 22 points, 5 points behind Dragons HK. I'm not sure we have the horses to catch up, but we're still tops in the league in points allowed with only 44.



Meanwhile in college football, Minnesota A&M was hot garbage finishing the year 2-9. I just can't get my footing back after our first three years of domination. Oh well.

In college basketball, we won Game 3 to salvage the start of non-conference play. I keep making adjustments, but unlike last year, we aren't too heavy on forwards and dudes who don't score. Early in the year is a good time to find those gem guards that put up 20+ a night because that's how you win this league.

Somebody dropped Joel Berry after he had that first bad game for some ODD reason and I picked him up off waivers immediately. Unlike the football league, it's a bit of a free-for-all in basketball waivers which is way nicer since you can find some gems this way.

Compared to my team(s) the past year or so, I'm really happy with how this team is shaping up. Also, I won't have to spend half the season trying to figure out how to win in this league or overthinking it.

Here's who my opponent this week is starting:


Here's my lineup:


Current roster:

The thing about starting mid-major dudes is you have to be careful about who they are playing. If your mid-major scoring threat is playing a major conference , Top 15 team, it's not always likely he's gonna go off for 20+ because they're gonna contain him.

That should be the culprit of my opponent starting two mid-major dude and hopefully will get us back to .500 for the first time this season.

I renewed my BBState subscription almost entirely so that I could better track trends and keep up with players and maybe find emerging talent before other teams do. It's mostly a lazy league, so if guys with good players already have them, they're not going to be as inclined to really do much legwork.

I've had some success in other leagues. My MLS soccer team (Front Range United) made the semi-finals in my 1st year in that league. I don't think the EPL league has playoffs, but still...we're at least in range of the top if I can figure out how to get another scorer onto our roster somewhere.

So I'd like to see the College BB team follow suit.

I hate sports. Basketball lost again. But last year taught me that you're not really out of it in the non-conference, it's all about conference play.

On the other hand, my fantasy EPL team is firmly now in 2nd place 5 points behind the leaders.

College basketball: Minnesota A&M is now 3-3 after back to back wins. Last year, we were also 3 wins into things early in the year, the only difference was 1) I took over the team after the first game of the season and 2) it took me half a season to figure out how the league worked and so, I didn't really recruit super well or know how to work the waivers.

I have a better understanding now.

We won 153-127, even with some of my more experimental picks (specifically Hartwich) not having huge weeks. It helped I had 3 guys over 30+ points. Next week, we have 4-2 Dennison State, who only scored 139 points last week, which gives me hope because I think we've got an even better lineup this week than last week.


G Trevon Bluiett Xavier 28 2 0 1 1 32
G Tony Carr Penn St 16 6 9 0 1 32
G Joel Berry II North Carolina 27 0 4 0 0 31
F Philipp Hartwich Portland 5 11 1 1 0 18
F Reid Travis Stanford 26 11 2 0 1 40

Here's his lineup:


The other thing here is, a three-guard lineup is tough to beat if all three of your guards are firing because the forwards just can't produce on the rebounding side to make up the difference in points. It took me a long time to learn this last year.

Here's my lineup this week:


With the exception of Winston, all of these dudes are primary offensive dudes for their teams and each has two games (except Knox) to put up points for me. So I have a lot of hope that we'll be in okay shape. Winston is probably the wild card in that, he's not exactly a guy who lights it on fire lately, so it might be smarter to replace him with someone else but I like a guy that has two games in a week when possible because it just gives you double the chances to put up numbers.

The other trick is, you never really like running mid-major guys unless they're guards because their consistency isn't always there Sometimes, the games are not as high scoring, other times they just have a shitty night and you can't always account for it. Whereas with the major conference dudes, you can usually be sure they're going to get their minutes, they'll put up points and even if that have a bad night, they're not usually going to get benched unless they're hurt.

Going 4-3 would be nice. I don't know if this is a playoff caliber roster, there as teams that do better than we do offensively week-to-week, but...I am getting better at managing matchups and looking at when a guy might have a big week. If it looks like we're a february madness team, I will probably start rebuilding the roster for a deep post-season run (getting a bonus guard or two) or accounting for any injuries.

EPL TEAM
TOVERIT HELSINKI is going to be 2nd place regardless of what happens this week, but another win -- and a loss by the #1 place team -- would be us closer into position for an improbable run at the league title. The scoreboard hasn't been released yet, so it's hard to know what'll happen yet and I haven't been able to get a back-of-the-napkin result on the club yet, but I'm pretty pleased by our results thus far regardless.

I was not expecting it, but with the carcass of what was left of the roster, coupled with my roster building skills (mostly aiming for dudes nobody else targeted) ended up working out for us week to week somehow.

Toverit Helsinki won 4-2, with Dragons HK losing last week, we are TWO POINTS out of first place. I should probably replace some of my defenders this week in exchange for some possible substitute scoring punch.

Here are my updates from my fantasy teams:

My EPL fantasy team - Toverit Helsinki - was within 3 points of first before December and then things came crashing down. I don't have enough offense to really win games, so we were winning with defense which is nearly impossible in a H2H league, so we've lost 4 of 5 and now we're near the middle of the pack in the standings.

