DiploBall 3, Week 8: Tie-Breakers A-Go-Go

Okay… so this was probably one of the worst football weeks I’ve had in quite some time.  I was 9^th place overall in DiploBall, I picked more NCAA games wrong than anyone else in the league… and get this… I faced my son in our DiploBall Fantasy League… and he beat me!   Not by a little… by a lot!  He beat me by 37 points!  I had to leave the room… I didn’t want him to see me cry. 

(PS: the DiploBall Fantasy League will have four expansion teams available next season… so claim your spot now if you’re interested).

Score Adjustments

PoolTracker seemed to be a bit fussy this week.  For some reason, five players lost their weights for the Texas A&M game.  I’m not really sure why, but I’m working with the folks at pooltracker to identify the problem. 

All five players picked the Texas A&M game correctly, and except for my dad, the other four players had missed submitting a pick for the Friday night game, so they each ended up with two unused point values.  I gave them the benefit of the doubt and applied the higher of the two unused values on the Texas A&M game.  Here is how it broke down:

·         Big Dave = 23 Points

·         Jeff = 11 Points

·         Nate = 28 Points

·         RollTide1 = 19 Points

Also, for some reason Pooltracker dumped almost all of President Malaise‘s NFL picks.  I rebuilt those picks the best I could.   Mr. President please let me know if you have an issue with what I did.

1^st Place & ‘Random Pick Of the Week’ Honorable Mention: Badger (5)

Badge had a solid week over all, but he can thank Purdue’s win over Illinois for his victory.   It was only worth 2 points, but those 2 points allowed him to tie VJ and beat him out with the MNF tie-breaker!  Not bad!

2^nd Place: VJ Schutz (2)

I know… second place is always tough to take, especially when you scored the same number of points as 1^st Place.  Darn tie-breaker!  However VJ, you’re on the leader board this week… probably because he gave the Falcons the respect they deserve.

3^rd Place: Big Dave (19)

BIG DAVE!  You’re made it!  This is Big Dave’s third (love/hate) season playing Diploball… and honestly… he gets better and better every year!  I don’t know about you Dave, but I’m sure you don’t miss being the butt of my ‘loserville’ jokes.

‘Most Correct Picks’ Honorable Mention: President Malaise (7)

Although Jason, aka President Malaise, aka ‘Going to lose next week’s Fantasy League game against Jp’, seemed to have terrible Pooltracker karma this week, what with his weights disappearing and all… however, Jason’s karma for picking games correct seemed to be untainted, picking 25 games correct!

NCAA MVP of the Week:  Nate (13)

Nate’s accuracy was pretty impressive this week when it came to the NCAA games, earning 89.6% of the points he assigned to those games.  Better than anyone else.

NFL MVP of the Week: BigCat (10)

Okay, I have to recognize William ‘BigCat’ Sanders.  When it came to raw points, BigCat actually tied with Big Dave, however he missed the MNF tie-breaker by 2 points!  BUT!  Will legitimately took 3^rd Place in the NFL games this week, so for that, we tip our hat!

Last Place: Steak N Potatoes (14)

Yeah… ‘loserville’ is never fun… but better you than me!

DO NOT FORGET!  Rice and Houston play Thursday night!  Get your picks in sooner than later!

Take care,

-Jp

DiploBall 3, Week 7: It’s My Fault… I Have a Mean Handshake!

Well, it was quite the week; mainly because my wife had to travel back to the States unexpectedly leaving our five-year-old boy in my capable hands… which was awesome!  And I wish I could say we watched copious amounts of football during our MAN weekend… but we didn’t.

Apparently my bad football watching karma will never end.

When I was researching possible posts, Suriname stood out because all of their houses are outfitted with AFN satellites and receivers.   And for those of you familiar with AFN you’ll know that during football season there can be as many as four or five games on at any given time.  Plus, we’re only an hour ahead of EST making this a perfect post for watching football live!  Why else would you want to move to Suriname for three years?  (That’s a rhetorical question).

Well… apparently I overlooked some important information.  Suriname actually falls outside the satellite footprints for the full AFN channel line-up.  Instead, we get something called ‘Direct To Sailors’ AFN… which consists of only 3 stations: Sports, News, and Primetime.  Our Primetime feed rarely shows sports, so we almost never get more than one game at a time… not that it matters, because we almost never the games I care about!  And for the past few weeks, the Sports channel has been focusing their attention on baseball and car racing… which has been a bit of a bummer. 

