Fantasy Sports Adventures (CFB, CBB, EPL)

[Young Drachma]

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)

[Young Drachma]

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.

[Young Drachma]

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.

[Young Drachma]

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)

[Young Drachma]

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.

[Young Drachma]

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)

[Young Drachma]

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.

[Young Drachma]

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.

Dons 84, Redhorse 54: It was a nail biter between this two last year... this year, the Dons made sure there was no doubt as they won by 30 over Minnesota A&M.

This week. Another loss.

Rascals 67, Redhorse 66: The efforts of Taryn Christion was just enough for New Hampshire State to survive and they win by a single point against Minnesota A&M

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?

[Young Drachma]

I picked up two waiver claims on Friday:

QB Austin Scott Eastern Kentucky FR
QB Shon Mitchell William & Mary FR

Add:

RB Marquell Cartwright, North Carolina A&T (JR)
WR Nehari Crawford, Duquesne (JR)

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.

[Young Drachma]

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.

[ntndeacon]

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

[Young Drachma]

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.

QB Peter Pujals Holy Cross
RB Ose Imeokparia Sacred Heart
WR Juston Christian Marist
WR Rashid Shaheed Weber State
FLEX Joshua Mack (RB) Maine
FLEX Marquell Cartwright (RB) North Carolina A&T
DEF Montana
TK James Madison

[Young Drachma]

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.

[Young Drachma]

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

[Young Drachma]

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.)

TOVERIT HELSINKI			
			
G	Lukasz Fabianski	Swansea City	
G	Asmir Begovic		AFC Bournemouth	
D	Ben Mee	Burnley	
D	Nicolas Otamendi	Manchester City	
D	Eric Bailly		Manchester United	
M	Mesut Ozil		Arsenal	
M	Tiemoue Bakayoko	Chelsea	
M	Tom Carroll		Swansea City	
F	Jamie Vardy		Leicester City	
F	Anthony Martial		Manchester United	
F	Collin Quaner		Huddersfield Town	
F	Stefano Okaka		Watford	
F	Mame Biram Diouf	Stoke City	
F	Ayoze Perez		Newcastle United

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.

2017-2018*IFA STANDINGS


CLUB..........................W...D...L...P...PF...PA...PD..Streak..Last 5

Dragons HK....................6...0...1..18...48...38..+10.....W.2..W-W-L-W-W
Brisbane FC...................4...1...2..13...46...34..+12.....W.1..L-W-W-L-W
Toverit Helsinki..............4...1...2..13...24...24...+0.....D.1..L-W-W-W-D
Lea County FC.................4...0...3..12...48...32..+16.....L.2..W-L-W-L-L
Alamo City 1836...............4...0...3..12...42...32..+10.....L.1..L-L-W-W-L
Kensington FC.................3...1...3..10...44...46...-2.....D.1..W-L-W-W-D
Castle Rock FC................3...0...4...9...42...45...-3.....W.1..W-L-L-L-W
Centennial FC.................2...0...5...6...32...32....0.....L.1..W-L-L-W-L
Baile Atha Claithe Aontaithe..1...2...4...5...13...28..-15.....D.1..L-W-L-L-D
Saint Louis Fleur AFC.........1...1...5...4...20...48..-28.....D.1..L-W-L-L-D

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.

[Young Drachma]

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.

[Young Drachma]

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.

2017-2018 IFA STANDINGS


CLUB..........................W...D...L...P...PF...PA...PD..Streak..Last 5

Dragons HK....................9...0...3..27...75...60..+15.....W.2..L-W-L-W-W
Brisbane FC...................7...1...4..22...77...58..+19.....L31..W-W-L-W-L
Toverit Helsinki..............7...1...4..22...55...44..+11.....L.1..L-W-W-W-L
Alamo City 1836...............6...1...5..19...67...63...+4.....W.1..W-L-D-L-W
Kensington FC.................5...2...5..17...76...72...+4.....W.1..W-L-D-L-W
Lea County FC.................5...0...7..15...74...78...-4.....L.3..L-W-L-L-L
Castle Rock FC................5...0...7..15...72...76...-4.....L.1..W-L-L-W-L
Centennial FC.................5...0...7..15...56...51...+5.....W.1..L-W-W-L-W
Baile Atha Claithe Aontaithe..3...2...7..11...30...51..-21.....L.1..L-L-W-W-L
Saint Louis Fleur AFC.........4...1...7..13...42...71..-29.....W.1..W-L-W-L-W

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.

