4 + 4

None of my usual wit(?) for this post; the championship game was way too awesome to leave any room for it. Here are the results for the Sickness.

First of all, the 4-player NIT competition, not added to the overall Sickness totals

• Mike - 42
• Lars - 41
• Sib - 27
• Phil - 20

Shootout

• Matty - 369 (back-to-back-to-back-to-back)
• Digger - 280
• Gak - 256
• Sib - 254
• Lars - 241
• Mike - 230
• Phil - how was the cruise?

Bracket

• Mike - 124
• Sib - 114
• Matty - 102
• Lars - 74
• Gak - 54
• Digger - 52
• Phil - seriously, was the food awesome?

Dilemma

• Mike - 46
• Phil - 43 (take that, jerks!)
• Gak - 41
• Digger - 40
• Lars - 40
• Matty - 39
• Sib - 38

The Sickness
(point total: shootout + bracket+ dilemma)

• 2013 Champion - Mike (20)
• Matty (15)
• Gak (11)
• Digger, Sib (10)
• Phil, Lars (7)

So, the title, 4+4? Matty is in the midst of a Bill Russell championship run with 4 Shootout titles in a row, and I somehow managed to win the other 4 trophies. Thanks again to everyone for playing, and for tanking just enough to make me think this win was legit. Your ruse paid off, I will run this next year...

Wow.

Ok, so I was really not prepared for a comeback, OT win for Michigan before Duke tipped off against a Michigan State team that all the "experts" picked to advance. My blood pressure returned to normal........ now, just now.

Update time (which means, of course, that I am doing well and want to tell you about it)

Shootout
Big Dig extended his lead on the strength of a 51 point game (Curry 27, Sheed 14, Harris 9), but is down to 2 players. After some quick math:

• 1st Digger, 265 points, Sheed & Curry averaging 37ppg combined, max 3 games remaining
• 2nd Matty, 233 pts, team averaging 56ppg, will lose Blue or Fair next round but guaranteed a final 4 participant
• 3rd Gak, 230 pts, Plumlee & Craft averaging 27pts together. Needs stars to align to move up, or move down

Sib has a great chance of catching Lars for 4th, and like me is guaranteed a player in the Final 4. The real problem for me & Lars is that one of those players is Russ Smith, the leading scorer in the Shootout (81 pts).
Phil also drafted 6 players....
Thats kind of unfair because I'm almost equally abysmal, but I have an outside chance to slide into 5th for a point.

LDD
I still sit atop the leaderboard, but I have a large piece of Gak on my shoe. We differ on 2/4 picks this round, so if the ball bounces my way I could have a 3pt lead going into the final weekend. If fortune favors the Jews, Gak will be your new leader. Phil is just one behind the Gakker in third, and is guaranteed to move closer to the top because he's got one different pick from both Gak & me.

Bracket
Ok, the leader here is, oh! What do you know? Me! Sib, Gak and I are separated by 6 points with a max ~120, so anything could happen. Problem is, Matty is also 6 points back, but with 3 possible final 4 teams his max is a lofty 142! Much like in the Shootout, his fortunes may be tied to Michigan, his predicted Champ.

NIT
I win. If I lose the Sickness title this year by a few points when the NIT didnt count, I might end this whole competition. So, if you want to play next year, either root for me, or root for my complete obliteration so its not close enough to matter...

Sickness
I'm still on top of the pile with 20, but as stated above my grip on the trophy is like Stallone's at the beginning of Cliffhanger. I'm just hoping that chick doesnt fall to her death this time. With massive swings still possible, the contenders are Gak (15), Digger (13), Matty (12). Sib and Phil are the spoilers, poised to steal points in the bracket (Sib) and the dilemma (Phil).

Hope you enjoyed the update. Feel free to heap praise upon me before this elaborate house of cards I have built crashes down around me....

Did You Know?

There has never been a repeat Sickness champion? Here are back-to-back winners in the other events:

• Gak (Shootout '06 and '06)
• Matty (Shootout '10-'12)
• Lars (NIT '11-'12)

Some players have taken the same title twice:

• Gak (bracket)
• Phil and Sib (dilemma)
• Lars (NIT)

The NIT should be renamed "The Lars Invitational NIT Challenge." He won the first, third, and fourth events along with placing 3rd in '10.

Matty's stranglehold on the Shootout title is unrivaled, and he's currently Digger's biggest challenge for the 2013 crown. Just another reason to root for Duke; Curry and Sheed could end Korea's dominance of the US.

I've never won a single event, but managed to take the '10 Sickness with a fistful of second place finishes.

I based most of my picks this year on @WillSasso's method. The only problem with this method is that it can be life altering.

Leaderboard

The Overall Sickness Leaderboard changes so often, I thought I'd just do a quick bulleted list.
The format is: Name - Overall score (shootout, bracket, LDD)

• Yours truly - 20 (0, 10, 10)
• Gak - 17 (3, 7, 7)
• Digger - 15 (10, 0, 5)
• Lars - 15 (7, 5, 3)
• Sib - 9 (1, 5, 3)
• Phil - 8 (0, 1, 7)
• Matty - 5 (5, 0, 0)

With the exception of the Shootout, every event is very close. I'd also like to point out that there is one sick individual who is leading three events (Bracket, LDD, NIT). While I am sure this person knows there is a long way to go, no doubt he's thinking "I AM THE GREATEST IN THE WORLD!!"

Update #1

First off, all of the links in the right sidebar are up, so you can see every scoreboard.

In the Shootout, Matty and Digger are throwing bombs at each other, putting up 20's left and right. The forerunner for Shootout champ will be determined by the Duke/Creighton game today; Digger has Curry and Sheed, Matty has Creighton (I mean McDermott). Good luck to everyone except Matty.

The bracket is as close as its ever been with a mere 6 points between first and last, and everyone hovering around 150/160 max possible points.

Yours truly is leading the Dilemma. The one point that puts me in first comes courtesy of Wichita State. I will talk about this tournament for the rest of my life. "Hey grandson, come over here. Let me tell you about a cold spring in Delaware, when I correctly picked what round Gonzaga would reach for the first and last time in my life..."

Since the overall Sickness scoreboard can fluctuate so much, I am not going to make that up until the weekend is in the books. Really quickly:

• Gak - 18pts
• 14 - 17pts
• Sib - 15pts
• Lars - 13pts
• Matty & Digger 10pts
• Phil - brought Cinnabons to my house when he came! Thats worth 8pts

Lastly, since I didnt get the NIT going in time, the Sickness is just the above 3 events. The NIT is a 4-way throwdown for the trophy, and its neck-and-neck-and-neck-and-neck.

2013 Kickoff

I know, I know, I haven't been very sick this year, but the ball is at least rolling. I decided that instead of an entire new site, I'd just co-opt last year's. Granted, this is part laziness, but I also thought it made more sense to have all of the old posts and comments in place for reference/fun/insult fodder.

The Shootout and Bracket links to the right should work, and the draft will start at 12. I'll do the LDD during naptime, and that just leaves the NIT. Please get brackets to me ASAP, because someone will be say "Did you see....!" if they havent already. Shootout draft order as determined by Hannah picking up scraps of paper on the floor:

• Matty
• Sib
• 14
• Phil
• Lars
• Gak
• Digger

Home Stretch

There are currently ties in the Dilemma and the NIT. If there is still a tie after all competitions are over, the tiebreaker is the final game total score. Points for each event will be 10 for first, 7, 5, 3, 1, 0, 0.