The winners and the results from this year's contests.
June 14, 2024 by Keith Raynor in Fantasy with 0 comments
With the 2024 D-I College Championships in the book, our college fantasy competitions and games are all wrapped up. We picked the winners, guessed the props, and tried to find the upsets and which favorites to target. Hopefully, following along was fun.
But now let’s break down the results and announce the winners of #TheGame, the Beat Charlie Challenge, and Fantasy Ultimate for this year’s college Nationals.
#TheGame
The Winners
This year’s winner was Bob C, whose 332 points were earned with both champions. UNC W and Brown M were not easy clicks, with UNC garnering a 30% selection rate (second in the women’s division) and Brown at just 19% (fourth in the men’s division). Crucially, this entry also avoided this year’s landmines, namely UAH M and Carleton M. Instead, Bob wisely grabbed finalist Cal Poly SLO M, a pair of wins from SUNY Binghamton W, and a solid two-win showing from Texas M. Getting the seven point bonus by taking Oregon M to cover ended up not mattering with an eight point lead over second place.
Litch also featured both champions in a strong lineup, good for 324. This entry did not feature a finalist, instead getting 65 points from Vermont W. It helped to get the nine point bonus for taking Vermont W to cover, and Michigan W and NC State M both earned solid point totals.
Perhaps we have entered a new era, as third place went to Ryan W, who only had one champion, Brown M. And if that wasn’t enough, Georgia W gave a fat zero (although at the cost of just a single $1 of the budget) and Ryan earned just seven bonus points. But a lineup with two other finalists — Cal Poly SLO M and Stanford W — was enough. Colorado W were also an uncommon pick but they also pushed to the semifinals.
Although, the restrictive bonus points proved too intimidating for many takers: only 8% of entries submitted lineups that got the bonus. The top such finishers had 239 points, good for tied for 34th.
Bob C wins a month of All-Access subscription and an Ultiworld prize pack.
Litch and Ryan W each win a month of Standard subscription.
Selection Stats
Wanted to note the breakdown on divisions for the bonus teams: 75% men’s division, 25% women’s division.
Top 5 Women’s Division Teams
- Vermont (38.4%)
- UNC (30.2%)
- UBC (21.1%)
- Oregon (18.5%)
- UC Santa Barbara (17.2%)
Curiously, three teams from the same pool landed in the top five most selected, with UNC, Oregon, and UCSB all garnering a lot of interest. There was, however, a pretty good spread: outside of these, only four more teams had over 10% selection rate and only two teams were under 5% (Utah at 2.2% and Tufts at 1.7% — wow, we all missed hard on Tufts). UBC really left players hurting, losing a game in pool play and early in the bracket. Oregon and Vermont both were disappointing based on cost, further emphasizing the value of sticking with the dynastic UNC.
Top 5 Men’s Division Teams
- Alabama-Huntsville (41.4%)
- Cal Poly SLO (38.4%)
- UNC (31.9%)
- Brown (21.6%)
- Oregon/Carleton (19.4%)
The selections in the men’s division were a lot more concentrated, with three of the top four selection rates and four of the bottom six (an embarrassing list at the bottom: semifinalist Colorado (1.3%), Michigan (4.7%), Texas (4.3%), and the lone smart fade, Penn State (2.2%)). What a massive landmine UAH proved to be, giving a huge swath of the field a fat zero. To make up for it, three of the semifinalists were picked frequently, but that Oregon/Carleton split was a pretty big difference.
The Perfect Lineup
- North Carolina W ($5)
- Brown M ($4)
- Cal Poly SLO M ($4)
- SUNY Binghamton W ($1)
- Minnesota M ($3)
A total of 345 points.
The Bonuses and Tiebreakers
How many teams seeded no.5 through no.20 will reach the semifinals, across both divisions? (11 pts)
The correct answer was four. Only 4.3% of entries earned the bonus, with a whopping 90% of entries going for two, three, or one, in that order. It could have been even more if Carleton could have pulled it off in the women’s division.
What will be the result of the pool play game between Vermont W and Colorado W? (9 pts)
71% of entries correctly called for Vermont W to win by three or more goals. Ruckus’ 15-8 thrashing left plenty of breathing room from the line. Who would have thought this was a pool play battle between future semifinalists?
What will be the result of the pool play game between Oregon M and Carleton M? (7 pts)
Again, the crowd went with the favorite, with 72% of entries correctly picking Oregon M to win by 3 or more goals. Curious that the percentages were almost identical.
Tiebreaker 1: How many players will record 10 or more assists?
With a range from two (this person must hate fun) to 80, surprisingly, the actual number exceeded the highest guess by quite a bit. With 88 total players hitting double digits, there were plenty of scoring passes to go around.
Tiebreaker 2: How many breaks will there be across all four semifinals?
Of the 109 scores in the semifinal rounds, a whopping 42 were breaks. Chalk it up to turnover-heavy games in rainy conditions, great defenses, nerves, whatever — it is a big number. You can’t have big comebacks without lots of breaks!
Beat Charlie Challenge
Charlie’s Picks
47 of 276 entries outscored Mr. Eisenhood, who finished with 20 points. That puts Charlie at about the 83th percentile. A strong bounceback showing from Charlie!
