Wednesday, October 29, 2008

In which The Jughead picks every single Open Nationals game


Click the picture for the full-size view.

Comments:

  • Jam is better than everyone is giving them credit for. Just because their roster is somewhat static does not make them "old" like the last DoG teams.
  • Sockeye is great, perhaps as good as they've ever been, but they're not invulnerable. I see them losing a game along the line, but not during bracket play.
  • Who will get heckled the most? All signs point to Skip "non-profit" Sewell.
  • Will Ironside be damaged by their Regionals slayings, or is it a sign of them being fully gelled? I predict the latter.
  • The hype of Bodhi isn't enough to get them W's against the best club teams.
  • Sub Zero will disappoint.
  • Pool E is gonna be ridddddiculous. Power pools at Nationals are insane. In a good way.
  • The bottom 4 seeds will not win any games against top-12 seeds.

Friday, October 24, 2008

LSAT Results - No Ultimate Content

So I was minding my own business on a balmy Oakland afternoon, sitting in a cake of dried sweat from my first workout in months, when I found out that LSAT scores were being released a few days early. I googled a little to find some message board that confirmed this tip (seriously, who are these people that hang around standardized test message boards?).

I was Facebook chatting with my LSAT friend KD when I got the new message notification in Gmail. From: "LSAC SCORE." Subject: "Your October 2008 LSAT Score." I couldn't bring myself to open it. It was a feeling more intense than waiting to see your semester report card or final exam score in one of those classes where it actually mattered.

I switched tabs back to Facebook chat.
"oh shit I got an email"
"didnt open it yet"
"i feel like i am staring down the firing squad"

Back to Gmail. I opened the e-mail cautiously. I had just started to make a little chart with what emotion I would feel for any of the scores in my potential range. Too late. I scanned the e-mail. The first line with any numbers jumped out at me. It had low digits in it. I panicked for about a quarter of a second before I realized that was just my account number.

Next line down.

"Your October 2008 LSAT score is 169. The percentile rank is 97."

Yyyyeeeaaaaahhhhhh baby! Better than any of the 5 practice tests I took. Higher than approx. 48,500 of the other approx. 50,000 that took the exam. If I had gotten 170 I would've been over the moon. So 169 was a close door prize.

This calls for some Joose!

Monday, October 20, 2008

Chimp+Asian Game Show+Segway

I'm so easy to please.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Suggested Nationals Seeding

Two posts in one day! Neither about The Abomination!
These seedings reflect my power rankings merged with Regionals finishing order.
Note: I personally am against the thinking of the RSD posters who base most of their seeding on head to head matchups, like in the Mixed Seeding post where there are many reasonable candidates for the #1 seed but somehow people decided Hooray was the top choice pretty much solely because they beat Mischief once. If you think Mischief is so great, maybe you should put them first.

1. Sockeye
2. Ironside
3. Johnny Bravo
4. Revolver
5. Jam
6. Ring
7. GOAT
8. Sub Zero
9. Truck Stop
10. Doublewide
11. Chain
12. Condors
13. Bodhi
14. Machine
15. PoNY
16. El Diablo

This seeding obviously leaves Chain underseeded, but they deserve the low seed for not taking care of business at Regionals. Also, I think Bravo "deserves" the 2 seed based on their performance this season, but I am not restricting my seedings by that measure.

This seeding would give pools of:
A: Sockeye, Sub Zero, Truck Stop, El Diablo
B: Ironside, GOAT, Doublewide, PoNY
C: Bravo, Ring, Chain, Machine
D: Jam, Revolver, Condors, Bodhi

C would be the clear pool of death, but I think the other pools are all pretty fairly stratified.

Pre-Nationals Power Rankings

Here are my power rankings among the 16 qualifying teams, along with a few notes.


Tier 1


1. Sockeye. A convincing undefeated Regionals cements Sockeye in the top spot.

2. Ironside. Ironside ran roughshod through Sectionals and Regionals, beating Bodhi 15-2 at Sectionals and beating PoNY and GOAT 15-5 and 15-8. They are definitely showing signs of gelling more and more over time. The only question mark is whether the addition of Kurt Gibson, who hasn’t been playing with them, will help them with his talent or hurt them by disrupting what Ironside has been working out together over the club season.

3. Johnny Bravo. I am still very high on Bravo, but I think Beau being an absentee member of the team can only hurt them. He looked out of sorts at Labor Day, and spending the summer away from Colorado can’t have helped him get better meshed with his team.


Tier 2


4. Jam. Jam lost to Sockeye and Revolver at Northwest Regionals to take the Northwest’s 3rd bid. However, I still think that they are the best team outside of the big 3. The loss to Sockeye is acceptable; it’s Sockeye. The loss to Revolver is frightening for them, but they have handled Revolver fine over the rest of the season and the blustery weather in Burlington will not be present in Sarasota.