How am I supposed to indoctrinate my son into the way of the Falcons if we can’t watch any games!?!

Oh well… enough complaining… on to the recap!

1^st Place:  Jim Schutz (1)

So… I’m pretty disappointed.  Currently my brother is on a cross country road trip, so of course, I figured this week would be an opportunity for everyone to catch-up a little.  Well… apparently that was an ill-conceived idea.     

However, no one is hurting more than President Malaise, who faced Jim head-to-head this week in the DiploBall Fantasy League (different from the Pick ‘Em League).  Jim never updated his team and started two players on their bye-week and one player out due to an injury…  yet, he still beat President Malaise by 8 point officially taking the lead in the league standings. 

2^nd Place: Eric Collings (9)

This is a HUGE victory for DiploBall veteran Eric Collings.  Currently in 9^th place over all, Eric has been struggling this year to get his footing.  Does he have it now?  Who know?!?  All I know is this… Eric earned 94.62% of the points he weighed against the NFL games… which is pretty flipping crazy awesome!

3^rd Place: VJ Schutz (2)

What can I say?  Dad actually picked the Falcons this week and he made it onto the leader board.  Let that be a lesson to you!

‘Random Pick Of the Week’ Honorable Mention:  Rada (18)

I hate honoring Rada for picking Georgia Tech to lose, but I’d rather see Tech lose than the Falcons, so I’m cool with it.  Plus, Rada was the only person to pick Virginia… for 8 points!  Not bad!

‘Most Correct Picks’ Honorable Mention: RollTide1 (5) and Badger (6)

RollTide1 and Badger had a great week with 26 correct picks (tied with Jim Schutz).  In 5^th and 6^th place respectively, they are sitting in a very good position to move up the ranks if they continue making these kinds of strong picks!

NCAA MVP of the Week:  John Robbins (17)

You know… I find it interesting how the numbers can fall.  Although Jim was the all around winner this week, if you separate the NCAA and NFL standings, Jim didn’t even rank in the top three of either. 

This week’s clear NCAA winner was none other than John Robbins who picked 15 out of 17 games correct and earned himself 324 points from those games alone!

NFL MVP of the Week: Steak N Potatoes (16)

Although Nate earned 199 points from the NFL games this week, more points than anyone else, he only earned 80.24% of the points he assigned on those games.  That said, Steak N Potatoes earned 134 out of the 145 points he assigned to the NFL games… giving him a staggering 92.41% NFL accuracy rate! 

Loser of the Week:  Tashkent1 (19)

This was just a bad week for Tashkent one.  He had assigned most of his points to the NFL games and landed a dismal 53.85% accuracy rating… and there was simply no way his 75.82% accuracy rating for the NCAA games were going to help.

Well, that’s all for this week folks!  As you can probably tell, I’ve finally gotten organized and I’m starting to track everyone’s stats.  I’m still crunching the first few weeks, but I should have some interesting statistics to throw your way in the next few weeks!

Remember!  West Virginia and Syracuse play Friday night!  So don’t forget to make your picks!  Unless your name is Jim Schutz… and please… by all means… take a nice long gander at the Grand Canyon and don’t give DiploBall a second thought this week!

DiploBall 3, Week 6: The Title Goes Back to Belgrade

So, I thought I would start this week’s recap with a little DiploBall History. 

Three years ago, while posted in Belgrade, Serbia, I organized the first season of DiploBall merely to have something fun to do with coworkers and have something to talk about at lunch. 

That year, we only had 13 players and, apart from Rada, our Serbian language instructor in DC, all of us were posted in Belgrade.  

And now?  Well… here we are, only a couple years later… 24 strong, scattered all over the world, and the number of players who actually live in Belgrade have dwindled to a much smaller percentage of our overall participation.

So, would you believe, this is the first week, this season, where our winner is actually serving overseas?  When I won the first week I was still in the States on ‘Home Leave’ and Ted, correct me if I’m wrong, is current serving a domestic tour. 

That said, not only is Ryan our first overseas winner this season, he is also serving in Belgrade, DiploBall’s birthplace.  And oddly enough, as if we needed another reason to love DiploBall, Ryan and I have never met in person… a testament to the complete randomness that is DiploBall.

PS: To raise my spirits after the Falcons lost this weekend, I went to a Surinamese green market… and guess what I found?  Ivar.  That’s right.  Ivar.  And they even called it ‘Ivar’… it’s just a Serbian week around here.