[Young Drachma]

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:

G Martez Walker (Oakland) (Mon, Fri)
G Jordan Howard (Central Arkansas) (Tues, Sat)
G Shannon Evans II (Arizona State) (Thurs, Fri)
F Jordan Murphy (Minnesota) (Tues, Fri, Sat)
F Marvin Bagley III (Duke) (Mon, Thurs, Fri, Sun)

Here's my lineup:

G Joel Berry II, UNC (Th)
G Victor Sanders, Idaho (W)
G Trevon Bluiett, Xavier (Th)
F Reid Travis, Stanford (M, Th)
F Vladimir Brodziansky, TCU (F)

Current roster:

[Young Drachma]

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.

[Young Drachma]

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.

[Young Drachma]

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

[Young Drachma]

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:

G Jalen Brunson, Villanova (Tue, Sun)
G Allonzo Trier, Arizona (Tue, Sat)
F Kris Wilkes, UCLA (Wed)
F Amanze Egekze, Belmont (Mon)
F Jessie Govan, Georgetown (Thu, Sat)

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:

G Tony Carr, Penn State (M, Sa)
G Trevion Bluiett, Xavier (W, Sa)
G Cassius Winston, Michigan State (Tu, Sa)
F Reid Travis, Stanford (F, Su)
F Kevin Knox, Kentucky (Sa)

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.

[Young Drachma]

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.

[Young Drachma]

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:

G Asmir Begovic (AFC Bournemouth)
M Tiemoué Bakayoko (Chelsea)
M Tom Carroll (Swansea City)
M Mesut Özil (Arsenal)
F Jamie Vardy (Leicester City)
F Anthony Martial (Manchester United)
F Stefano Okaka (Watford)
F Mame Biram Diouf (Stoke City)
F Ayoze Perez (Newcastle United)

[Young Drachma]

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.

F Zachary Hamilton, Prairie View A&M (Sa)
F Justin Strings, Sacramento State (Sa)
G RJ Cole, Howard (Sa)
G Martaveous McKnight, UA Pine Bluff (Sa)
G Luwane Pipkins, UMass (Su)

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.

[Young Drachma]

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.

[Young Drachma]

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.

[Young Drachma]

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.)

F Desmond Williams, Florida A&M (M)
F Justin Strings, Sacramento State (Th)
G Luwane Pipkins, UMass (W)
G Pookie Powell, Lasalle (W)
G RJ Cole, Howard (M)

[Young Drachma]

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:

G Martaveous McKnight, UA Pine Bluff (Sa)
G RJ Cole, Howard (Sa)
G Pookie Powell, Lasalle (Sa)
F Reid Travis, Stanford (Sa)
F Vladimir Brodziansky, TCU (Sa)

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:

G - Tiwian Kendley - Morgan State (Sat)
G - Jairus Lyles - Maryland-Baltimore County (Sun)
G - Matt Scott - Niagara (Sat)
F - Devontae Cacok - North Carolina-Wilmington (Sat)
F - Jahad Thomas - Massachusetts-Lowell (Sun)

[Young Drachma]

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.

[Young Drachma]

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.

[Young Drachma]

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.

Pawnee 109, MAMU 67
Kentucky Tech 155, MAMU 109
MAMU 129, Irvington 104
Chicago 170, MAMU 144
MAMU 141, Golden Isles 140
MAMU 153, Southern Atlantic 127
Dennison State 124, MAMU 107
Continental 156, MAMU 121
UW Lower Columbia 115, MAMU 114
Redmond 136, MAMU 123
Coastal California 152, MAMU 136
MAMU 158, California A&M 129
MAMU 145, Deutschtown 131
MAMU 171, Calvert 116
Brooklyn 148, MAMU 135
MAMU 171, Deutschtown 113
MAMU 172, Calvert 103

[Young Drachma]

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.

[Young Drachma]

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.