So I just turned on the Northwestern-UCLA game and Drew Crawford is wearing a jogging suit. He is suffering from severe back spasms. Got damn. So I lost basically two games from him this week. I drafted a roster from hell.

UCLA is GOOD this year. I've been a hater forever and honestly, they HAD to fire Howland. His teams were just so boring and they never had that flow you wanted to see in a great team. Alford, for all of his misgivings, has an impressive squad. He's got some solid veterans, but more importantly, struck gold with Jordan Adams and Kyle Anderson. Neither good enough to be one and done, but two guys who will end up having great careers. Their incoming class this year is pretty good as well and they have some shooters.

Anyone see Alford's kid, an unrated, white SG from New Mexico? Guy can fill it up. If he's half of what his dad was, he's going to be a very good player. Bryce Alford, true Freshman, not recruited by ANYONE ELSE, has 18 points on 7 of 9 from the field tonight.

Mulva, Kyle Anderson is having one hell of a game.

16/9/9/4/1, does have 5 turnovers.

I like UCLA a lot. Kyle Anderson is such a unique talent at the college level, and really any level in today's game. The true 6-10 point guard is a rarity and Anderson plays the position exceptionally well.

The whole team was filling it up tonight. Bruins were 9-of-11 from three in the first half. Zach LaVine, another really good UCLA freshman, is a great shooting guard and has a decided advantage over most defenders standing at a legit 6-5.

I'll admit, when UCLA fired Ben Howland for essentially not being "showtime" enough and then hired Steve Alford, I laughed. They might as well have hired Pete Carril. Didn't think the fit would work very well. But Alford has taken the immense talent at his disposal and put a product on the floor that plays to its strengths. Too many coaches (like Howland) do not do that, and it is that insistence of doing things their way or the highway that usually does them in.

I thought Jabari Bird would win Pac 12 Freshman of the year. He and LaVine are both about equal.

UCLA is also without Isaac Hamilton (14th overall player in 2013) due to academic ineligibility.

Azubuike24;1544654 wrote:Mulva, Kyle Anderson is having one hell of a game.

16/9/9/4/1, does have 5 turnovers.

Anderson's been a monster this year. 12.5, 10, 7, 1, 1.5 basically.

Tim Frazier put up 47.25 tonight, too (thank you, OT). I'm at 511.5 through 17, so barely back above 30 ppg with those guys. Only 8 left though, so no way I match birddog this week with his 30+ games.

629.5 through 24. I still got 10 left, so hopefully I can crawl out from the basement.

Thank god for lots of games!

You're probably winning at this point, I'd say...that's a nice total.

More sub-20 pt games today from Spencer Dinwiddie and Robert Carter Jr. That's 7 now this week. Disappointing.

728.75 through 28 games (about 27 points per).

Chris Obekpa's shot blocking totals in last 5 games: 7, 9, 6, 7, 6. A wild beast. He leads the nation in blocks per game at 5.7 (Khem Birch is second at 5.2).

Now, if only he cared about offense. As a 6-foot-9 shot blocking specialist, Obekpa's chances at the next level are unfavorable. See Hasheem Thabeet, who is almost five inches taller and once advertised as the next Mutombo. But, if he sticks around two more years, he'll set some major records.

664.00 Through 22 out of 25 games.

Joseph Young, Markel Brown and McDermott playing tomorrow.

Ive had massive numbers this week, but looks like Ill be fucked by the lack of games compared to you guys.


EDIT: 21 games really. Forgot Gary Harris rested up his ankle since they played a cupcake in his only game this week. Fucking pansy.

Laley23;1545315 wrote:Ive had massive numbers this week, but looks like Ill be fucked by the lack of games compared to you guys.

Should have definitely done the scoring by ppg average.

Mulva;1545321 wrote:Should have definitely done the scoring by ppg average.

Im hoping for 750, considering I have McD going and Young is filling up the point column (just need some auxilary stats from him tomorrow) and Markel Brown has been a HUGE surprise.

Its asking a lot (86 pts), but I think it is for sure possible if McDermott scores 25+ and pulls in 8 REB.

557 through 19 of 24 games. Averaging 29.3 a game.

Mulva;1545321 wrote:Should have definitely done the scoring by ppg average.

Laley may not win because of a lack of games, but he won't finish last. He will end up getting 7 or 8 points. Other weeks, when he has more games, he will benefit.

