The Completed Draft

Here is the entire draft along with some quick commentary on a few picks...

1. Texas Default pick for Stimpy

2. Michigan St Default pick for Ren

Sparty stampeded by the Longhorns!!

3. Kansas the actual first pick of the draft

4. Villanova the guy who picks second (REN) is at a disadvantage so he gets 2 picks in a row to begin

5. Purdue

6. UNC

7. Kentucky

8. Duke

9. Syracuse

10. W Virginia

11. U Conn (this pick by REN was made FOUR weeks after pick #10 Inexcusable!)
12. Tennessee- could be a real bad pick if Tyler Smith and co. are suspended for long for drug/weapon charges

13. Kansas St

14. Georgetown - A risky pick for a team that didn't make the tourney last year?

15. Washington

16. Mississippi St

17. New Mexico 

18. Wisconsin

19. Clemson

20. Louisville

21. Texas Tech

22. Cincinnati

23. Temple

24. Ole Miss

25. Florida St

26. Ohio St - could be a boom/bust pick depending on how the Buckeyes fare in Evan Turner's absence

27. UAB

28. BYU

29. Northwestern

30. Cal

31. Georgia Tech

32. Florida

33. Gonzaga

34. Oklahoma St.
35. St. Mary's

36. Texas A and M

37. Baylor

38. Wake Forest

39. Memphis

40. Butler

41. Miami (FL)

42. Pittsburgh

43. Dayton

44. N Iowa

45. Rhode Island

46. Cornell - The Ivy League has no conference tournament, which always makes this pick a good bet. The Big Red also happen to be one of the most experienced midmajor clubs around.  

47.  Virginia Tech

48.  Xavier

49.  Boston College

50.  Minnesota

51.  Morgan St (???!!!) - Really???  A team from the MEAC conference that is destined for a 15th seed IF they win their conference???  Easily the most questionable pick of the draft so far.

52.  UNLV

53.  Vermont - Okay I take that back about Morgan St.  At least they are the clear cut favorites in their conference.  Vermont is A favorite in the American East but certainly not alone in the discussion.  Anyway you slice it the Catamounts are no lock for the tourney.

54.  Tulsa

55.  Coastal Carolina
56.  Utah St - a bad pick by Stimpy as this team is clearly not as strong as the Gary Wilkinson led squad of 2009.

57.  Lehigh

58.  W Carolina

59.  Loyola Marymount - A 3rd team in the WCC for Ren is puzzling.  Ren already picked both Gonzaga and St. Mary's and while the Lions are having a tremendous bounce back season from 3-26 last year, it will be a miraculous achievement to knock out the powerhouse Bulldogs from their WCC perch.  But the Lions have posted huge wins over USC and Notre Dame...

60.  Army

61.  E Tenn St

62.  Siena

63.  Belmont - Good job Ren way to secure two teams in the Atlantic Sun.  Oh by the way, Jacksonville is the preseason favorite despite their 3-8 record and Campbell has had the best start.
64.  Radford

65. Wisconsin Green Bay

66  William and Mary - Stimpy jumped the gun on a nice early season success story that may have already peaked.  Despite impressive wins over Wake Forest, Maryland and VCU, the recent loss to UNC Wilmington could spell doom for WM's hopes of an at-large bid.   

67.  Oakland

68.  Illinois

Which brings us to pick #69.  10 pesos to anyone who can guess who Ren picked at 69.  I'll put it in another post so no peeking!!

70.  College of Charleston- Stimpy secures a powerful 1-2 punch in the SoCon w/ W Carolina and C of Charleston

71.  Robert Morris
72.  Akron
73.  IUPUI - Gotta say this was a good pick by Ren as you'll see later
74.  Harvard - Stick it to Ren-  The Ivy has no soup for you!  (Cornell and Harvard are clear favorites in a league that has no postseason tournament)
75.  Sacred Heart - Why why why would Ren want a second NEC team so early??? 

76.  Missouri St

77.  Stephen F Austin

78.  VCU

79.  UT San Antonio

80.  W Kentucky - the Hilltoppers are only the most successful midmajor pick in the history of this draft.  Every year Ren scoffs at Big Red and pays the price when they go two rounds in the tournament.  Lest we forget 2 years ago these guys gave UCLA all it could handle in the sweet 16.
81.  Wichita St - Ren thinks he's the shiznit with this pick and while the Shockers are a dangerous team, like almost all of the picks lately aren't guaranteed squat unless they win their conference tourney.

82.  S Alabama

83.  Pacific

84.  Notre Dame - they lost to LMU!  (Stimpy does a little dance)...but they do still have POY candidate Luke Harangody who can win a game by himself.  If only this team played something resembling defense. 

85.  UC Irvine

86.  Missouri
87.  UC Riverside - 3 Big West teams in a row?  Oh and you can throw a dart and pick the winner of this hotly contested conference this year too.

88.   Weber St

89.   Texas A & M Corpus Christi - they did give Texas a scare at Frank Erwin.
90.   Portland - Stimpy's answer to the 3 headed WCC hydra of Gonzaga/St. Mary's/LMU.  All the Pilots did during a 4 day stetch in November was beat UCLA, Oregon, and Minnesota in succession. 
91.   E Kentucky 
92.   Murray St. -

93.   Kent St

94.   Michigan

95.   Arizona St - Ren's first BCS pick since pick #49!

96.   Oregon - the return of Tajuan Porter to the lineup makes the Ducks a lot more dangerous as evident by their unlikely sweep of Wash/Wash St to open 2010. 

