Well it's playoff time kiddies. You've come this far to seed yourselves, now it's time to play some more important games (excluding the bottom 4, sorry). I think we had quite an eventful season, with quite an exciting finish over final playoff spots. I'm still baffled how Tom got the #4 seed. Let's take a look at the standings:
As we can see, not much has changed over these final few weeks in terms of our overall Projected standings. In order to summarize this season's results, let's look at some awards:
Best Team ... The Renaissance
He started off very hot (almost immortal), but took a hit with that inconceivable 6-game losing streak. However, the numbers here showed us that it was a fluke and that, over the course of the season, this team consistently put up high numbers. Though, they placed 2nd in terms of overall points scored.
Worst Team ... TEAM RIHANNA
They were so close to avoiding this award until Bulldogs decided to go on a tear at the end. There are numerous reasons for this award that we've probably covered multiple times, but at the very least he also placed last in the league and gets the first overall pick in next season's draft. Something to look forward to.
Luckiest Team ... Bulldogs
The team that scored 9th out of 10 in points scored winds up as the #4 seed in the playoffs. Goodness. If not for his unlikely pair of 3-game win streaks, this team would be joining TEAM RIHANNA, searching google for "2010 fantasy football mock draft". He talked quite a bit of smack during our mid to late season uprising, we'll see how the 'Dogs bark in the playoffs.
Unluckiest Team ... The Renaissance and Boston TD Party
We all have heard the sob story that is Team Renaissance. I have covered it multiple times. However, Joe was fortunate enough to make the playoffs, while his co-award winner is sitting lonely in 7th place, with no playoff hopes, chances for money, and they don't even get a top 3 pick in next year's draft. Cry your tears not for Joe, who has the highest draft slot for next year out of all the playoff teams, but cry them for the Boston TD Party, who are most definitely not TD Partying on this cold night.
Alright so last week I promised a playoff edition. After much research and many epiphanies in the middle of my most boring class (Econ), I present to you all the 2009 Postseason Odds, which I have done in two ways:
These first odds only consider head to head matchups between the teams played. For instance here are the odds that The Moops advance to the Championship (which is 24%):
This season they went 8-5-0 against the Bulldogs, good for a W% of .615. As we can see, this is their odds of beating the Bulldogs and making it out of the 1st round. To advance past the 2nd round, they must beat a) Bulldogs and b) Primus Inter Pares. So we take a) times b). We already covered vs Bulldogs, but they also went 5-8-0 against Primus Inter Pares, a .385 W%. So the odds of The Moops beating Bulldogs and Primus Inter Pares is (.615)*(.385) = .237. So therefore, the odds of them making it to the championship is roughly 24%. I did this whole table based on head to head results.
But I also did another way of calculating postseason odds, solely based on a team's ProjW%. In the first table above, it assumed that I would beat Joe's team 61.5% of the time because that's our Head to Head record if we counted every week. However, Joe's team is better overall because when I lost to Joe, I lost by a large margin. I.e. my team was less consistent than Joe's. So I calculated another set of odds based on ProjW%.
This was tough to figure out. Basically I had to ask a theoretical question: If Team A wins 40% of the time and Team B wins 30% of the time, how likely is it that Team A beats Team B? From there I resorted back to The Log5 Method which has been so good to me. So one example of how even though Head to Head this season I win 61.5% of the time against Joe, Joe now wins 52.7% of the time because he now has a better ProjW% than me.
However, mathematics jargon aside, these numbers luckily aren't too different. I've got about a 35-37% chance of taking the ship (And collecting a handsome reward). Another thing that we could look at is what kind of a "draw" each team in the playoffs got. Nate Silver does a great piece on the World Cup Draw and basically provided the template for what I do here. But I have neither the time nor the resources to figure out mathematically who benefited the most or least from these seeds. If I were to guess, I would say the bottom half of the bracket is the "group of death" seeing as how they have 3 out of the top 4 teams in terms of ProjW%, and my side has two teams with ProjW% under .500. I'd say I got a good draw.
Onward to MEDIA!
Here's Taiwan's take on the Tiger Woods incident:
And although this student isn't as entertaining as our Georgia fan from a few weeks ago, he gets an A for passion:
And I was torn about what to do regarding the "Armchair Fantasy Girl" fiasco. For one, no one has submitted an entry, save for Dave's Leggy Blonde, Blake Lively. [Luke, once you make up your mind let us know ;-) ] I pondered long and hard about whether I should come forward with a serious pick and play by Dave's rules or wait until everyone comes forward with a choice. I mean, if no one's going to come forward with a pick, then this really comes down to (another) contest between Dave and myself. So I choose to hold off on my potential selection until I see compliance from others to follow suit.
Until next week, digest those numbers folks.
Oh and by the way, you're welcome.