Charlie’s All-Time High: 97th percentile (D-I Championships 2021)
Charlie’s All Time Low : 47th percentile (Club 2023)
This run’s top scorers: Hunter Lang (26), Kyle Weisbrod, Nola McLoskey (35).
Women’s Division
- Quarterfinals: #1 UBC #2 Vermont #3 Carleton #4 UNC #6 Stanford #5 Oregon #9 UCSB #7 Colorado
- Semifinals: #2 Vermont #3 Carleton #4 UNC #7 Colorado
- Final: #4 UNC #2 Vermont
- Champion: #2 Vermont
- Scored: 11
Charlie beat the average here by a single point. Missing on the champion, of course, hurt. But 40.9% percent of entries went down with Vermont, and another 26.8% with UBC, keeping this from stinging too much. There was a pretty good amount of consensus, with everyone gravitating to the Big 3 of UBC, Vermont, and UNC, and then a big chunk sticking with Carleton and the rest spread out among Oregon, Stanford, and Colorado. Just 2.9% of entries took Stanford to the final and only 12.3% of entries had Colorado in semis.
Nobody got it perfected in this division, though shout out to top scorer, Goldie, who only missed Colorado making semifinals rather than UBC.
Men’s Division
- Quarterfinals: #1 UNC #10 Minnesota #5 Cal Poly SLO #6 Pittsburgh #3 UMass #4 Colorado #2 Georgia #8 Brown
- Semifinals: #1 UNC #5 Cal Poly SLO #2 Georgia #3 UMass
- Final: #5 Cal Poly SLO #2 Georgia
- Champion: #2 Georgia
- Scored: 9
In the more upset heavy men’s division, the average (7.7) dropped, but Charlie still managed 9 points. He, along with 28.6% of our prognosticators, called SLO to the final. Only 12.3% saw Brown coming, with only 4.3% taking them to win. Very few (16.7%) were on Colorado to semis, while conversely everyone (80+ percent) joined him picking UMass and Georgia, so those didn’t hurt him too bad. He also picked up some points with Minnesota to quarters, which was only at 25.4% on the board.
The Winners
By random selection of entrants who outscored Charlie, Jackson Scarbrough, Ryan Natzke, and Brandon Adibe will each receive a free month of All-Access subscription to Ultiworld.
Fantasy Ultimate
This game returned this year, thanks to Akshat Rajan, and was once again a fun chance to take your shot at picking the top producers. With the bonus system for rare picks, however, winning was very much about finding the rare stat-hogs nobody else thought to pick to get the 5x bonus. All of the top scoring players were 5x picks in both divisions, led by Colorado’s Faye Burdick (2050) and Brown’s Cal Nightingale (1950), the only scorers to clear 1600 points. That’s most than a couple of entire entries scored!
Full Standings & Selection Rates
The most selected players:
- Kennedy McCarthy (Vermont) – 67%
- Jacques Nissen (Brown) – 67%
- Jolie Krebs (SUNY Binghamton) – 56%
- Aidan Downey (Georgia) – 54%
- Henry Ing (Pittsburgh) – 51%
Was it worth it to go with the big names? Jacques Nissen and Jolie Krebs torched the scoreboard with 59 and 58 combined stats, but obviously that pales in comparison in the top scoring rare picks. Clearly it was not. I think this is definitely worth tweaking to create a different competition.
So who were top scorers who people picked for those precious 5x multiplayers? Here are your best seven in each division.
Women’s division:
- Faye Burdick (Colorado) – 2050
- Amaya Krutsinger (Western Washington) – 1550
- Sami Chambers (Georgia) – 1400
- Melissa Torchio (SUNY Binghamton) – 1350
- Kiana Hu (Stanford) – 1100
- Emily Przykucki (UNC) – 1050
- Zane Bird Smith (UC Santa Cruz) – 1050
Men’s division:
- Cal Nightingale (Brown) – 1950
- Eli Fried (UNC) – 1350
- Sean Wiles (NC State) – 1100
- Alex Mullen (Penn State) – 1050
- Henry Wayte (Oregon State) – 1000
- Nanda Min-Fink (Colorado) – 1000
- Gabriel Jagt (Minnesota) – 1000
The Winners
Amazingly, the best move, I guess, was to pick yourself. Henri Lessard did and racked up 3900 points for picking himself and teammates Sean Wiles and Suhas Madiraju. (Missed on his teammate Matti Lee, though.) Otherwise, it was big names: Nissen, Henry Ing, Ben Dameron, Rutledge Smith, Wyatt Kellman, and Aidan Downey. Although Ben Thoennes was 60 points away and he didn’t pick himself (although he was only a 2x bonus).
In the women’s division, Simon Logan put a remarkable 4530 up on the board, although with only two 5x players — Burdick and Stanford’s Anna Fisher Lopez. 2x Emma Williamson helped out too, but other big names like Stacy Gaskill, Emily Pozzy, Clil Phillips, and Dawn Culton generated very good numbers, too.
Each winner wins a free month of Standard subscription to Ultiworld.
Feedback Welcome!
Did you play? Did you not play? Why or why not? What rules would be fun to play with? What tweaks can be made?
We want #thegame, the Beat Charlie Challenge, and Fantasy Ultimate to be fun and have different strategies be viable without being too complicated for lots of people to enter. You can contact me by emailing [email protected] or on Twitter @FullFieldHammer, or leave a comment in the Discord.