97.   Prairie View 

98.   Washington St

99.   Montana 

100.  Old Dominion 

101.  Hofstra

102.  Long Beach St

103.  N Texas

104.  Fairfield

105.  Louisiana Tech

106.  Vanderbilt

107.  Alabama

108.  Marquette

109.  San Diego St

110.  Seton Hall

111.  Nebraska

112.  Campbell

113.  Rider

114.  Sam Houston St

115.  George Washington

116.  Quinnipiac

117.  Denver 

118.  Richmond

119.  UCLA - Weren't these guys in the final four just 2 years ago?

120.  Buffalo

121.  Penn St

122.  Maryland

123.  Texas Southern

124.  Nevada

125.  Davidson - No more Stephen Curry makes Davidson's chance all the more blurry! 

126.  Stonybrook

127.  S Illinois

128.  Illiniois St

129   Oklahoma

130.  Iowa St

131.  N Colorado - Extra pick since Texas mangled Michigan St this year.

Later on we'll analyze some of the biggest snubs in this year's draft.  

Rules of the Draft

The Draft itself is a simple process between two combatants.  Ren  and Stimpy will take turns making picks until both have 65 teams each.  Any team within Division I Men's Basketball is eligble for the draft.  Currently, you can select from a total of 347 schools.  Also, since Ren is a Michigan St diehard and Stimpy bleeds Texas Longhorns orange, the winner of the Texas/MSU game gets an extra pick at the end of the draft.  Texas won easily this year so Stimpy gets the extra pick. 

SCORING

There are two phases to keeping score: the regular season and the actual NCAA tournament.  

PHASE 1: REGULAR SEASON RULES

To make the regular season more interesting and also add a strategic element to the draft, certain head to head matchups between Ren and Stimpy's teams in conference play are worth a specified number of points. 

1. For the top 6 BCS Conferences (ACC, Big 10, Big East, Big 12, Pac 10, SEC) - each head to head matchup is worth $1.00
2. For all other midmajor conferences - each head to head matchup is worth $2.00
3. Now if during the draft a player decides not to draft a team from a conference, he forfeits that conference to the other guy.  The penalty for forfeit is $4.00 for midmajors and $5.00 for BCS Conferences.
4. Also, the player who drafts the team with the worst overall record at the end of the season (based on won/loss percentage) gets a $5.00 penalty.
   

Phase II : The NCAA Tournament/NIT 

Once the tournament starts, it's all about how many total points your teams score.  We take the total points scored x .10 per point.  The points are added up whether or not your team wins or loses its match.  But obviously the further your teams advance through the tourney, the more points you will accumulate.  In essence, the achievements of the regular season do not matter at this point.  If you pick a team that wins its regular season crown but they get knocked out of the conference tournament and aren't selected for the Big dance, Tough Noogies!  You get Squadoosh for that team. 

OTHER RULES

• To make the NIT relevant, we decided that if your team wins the coveted title of 66th best team in the land, you get to add those points to your tally.  But just the total from the NIT Championship game.

That's it.  But the regular season twist makes the draft quite interesting in terms of who gets picked.  Up next, the actual draft. 

Only 122 Days Until March

Welcome to the March Madness Draft blog. Ever since I discovered the intoxicating world of fantasy sports, I've loved me a good draft. There's something joyous about analyzing a list of options and building a team of dudes based on your own evaluation. While I've participated in many normal fantasy drafts, I've also invented random ones just for the excuse to have a draft with my buddies for bragging rights or chunk change. Some of these ideas include:

• The XFL Fantasy Draft (He Hate Me a top 5 pick w/ consensus #1 pick John Avery)
  
• Strat-O-Matic Baseball Draft (1 guy per team rosters)
  
• HR Derby (w/ one guy only from each team)
• Walks Derby
• Fumbles Derby
  
• Fantasy Winter Olympics (1 guy per country)
  
• Fantasy Curling
  

Okay so those last two I made up but if there were willing participants I'd be game..

March Madness is one if not the greatest sporting events around.  But what sets it apart from all the others?  The BRACKET! We all go kookoo for cocoa puffs over filling out that bracket and hitching our wagons to a set of teams hoping they can survive and advance.  The fact is nobody knows what will happen but it's a helluva fun time finding out.  

Now what if you had to fill out your bracket in November instead of March!???

 That's what my buddy and I decided to do three years ago.  It was an idea so ridiculous and pointless that  you knew it was pure gold . We'd each "draft" a team of the 65 contenders we thought would make the Big Dance.  A veritable "Kenny vs Spenny" of who is better at predicting the upcoming season of college basketball ensued. 

Before doing the draft I was on the same wavelength as a typical college basketball fan:.  I'd  follow my own teams and check out a game here and there.  As football season ended, my interest would gradually rise.  By the time Championship Week rolled into town, I'd try to cram as much college basketball as humanly possible into my memory so I'd be prepared for the illegal office pool the next week.  And of course, I'd be giving my bracket the ol' heave-ho and be mathematically eliminated the next weekend.  All of that changed once we started doing the draft (still not having any success at picking the bracket correctly though) 

So if you're new to this blog (heck I'm new to this blog) to crystallize it down to the core, it's about...  

•  Documenting an irrational competition between friends involving the NCAA tournament
• The planning and strategy for said competition
• Tracking the entire landscape of Division I college basketball from Air Force to Youngstown St
• Any and all things college basketball related

We'll be talking about the draft itself, scoring and strategy in future posts.