5. Chain. Chain has had some very unimpressive games in the series. The 16-14 Sectionals victory over El Diablo and the loss to a scrappy but not excellent Doublewide at Regionals are cause for concern. It remains to be seen whether their excellent regular season and talent or their spotty series is the more accurate assessment of Chain. We’ll find out in Sarasota.

6. Revolver. Revolver is a very good, but not great, team. I think they probably hit their ceiling at Regionals. Not to say that they peaked at Regionals, but I don’t see them improving to a point where they can beat more than two of the above teams at Nationals.


Tier 3


7. Ring. Ring put together a strong series to go along with a good regular season, but I can’t see them breaking into the semifinals.

8. GOAT. They had a good series, putting the hurt on Bodhi twice and giving Ironside its toughest test. I think they’ll have a tougher run at Nationals this time around though since all the other teams know the scouting report on them by now.

9. Sub Zero. Sub Zero has a fair amount of talent to go along with the sickest website in the game, but their results have not been too impressive. They were relatively poor at Labor Day, took care of business and nothing more at CHC, and went totally untested through the series. They certainly have a higher ceiling than #9, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see them finish in the 10-11 range either. Best use of flash in a roster since the 2002 Brains site.

10. Truck Stop. Truck Stop will do fine at Nationals, finishing somewhere among these tier 3 positions, no higher, no lower.

11. Doublewide. I know they won South Regionals, but this is a power ranking, not a seeding. They have been inconsistent in the past. I’d like to see them do well but I don’t think it’s in the cards.


Tier 4


12. Condors. Talk about an up and down season. They’ve beaten Jam 2x, Truck Stop, and GOAT, but have lost a bunch of unimpressive games as well. I hope my Condors buddies can take better than 12th, but I don’t predict that they will beat more than 2 top 11 teams. I do think, though, that they are much better than the bottom 4 teams.


Tier 5


13. Bodhi. Young enough to possibly pull off a couple of big news upsets, too young to finish top 10.

14. Machine. Ugh.

15. PoNY. Ugh. Riding their former Sockeye player through nationals won’t work out so well, considering he was not a big part of their success (from what I saw).

16. El Diablo. Who knows.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Initial Conference 1 thoughts

  1. I am fervently anti Conference 1.
  2. I am temporarily boycotting 5 Ultimate, which is aiding and abetting a crime against college ultimate.
  3. I suspected Cultimate was awful in the past couple years with all the tournament bid bullshit politicking. Now I know they are a pox on college ultimate.
  4. I don't know, but am curious about how Cultimate plans to make a profit off of this, with no bid fees. Do they expect that non C1 teams will also attend and pay premium prices for tournaments that disenfranchise them and have not been shown to be a superior product to college-run tournaments?
  5. I hope if C1 does happen (though I am optimistic it will not), teams like UCSD and Stanford will still host high caliber tournaments even if they do not play in them.
  6. I am disgusted on a personal level with those that go along with this for now, just like I am with McCain supporters. This has passed.
  7. Obviously, as I posted on RSD, the selection process was a complete sham. This is NOT a whine about Claremont not making it; it is about shitty non-elite (elite being perennial quarters teams like Wisconsin, Florida, Colorado, Georgia, Stanford, Carleton, Texas, and maybe teams like Oregon and Michigan) teams with no track record, or has beens, like Western Washington, UCSB, UCSD, UNCW, Kansas, Illinois, Minnesota, and pretty much the whole NE.
  8. Why does Cultimate insist on lame names for their big ideas? i.e. NCUS, Conference 1.
  9. I imagine that Florida's endorsement of C1 will be a warning sign for those teams invited. They don't have a whole lot of social capital right now with Brodie running the team.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Not much going on...

except
1. Took the LSAT on Saturday. Had a near brush with disaster as "police activity" shut down the freeway for 40 minutes and I showed up late, but it worked out in the end as everything was behind schedule anyway. Shooting for a 170, but we'll see come October 27th.

2. First Regionals weekend. I had to take the LSAT while my squad was battling the finest teams in the country in terrible weather in the good ol NW. Highlight: Shy handblocks Tim Gehret on one goalline and skies him on the other one all in the same point. Not bad, but not THIS: Anyway, we could only get 9 guys (plus Ollie and Joaq) up to Burlington which is a bummer, but I am excited to get my hands on the sweet jerseys finally.

3. Looking for a job. Any suggestions?

4. Apparently Beau lives in Oakland now. Not that I am excited about running into him at the store or anything.

5. Decided to give Google Reader a chance. I love clicking on the same 57 (literally) links over and over again (truthfully) but perhaps this will take away an excuse to spend so much time on the old comp.

6. Trying to beat Minesweeper with a custom grid: Expert size, 145 mines instead of 99. My best so far is 140.

7. Almost done with the Sopranos. I think I can admit that it is better than The Wire, and while I still am very fond of Dexter, Sops is right up there with it. Hm, that is a lot of violence.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

VP Debate Thoughts