BIFL - P & P Wrap-Up

So I've decided not to do any Previews & Predictions for the playoffs (other than my Playoff Power Rankings), meaning that the record books on my picking accuracy have closed for the year. I finished up Weeks 12 and 13 with a solid 9-3 run, bringing my season total to 46-26. That's a .639 record, which I'd wager is better than ESPN's predictions. But unsatisfied with merely being right on nearly two-thirds of my picks, I decided to delve deeper and see if there were any particular trends to my picking or teams that I was more or less right or wrong about. The results:



Most Predictable: Generally, you'd expect a "predictable" team to be either predictably very good or predictably very bad. The teams who most often did as predicted were no exception, as they sit at the extremes of our league standings. Dekker's team, who ended the regular season on top, did as I predicted 11 of 13 times, with most of them being wins. In fact, I only predicted him to lose once all season. And he did. On the other end of the spectrum, Dick and Andre also performed to expectations 11 of 13 times. Needless to say, though, expectations were much lower for them. Doesn't matter to me, though. Win or lose, a correct pick is a correct pick. Thanks fellas.

Least Predictable: In my old Notes (remember when I used to send out Microsoft Word files?) and on the blog the past two years, I've often wavered in my feelings on Chuck's team. Sometimes they've been my dark horse favorites, other times a hated group of fucks. So perhaps it's not surprising that, with so many conflicting emotions at play, I had the hardest time picking Chuck's outcomes. In seven of thirteen contests this season, I made the wrong call as far as I'm Here for the Gangbang. That is the only franchise in BIFL or NBD where I failed to pick more than half their games correctly. Damn your spontaneous nature, Chuck, and damn you.

Rewarding My Faith: As noted before, having a very good or very bad team makes predicting a lot easier, and the man with the best team is also the one who delivered the most predicted wins for me. Twelve times I backed Chip Lohmiller to bring home a W, and only twice did he fail me. Nice work, Dekker.

Reliably Shitty: Again, this is kind of a repeat of the "Most Predictable" category, but Dick and Andre both sucked almost every time I needed them to. No surprises, no break-outs, no upsets. Just reliable shittiness week in and week out. I picked each of these guys to lose eight times, and only once did each find some way to buck the odds and win one. It might have killed your records, boys, but your shittiness helped to pad mine.

I'm Not Angry, I'm Just Disappointed: We all have those guys in fantasy that we expect big things from, and when they fail to deliver we refuse to accept it. As the season drags on and the production fails to materialize, we keep thinking: next week. It's coming next week. The same thing happens with me and my picks, where I keep waiting for a "good" team to actually play well. And just like with fantasy players, that blind faith can bite you in the ass. If I'd had my way, Mark's Cholish Chachfaces would have been a playoff team this year. They might have even surpassed me in the Eastern standings. But of the eight times I picked Chalski to win this season, he only came through half the time. (And once he won when I picked him to lose, as if to really rub my nose in it. You're a dick, Chalski.)

Fuck You, Sovic: As I mentioned earlier, I really fucking hated Chuck's team this year. I mean, he's been starting Roy E. Williams all season. You know? But it could be that my antipathy for Chuck's players led me to undervalue them, as I picked them to lose nine times, more than Spencer, Andre, or Dick, all of whom finished below him. And on five of those loss picks, Chuck got the chance to raise his hand high in the Minnesota air and extend a middle finger whose shadow could be seen clear across the Midwest to Brooklyn. Message received, Chuckles. Come 2010, I'm back on your side.