Given there are no playoffs, it would not have been super satisfying to finish 2nd anyway, so I'm fine with this outcome as I've proven I could take over a bad team and at least get them to serviceable, but we just don't have the offensive firepower necessary to win matches and it's too late in the year to really find any hidden gems because the EPL doesn't have them.

We're in 5th, I've actually bothered to log a roster this week. But it's tough sledding.

Last week's results.

Here's my starting lineup this week:

As for my fantasy college basketball team - Minnesota A&M - we started the year 3-3 and then lost five straight. We’ve won our last two, including this past week’s first game of the conference portion of our season. If I want to get into the post-season, our ticket will be through winning our conference. I see to have figured out some ways to identify talent, scouring the field and retooling our roster to where I think I’ve got an ideal setup of guys to get us into the post-season.

The trick? HBCU guys. It turns out, during the conference season, they’re a good secret weapon because some of those SWAC teams play uptempo offense and SOMEBODY has to score all those points, so there are a lot of underrated guys that people aren’t paying attention to, but they’re only useful during the conference part of the year.

We’ll see if my theory works, because if it does, we’re going to win our conference and beyond, but in the meantime…

We’re playing Calvert this week, they also won their first conference game and are also a similarly bad record team overall. We outscored them last week and they don’t have the sorts of guards that score highly that we do and he plays 3 forwards in his starting lineup which historically doesn’t work as well because guards tend to be more volume productive.

Here’s my lineup this weekend. Barring some against the trends performance by these guys, we should be in good shape this weekend. I had to debate whether to play McKnight from UAPB or Pookie Powell from Lasalle. Powell had a HUGE week this past week, scoring 43 total points, but his team isn’t very good and I’m more interested in a consistent guy that can get us 25-30+ points, than hoping for a 40+ guy and ending up with someone who only goes for 20 or something.


There are 5 more regular season games -- including this one. We'll take them one at a time, but I think for once I've managed to assemble a roster that should be able to compete over the next few weeks. If not, well...it won't be for a lack of effort that's for sure.

My normal starter at forward Vladimir Brodziansky of TCU went for 21p/6r/3a/3b (33 points) today. I just have to hope the guys I went with instead don't make me regret not playing him. Brodziansky has inconsistent games and I just didn't want to risk it in another must-win game.

All but one of my lineup play today, so I'll know by tonight what the story is gonna be.

Justin Strings went for 36 game points today against Montana State, so my gamble paid off.

Zachary Hamilton wasn't as useful, totaled only 20 combined game points and I'd have been smarter using Desmond Williams from Florida A&M (37), but that's okay.

RJ Cole was worth 34 tonight and Martavius McKnight totaled 33, which should be more than enough to beat Calvert, who didn't post a modified roster, so their roster from last week carries over. I went and looked and all 5 of his starters already played today and only one of them scored over 30 points.

So that'd put us at 6-8 and 2-0 in conference. We've finally got a formula of guys that provided they score and play that we can beat most teams and I'm feeling good about it, but I'll feel better if we manage to go undefeated in conference play. One loss would be fine, too, but...I'd prefer to stick to our current streak. We'll see.

My team scored 171 points and won our third straight game. We're 6-8 on the season and more importantly, 2-0 in conference and holding on to the 4th seed in the post-season so far as every other team in the Metro Athletic Conference is 1-1.

This week (M-Th) we take on a Brooklyn team that's also 6-8, but doesn't score as many points as we do, even before I switched lineups. That's no guarantee that we'll win, but I like this lineup of dudes as each of them are primary ballhandlers on teams that heavily rely on their scoring and where they play a lot of minutes, so we'll just see how it goes. Another win would be very helpful, especially against a team that's very beatable over the past few weeks. (Our lineup would've been them each of the past 5 weeks.)

We lost last week, a close game against last place in the conference Brooklyn. It doesn't affect our 1st place situation, just puts us in a tie with Deustchtown who are 9-6 on the season, but who we've already beaten once this year. I win this game and that puts us in sole possession of 1st place in the conference with two games to go in the regular season.

We'd be a full game up on anybody, meaning even if we somehow (fingers crossed that we don't) lose Game 17, that we'd have Game 18 as a way to win and get our way into the tournament by way of tiebreakers against everyone but Brooklyn (who we'll get one more crack at...and who I lost to mostly on not quite perfect lineup matching.)

This week, I went with:


Thanks to a career high in points from McKnight, and everyone at least showing up though some more than others, my back of the napkin math has me at around 168 points.

Three of his guys played today, he has two tomorrow. The 3 he's already had go, by my math scored somewhere around 73 total game points. That means he needs two guys tomorrow to score 95 just to tie and that's a lot to ask especially since only one of those dudes is a guard.

The trick isn't just to go with the hot hand, but to look at the matchups a bit.

His lineup was:

Scored the most points of any team last week, to move up to 3-1 in conference and 7-9 on the season.



