By JIMMY D / Bracket busted, baseball begins | Jimmy's archive

Head-to-head fantasy leagues are a fun twist on the regular pool.

They add some spice by facing off against a particular GM during the week, so you can plot your strategy, waiver moves and sit-or-start decisions based on the opposing roster of players. You can accumulate small fantasy victories during a season, even if your team doesn’t win the fantasy war.

But in a one-week playoff, your season’s work is vulnerable to a single injury, a single shutout or single huge game from a player on the other side. And God help you if two or three of your players get the flu or hit a mini-slump for a few days.

Because you will wake up Monday morning and your juggernaut squad will be playing in the meaningless consolation round, while other poolies march on for the league title.

Jimmy’s hockey squad bombed in first playoff round against a foe that got three head-to-head points because Cam Ward won 5-1 on the final night of the week. Result: a 5-4 category loss.

Last week, Jimmy’s late-season rally from seventh to third in the NBA fantasy league earned him a playoff date with some nasty Reds, whose lineup was littered with ragtag names. Even with the Reds adding and dumping players daily, Jimmy’s roster was far superior and would advance easily.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the league semifinals: Jimmy lost.
Jazz man Mehmet Okur got a stomach virus and missed three games. Rebounding machines Emeka Okafor of Memphis and Atlanta’s Al Horford suddenly decided it was their version of March Break and didn’t bother grabbing any boards or blocking any shots.

Jimmy scrambled on the weekend, trying to steal back the rebound category, picking up 76er Reggie Evans, King Mikki Moore and Okur’s backup Paul Millsap for Sunday games.

By the time three-point specialists Jason Terry of Dallas and Orlando’s Keith Bogans were done with terrible weeks, Jimmy was a 5-4 loser again. No matter that one rebound each from Okafor and Horford would have resulted in a 5-4 win. That fact is just salt in the wound.

So now, it’s on to baseball, which is not a head-to-head format. Manage your roster, accumulate points and runaway with the title if you choose. Which is what Jimmy did last year until his pitching collapsed in September and he finished second.

You brag when you win and whine when you lose. This is the nature of fantasy sports. But then you get ride back into the next season and get busy so you can get lucky. That started yesterday with baseball.

All four one, No. 1s for all

All your upset-prediction skills and Cinderella sightings were largely for naught in the 2008 version of March Madness.

For the first time ever, all four No. 1 seeds advanced in your bracket game in what many predict will be the best Final Four ever on the weekend. This was frustrating from the standpoint that nitwits who didn’t know a basketball from a golf ball probably finished ahead of you in the standings, simply because they mindlessly picked No. 1s to advance.

But the trend in recent years – except for the George Mason run two years ago – has been that No. 1s don’t get knocked off.

Florida battled Ohio State last year in a clash of No. 1s. The year before, three of the four finalists were top seeds.

So while a team like Davidson at No. 10 can make a racket in your bracket, they have a tough time busting the bracket.

For the record, and barring unforeseen circumstances or injury this week, Jimmy likes Kansas to knock off UNC (and avenge a 1957 triple-overtime tournament loss to the Tar Heels) and beat UCLA in the final.

Free throws are going to doom Memphis and Kansas hasn’t hit its stride perfectly yet. Like a good rally horse stalking the pace, we see the Jayhawks winning for the first time since Danny Manning – the current assistance coach – won it for them in 1988.

Running joke

OK, it’s not a joke, but it does have to do with running. If you picked up the Sunday Herald, you might have seen an announcement of an upcoming contest to predict the time a first-time marathoner will achieve in the May 18 Blue Nose Marathon.

It’s a charity contest with all proceeds going to a local children’s facility. But the $500 grand prize is just one aspect that should interest sports contest junkies.

Crosby NHL All-Star jersey and autographed Saku Koivu home jersey.
Check out the Sunday Herald or click here.

Jimmy D
jpoole@herald.ca