MML Elite 8 Postscript & Final Four Look…

Averages in parentheses ARE their lineup totals in the current playoffs.

Elite 8 notes: Nowell sucks again (he’ll likely be benched) and Handlogten is hitting the freshman wall a little bit for Gator Bait. Plus, Timme has been seeing a lot of special defenses in conference play and has been sub-par. But, let’s not overlook the fact that they have the best pair of guards left in the playoffs, by far (Nowell is NOT one of those two guards) and Murray & Mushila continue to produce. The Hoosiers made it easier for GB because they had Strawther in the lineup. He scored 10 fantasy points in two games. Can’t blame the Hoosiers for anything else. They made some nice moves, but I commented on Strawther after the draft and he killed them in the end. YRD’s unfortunately suffered a sub-par week from Jalen Wilson and Terrence Shannon sucked. Shannon was the problem. His season shows you can’t trust him to have the good game when he has just one game on the schedule. Shame on you YRD’s (sorry…) I loved the addition of Dalton Knecht by the Prozac Pups, and, just one of those things, he had a 3-game week and shot so poorly that he only averaged 12 for the week. Add in Samuel’s 10-point average and you know why they didn’t advance.

FINAL FOUR
Upper Bracket
#1 Gator Bait (145.7) vs. #13 KC Warthogs (163.5)
It’s the fantasy basketball take on the famous classic, “Tale of Two Cities.” Only we call this “Tale of Two Trends.” First, GB has had back-to-back weeks that I know they can’t believe…And, you can’t blame all of it on Marquis Nowell, although, I like to. Nope, it’s just one of those things that seems to happen in our game, a lot of guys going flat at the same time. Because of that, I do believe that Gator Bait will bounce back and top their playoff high of 151.5, which, by the way, was better than their opening round 140. I will be very surprised (is Nowell in the lineup?!) if they don’t top 160. They are really due to blow the cork off. As for KC, well…after struggling to score all season long, they did much better in week 11 and have put up 158.0 & 169.0. Is that sustainable? Yes/Maybe and no. Yes/maybe if Edey can keep averaging 40+ a week and they don’t have a couple of single digit scores from their other players. No, if Edey ONLY averages 30 or so a week because that would mean that they need not one, not two, but about four other players to max out and that’s tough to do. And, regardless of all that, they would still need a helping hand from GB (is Nowell in the lineup?!) because outside of Edey, they only have two players on their roster who averaged 20+ this year. They’ve done a very, very nice job if improving the roster but it’s still pretty average. GB is a strong favorite to advance to the final.

Lower Bracket
#2 Deep Valley Grouchos (166.5) vs. #14 Hardwood Heroes (169.0)
DVG’s “survived” an unusual Elite Eight week for them, as despite the fact that every player in the lineup averaged 20.5 or better for the week, save one, several players had poor second games that made their contest vs. House of Sparky closer than was expected (props to HOS). Estrada will be back in the lineup with a 3-game week. Broome, who is looking very much like the Morehead State Broome of late (Auburn is giving him minutes and plenty of touches), will replace Liddell, who was serviceable but is a higher risk. This will be necessary because HH has been the highest scoring team over the first two rounds. HH is truly fascinating to me. I now believe that he puts in a lot of time on players. Perhaps not the amount of time of myself and Gator Bait, but, plenty of quality time and he seems to have more patience than me with players. So, while there are certainly very, very, few guys left by mid to late January that can impact, he has been watching and watching and watching and has shown an incredible ability to reach into that free agent “bargain bin” and not come out with garbage. Landers Nolley is a case in point. I had him as a freshman and he was a productive freshman for me. But I dropped him because all he did was shoot. For two years he was not on a roster and then, voila! He is not only on the Heroes roster but is a very productive starter. Freemantle was available for some reason. They added him on 1-20-23. They got Nolley on 1-25. Nobody wanted Tyson, who is their leading scorer. He was added on 12-30. The above is now a yearly occurrence, leading me to have to bow down and claim: “I’m not worthy…” The playoffs of course, are very much about who’s hot and HH is. Their team lineup numbers do not match up to DVG but they are getting elite play from their guards right now, which is picking up sub-par play from KJ Williams. And, don’t forget they’ve got Filipowski, because the frosh matchup between two of the top three frosh in the league could be the decider since the DVG’s Brandon Noel only has one game. Whatever he locks in is going to be a huge factor either way. Not because I’m in this game, but I can’t call it. Momentum is huge. The DVG’s have the superior numbers and are playing pretty well. HH is getting a lot of bravura performances. They also had to get past a 3 seed and then a 6 seed; so, they’ve been tested. The DVG’s only had to get past a 15 and a 7 seed.

NOTE: By the way, note the team averages. I’ve always said that championship caliber teams need to be in the 160’s. So far, three of the four teams in the Final Four are, and, the only team that isn’t, is Gator Bait, which led the league in scoring…