One more win out of our last two regular season games and we clinch the conference title and a post-season bid. If we lose both games and Brooklyn wins out, we don't make it. If Deustchtown wins out and we lose out, then they win the conference.

But long story short, we control our own destiny. I feel good about my lineup this week against a Calvert team we already beat this season, but I don't like to get cocky. If my HBCU duo of RJ Cole and Martaveous McKnight show up as they have the past few weeks, we're going to be in okay shape.

It's really been the tale of two seasons for this team. Two of our losses were games we should've won, a one-point loss earlier in the year and then that loss to Brooklyn that was mostly me not paying attention to matchups before setting up my lineup rather than just going with gut or feel.

I feel good about our chances, largely because even when we haven't been winning, we've been scoring well. McKnight right now is playing like absolute garbage, 0 for 6 from the field early in the 2nd half of their game and if he doesn't get going, well...that's going to really bork things for me.

I swapped McKnight for Pookie Powell who was supposed to play tonight against another one of my players from UMass, Luwane Pipkins. But Powell sat tonight with a hammy. I don't have anyone on my roster who plays tomorrow and I can't sacrifice the points, so I went searching for subs.

I dropped Junior Etou (Tulsa), Joel Berry (UNC) and Trevon Bluiett (Xavier), the latter two I'd benched halfway through the year anyway and since they're seniors, there's no real harm in getting rid of them.

In their place:

G Tyler Kohl (JR), Central Connecticut
G Denzel Mahoney (SO), Southeast Missouri State
G Devin Cannady (JR), Princeton

All three are top 15 players in their respective conferences and while they're going to be backups for me, it'll be fantastic to have high octane guards I can use when Powell/McKnight/Pipkins aren't able to play or when I'm afraid the matchups are such they'll go cold.

As I said before, if we win this week vs. Calvert, we clinch a tie for conference title. Brooklyn could still steal the autobid, if they win out, because we play them again in Game 18. If they lose this week and we win, it's a moot point. Deustchtown can only tie us if they win out and we go 1-1, so...they're not a threat. (Also, they have a good enough record to make the post-season as an at-large team, so it doesn't matter.)

Considering Brooklyn beat me largely on a fluke (and by less than 10 points) there's probably nothing to really worry about, but it's really satisfying to take a team that really has no business in this position and getting them (potentially) into the post-season. We're the only potentially .500 team that has a post-season shot, and sweeping our conference leader as we've done is no small feat because no other conference has a team like that. (Two of the 4 conference leaders are undefeated in-conference.)

I mean, it comes down to superior data and research and it's a lot similar to how I won the college football title my first year in that league.

Here's how up and down this season was.

After ending up 3-3 and having some energy, we dropped FIVE straight. I'd mostly given up, until I realized all we had to do was win the conference and we'd be okay. So I set out on a plan to do that and after last night's victory, we did precisely that.

We're going dancing. Never before in the history of this league (that I could find) had a team that wouldn't have otherwise qualified for the post-season managed to get into the Big Dance by winning their conference.

At best, we can end the season 9-9 heading into the dance. If Brooklyn sweeps the season series with us, they can't qualify for the title because they lost last week to Deutschtown (who we swept and thus have the tiebreaker over) and we'll be 8-10 and the first losing record team to make the post-season.

I'd prefer to finish strong, but I did end up using a three-forward lineup for the first time in weeks as opposed to riding my guards. It won't matter for seeding, we're a 4th seed no matter what, since conference champs get preferential seeding.

Besides the Brooklyn game where I just messed up lineup-wise, we're scoring well over 150+ a game the past few weeks. If I can average 150+, we have a good chance of advancing into the later rounds.

The real issue is, the top teams have a tendency to sometimes score well over 180, as they have a lot of combo guards and forwards who bleed double-doubles. If we lose to that, I'm not going to have any shame, but I feel like we had a lot of unnecessary bad losses early in the season.

For Game 18 going into the playoffs, I really ought to add one more impact forward if I can and replace that senior from Florida A&M with someone I can trust if I need them.

We're officially conference champions and it feels very satisfying. I'd love to get through a round or two in the post-season too. We're certainly stocked well enough to do it, it'll just mostly be a luck thing, but I can't say enough about I turned this club around after losing five straight and instead of giving up, realizing all we had to do was win our conference. And we did it.

A lot of tinkering was necessary to pull it off and of course, having access to a superior statistical database made researching way easier. But it's awesome regardless, because next year we could potentially be unstoppable if I can figure out how to win in the non-conference part of the year. The main difference is, those small school guys don't play as well during that part of the year, so you need the major conference dudes for those bottom feeder games early in the year where they go off for huge numbers.

Paying attention to matchups is super important at that part of the year, because you can get yourself lucky with a good matchup against a weak opponent, etc., also looking at trends quickly.

Toverit Helsinki, my IFA team playing EPL fantasy has rebounded after that losing spell, winning our last two of 3 and we're back into 4th place. 8 points out of 1st place, but I don't think that's super realistic with the club we have, I'm more interested in staying Top 4.