March Madness Fantasy 2017 - Play-In and First Round

fivethirtyeight.com had given NC Central a 63% chance of beating UC Davis, by far the best odds of any play-in game participant. When I saw that, and the NC Central had a dude that averaged 20 points a game, I knew he'd be my final draft pick. He'd be good for 40 or so points in the play-in game, and then another 30 or so in a meaningless slaughter at the hands of KU.

But ol' Nate Silver was wrong. In fact, their fancy stats incorrectly predicted the winner of 3 of the 4 play-in games.

Still, my play-in man Patrick Cole was not a horrible pick, earning 30 points in his only game.

The only other owned play-in gamers were Jake's Wes Iwundu facing off against Gav's John Collins. 55 and 52 points, respectively, plus Jake got another 38 from Wes' round of 64 loss to Cinci.

Let's take a look at the studs and duds of round one:

	OWNER	ROUND	SELECTION	PLAYER	TEAM	SEED	GAME1_SCORE
1	Jake	4	33	Jawun Evans	Oklahoma St	10	59.0
2	Shawn	8	78	Jordan Washington	Iona	14	49.5
3	Stu	5	46	Bryant McIntosh	Northwestern	8	48.0
4	Chris	6	56	Sindarius Thornwell	South Carolina	7	46.0
5	Gav	8	72	Miles Bridges	Michigan St	9	45.5
6	Chris	8	76	Derrick Walton Jr.	Michigan	7	42.0
7	James	6	54	Trevon Bluiett	Xavier	11	41.0

With Iwundu and OKST's Jawun Evans, Jake nailed his bonus seed drafting. Kudos also go to Chris, the only person to draft any 7-seeded players, who got two great double-double performances from Michigan and South Carolina's high scorers.

	OWNER	ROUND	SELECTION	PLAYER	TEAM	SEED	GAME1_SCORE
1	Chris	2	16	Joel Berry II	North Carolina	1	7
2	Jake	8	73	Conner Frankamp	Wichita St	10	8
3	Luke	8	77	Canyon Barry	Florida	4	9
4	Gav	6	52	Nate Mason	Minnesota	5	9
5	Stu	4	35	Bryce Alford	UCLA	3	10
6	Bob	8	79	Ben Moore	SMU	6	10
7	Stu	8	75	Carlton Bragg	Kansas	1	11

Jake had the #1 dud of Connor Frankamp, who hit only one 3, but lives to see another round. The same can be said for Canyon Barry and Joel Berry II, but Gav's Nate Mason will go down as the worst drafted player, worse even than Carlton Bragg.

A bad round for Barrys, Berrys, and Frankampberries!

Me? I didn't have any studs nor duds. Ol' steady John Olerud over here.

Here's the scatterplot that shows each player's total score. Can anyone catch up to Wes Iwundu? Yes, they can and will. Easily:

Wes has catapulted Jake into the catbird seat of yore. Alas, the reaper has come for three of his men, and he has the fewest number of active players remaining. Chris, Stu, and Luke are still at full strength, if you can call teams that feature Carlton Bragg and Canyon Barry as full strength.

While he didn't reach top 7 dud status, Luke got basically nothing from his top pick, Duke's Luke Kennard.