1^st Place: Ryan (495 points)

Congrats Ryan.  To celebrate I think you should give Ann Marie and Brian the rest of the day off!

2^nd: Jp (481 Points)

Okay… rather than gloat.  I want to point something out to the other Schutz’s (Ted included).  I made the leader board without picking against the Falcons.  I’m just saying.  Think about it.

3^rd: BigCat (481 Points)

Will!  I thought you’ve been sleeping!  Technically we tied, but I just barely edged you out on the tiebreaker.  I probably would have given us both credit for second place if my dad hadn’t been next in line.  12 of his points came from picking against the Falcons and that’s not something I can reward.  Lol!

Honorable Mention: Jeff (413 Pionts)

Jeff gets the ‘Random Win of the Week’ honorable mention for picking Seattle over the NY Giants this week.  I didn’t see that one coming at all!

Honorable Mention:  Tashkent1 (421 Points)

The ‘Most Correct Picks’ honorable mention goes Tashkent1, who only missed 4 games this week.  Unfortunately, for Tashkent1, all four misses cost him over 20 points each… leaving him in 13^th place at the end of the week.  Erg!  That has to hurt!

Last Place: dnibarger (177 Points)

No one wants to be last… but someone has to wear the weekly crown.  I guess it softens the crushing blow of defeat when the score is close… for dnibarger’s sake… I hope he considers losing by 148 points ‘close’.

Eric… don’t think you’re off the hook.  Your 325 points may have landed up in second to last this week… but you deserve some mocking for missing 13 games.  Let me know if you need to borrow my Carpenter’s album… I lent it to Jeff last week when he missed 15 games.

DiploBall 3, Week 5: South Florida… You are dead to me!

Erg. 

Well… let’s see.  How can I summarize Week 5 in a single word?  Hmm… let me think for a minute.  Oh, I’ve got it: “craptastic”… that about sums it up.

Seriously… South Florida?  What the heck happened?  Losing to Pitt by almost four touchdowns?  Only one person predicted the outcome of this game correct (tip of the hate to Badger) and most of you lost 20+ points on this game.  How can you even look at yourself in the mirror?

Nate must have been so put out by South Florida’s lose that he said ‘to heck with it’ and withdrew all of his picks for the week… which is strange… I’m not sure what happened.  Most people neglect to pick the Thursday night game, but get their picks in for the rest of the week… Nate did the opposite.

Speaking of opposite day, don’t get me started on the NFL this week.  I just can’t make heads or tails out of it all. 

I am so depressed by the number of games I missed this week that I’ve been listening to ‘The Carpenters’ on repeat… although I’ve thrown a few ABBA songs into my playlist to celebrate the Falcon’s victory.  At least that’s something we all can celebrate after such a ‘craptastic’ week.  Thank you Matt Ryan.

1^st Place: Ted Schutz (395 Points)

Fresh off his week 4 victory, the newly adopted Ted has proven his worth to the family with a repeat victory.  (Seriously Ted… this ridiculous adoption joke will only work once, so thank you for giving me a little extra mileage). 

Ted is currently in 4^th place overall for the season and is only 132 points off the lead… which isn’t really a lot.

2^nd Place: Arose (390 Points)

Amy!  Weren’t you in last place on week one?  Way to turn it around!  Amy is currently in 10^th place and with 16 weeks left in the season it’s anyone’s game!

3^rd Place: Eric ‘RollTide1’ Parker (380 Points)

Let me tell you something about Eric… way back in 2009 he was a major contender for the first ever DiploBall title… however he apparently suffered a devastating carpal tunnel injury near the end of the season and was unable to continue.  We haven’t heard much from Eric since then… Does his 3^rd place finish this week mark the return of Eric’s competitive edge?  We shall see!

Honorable Mention:  Badger (305 Points)

Yeah… Badger was the only person to pick Pitt.  I can’t think of anyone more deserving of this week’s “Oh great, I accidently picked Pitt” Award… I mean “Honorable Mention”

Last Place: Jeff (85 Points)

So, last year Jeff ended the season in 6^th place… and as for this season?  Well… Jeff has a shot at beating Rada’s record for the most loses in a single season.  Rada set the bench mark last season with 5.  And Jeff already has 3.  Here is a little something to help you stay motivated: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ2HcRl4wSk

Reminder

There is a Thursday and Friday night game this week!  So don’t forget to make your picks early!

Happy picking!