It should all even out as I'd bet in the end, everyone will be withing 5% of total games played by the end of the year. Because we're not taking into account conference tournaments, everyone is going to play 29-31 games.

Azubuike24;1545551 wrote:Laley may not win because of a lack of games, but he won't finish last. He will end up getting 7 or 8 points. Other weeks, when he has more games, he will benefit.

It should all even out as I'd bet in the end, everyone will be withing 5% of total games played by the end of the year. Because we're not taking into account conference tournaments, everyone is going to play 29-31 games.

The bold is exactly the problem. Some weeks you're guaranteed to benefit and some weeks you're guaranteed to be screwed, rather than everyone being on a level playing field and the rankings being determined by who actually has the best team.

It shouldn't have to "even out in the end". It should be even the whole way.

Is this not the same as fantasy football, head to head? If you have the worst team but they go off one single week, you might beat a team that in the end, is better than you every other week and overall. They get the L and you get the W for that week.

If you have 15 games in a week but score 600, you may finish 4th place and get 9 points.
If another has 20 games in a week but scores 700, he may finish 3rd place and get 10 points.

The next week...

You have 20 games and score 800 points, you finish 1st and get 12 points.
He has 15 games and scores 525 points, he finishes 8th and gets 5 points.

Your PPG average is 40, his is 35. You end with a total of 21 points and he has 15.

If we did it your way, it would basically be add everyone's points up and see who does the best. That really puts no emphasis on consistency nor does it make each game or week that important.

It's not the same as fantasy football at all. In fantasy football each team has the same amount of games in a week, so the highest score and the highest average score are the same thing. The only similarity is that the standings are updated weekly, and even that isn't the same because it's 1-12 instead of simple W/L.

I was under the impression that "add everyone's points up and see who does the best" is the idea of the game. It makes a hell of a lot more sense than "add everyone's games up and see who has an inherent advantage".

How does it not make each game or week that important? The weekly scoring doesn't change. You still get 1-12 points. And per game, if average score is the important factor, a game of 0 points (or 60 points) has a huge impact. But if its total score and you play 34 games while someone else plays 22, it doesn't make any difference if you put up 3 and 6 points in two of your games, you're still going to win.

With FFB, you're also making roster decisions each week. You're taking a roster of 15 and picking 8 or 9 each week to play. The reason we did not do it this way was because it would be very difficult to do the scoring manually.

That is kind of why I suggested using the Fantrax site, where we could actually set a lineup, and you would then be able to maximize your games by setting the lineup to reflect the players who play 2 games a week instead of 1.

Next year, I suggest we do that and require people go in and set a lineup, and then they can choose who plays and who doesn't. For this year, the logistics were too complicated and we didn't get things set up until October.

Don't get me wrong, I see your argument. There are definitely flaws.

The roster format doesn't really impact the scoring model at all. I'm not suggesting that we set things up like fantasy football. I'm just saying quantity of games shouldn't trump quality of games.

Rather than the standings being:

12 - 900 pts (20 games)
11 - 875 pts (30 games)
10 - 800 pts (20 games)

It would be

12 - 900/20 = 45 ppg
11 - 800/20 = 40 ppg
10 - 875/30 = 29.16 ppg

It's still scored weekly. You still get 1-12 points weekly based on where you finish in the standings. The only change is that you level the playing field by factoring in how many games it took you to reach your total points. It would make each game more important, if anything. Teams/players that have better weeks end up higher in the standings, which is how it should be.

It's the one rule of this game that I really disagree with. Unfortunately, it's also the most important rule. And I won the first 2 weeks, so I'm definitely not saying this because I feel like I got screwed.

Yeah, next year probably would recommend doing AVG ppg or use Fantrax so we can adjust lineups.

But for now this will work.

Avg ppg is the way to go, but I didn't think of it till mulva brought it up. By then, a little late. I don't care, but for next year it's a change we should make.

It might be interesting to calculate everyone's weekly averages at the end just for fun and compare it to the winner of our current system.

I think Mulva's idea is great. But I agree that this is fine for this year.

Yeah I agreed at the time that it was too late for this season. But I'm not gonna stop being salty about it. I just hope it doesn't impact the playoffs. Even a 2-3 game difference in a week could be the difference at that point.