Happy Thursday, boys and girls. Another year, another DIII DraftKings. If you’re an experienced player by now, you’ve been waiting for this article as I write it the day before Indoors every year. As always, I’m going to break the field down into three categories, studs (players priced $7,000-10,000), mid-range guys (players priced $4,000-7,000) and value plays (players priced $500-4,000). I’m not going to reveal all our Blog secrets here, but I can tell you that I will be practicing what I preach. Looking back on past years, the winning scores have usually been in the 48-56 range. That means you need about a 1.5-1 return on your team’s salary when it comes to fantasy points vs dollars spent. Don’t use this as a rigid rule, especially when looking at the higher priced players, but consider it more of a guideline than a code by which to select your team. If you have any questions about why I did or did not select a player, please comment/email/tweet and I will get back to you as soon as the tournament starts. As always, happy DraftKings-ing!
STUDS
STUDLY STUD: Emory’s top 3 (Hayden Cassone-$10,000, Adrien Bouchet-$9,625, Jonathan Jemison-$9,500). These guys almost break the 1.5 rule right off the bat; however, I did say to tone that down when looking at the highest priced players. Remember that you’ll likely need at least 50 points to win, which means getting a couple players who are most likely to get you 13-15 points should be a must, no matter the cost. Emory has a dreamy schedule, taking on Whitman in the QFs then likely the winner of GAC/PP in the semis, meaning all of these guys will be favored in both singles and doubles (yes, even the #1 singles player against Whaling and/or Kronenberg), which could be 10 points off the bat. While a tough final undoubtedly awaits, I believe these three guys have among the highest floors of any of the studs.
HIGH RISK/HIGH REWARD STUD: Patrick Whaling, GAC, $8,500. Whaling proved himself to be an absolute indoors beast last year, and is back as GAC’s top dog this spring. We know just how good his doubles game is, and he is a never give up sort of player, which makes a big difference in a tournament like this, especially considering the teams will keep playing after decision. Whaling will have a tough schedule, drawing Kronenberg to start, and then some combo of Jemison/Cassone or Kirsh in the semis, but if GAC falls to PP, Whaling has the potential to rack up some points while not being owned a very high clip.
TRAP STUD: Jed Kronenberg, Pomona-Pitzer, $9,375. On the other side of that 1st round draw is the Hen sophomore. JK plays outdoors all the time, and now has to move inside, which will certainly affect the lanky big hitter if only at the start. However, if PP beats GAC (a toss-up match at this point), JK will have to go against Jemison/Cassone and then most likely either Hillis or Levine, both of whom would be favored. In dubs, JK is playing #2 with the freshman (THE FUNKY) Comedena. GAC always plays good doubles, and PP hasn’t been known for the same thing in years past. Jed is rightfully priced highly, but I wouldn’t bank on him getting the 13ish points necessary to hit his value.
MID-RANGE
STUDLY MID-RANGE: Joshua Xu, Chicago, $4,875. Xu could easily have been the high risk/high reward guy, but I believe he’ll be in both starting lineups for Chicago on Friday, meaning he is a steal at his price. He’s going to be very highly owned, so you won’t be making up a ton of ground on the competition with this pick, but if Xu ends up playing #6 singles and #3 doubles for Chicago, he should easily hit the 7 points needed to return value, AND has the potential to rack up double digits. The schedule will be tough, Case is best at the bottom of their lineup, and it’s not like the winner of CMU/Wash U will be an easy matchup, but I like Xu and Pei at #3 doubles against most teams in the field, and I think Xu is AT WORST a toss-up against any of the other seven #6’s in the draw.
HIGH RISK/HIGH REWARD MID-RANGE: Konrad Kozlowski, Wash U, $5,500. Konrad has burned us before here, which is what makes him the high risk/high reward play. He’s been Wash U’s #6 for most of this spring, and has been playing quite well, but he was also supposed to play #6 for the Bears last year and then ended up playing behind Mark Wu. He is locked in at the top doubles spot, but that’s also a tough schedule, with Levine/Downing in the 1st round and then either Chicago or Case’s top team in the 2nd round. Wash U always plays good doubles, and we know Koz is one of the best out there, but a tough schedule and the uncertainty around his singles spot makes him a perfect high risk/high reward guy. If you could assure me he was going to play six matches this weekend, I would very strongly consider rostering him, as he would be favored in two of his most likely three singles matches, and all three if the Bears were to lose to CMU in the QFs.
TRAP MID-RANGE: Ninan Kumar, Chicago, $4,125. Once a staple of the Chicago singles lineup, Kumar has become a doubles specialist at this point in his career. That doesn’t mean he wont play singles at some point this year if the Maroons struggle at the bottom of the lineup, but I doubt it will be this weekend. He and Kerrigan should be a great #2 doubles team behind Yuan/Raclin, like a scary good team, but they took a surprising L against Denison in their last DIII match. Even if the K^2 doubles team sweeps the weekend, thats only six total points, meaning the VERY BEST Kumar can do is 1.45x his price. Going 1/3 on the weekend is just as likely as 3/3 given Chicago’s schedule, and a 2 point stinker from the Maroon junior would likely sink your team.
VALUE PLAYS
STUDLY VALUE PLAY: Rajul Chikkalingaiah, Whitman, $3,125. Whitman has been getting short shrift from the bloggers over the past few days due to their recent graduations and extremely tough 1st round draw vs Emory, but let’s not forget that this team made the NCAA QF last year! These value plays all have GREAT names, but RC might take the cake. He’s very likely to start near the bottom of the Blues’ lineup, which means he’ll have a very tough first round match, but then likely matchup against the loser of the GAC/PP match, which yields a vastly more favorable matchup. Really, the name of the game here is volume. Raj should play in both the singles and doubles lineup, as every Whitman match this weekend will be absolutely crucial to their year-end ranking. That’s six matches against a variety of teams. Even if he goes 2-4 on the weekend he’ll AT WORST be just about hitting the required value. Raj has been playing well to start the year, and could surprise some people and throw 10+ points out this weekend, but considering all he needs is .333 winning percentage to return good value…I’m going to have to learn how to pronounce Chikkalingaiah when I read out my winning team.
HIGH RISK/HIGH REWARD VALUE PLAY: Quinn Hirsohn, Pomona-Pitzer, $1,750. This is the highest risk/highest reward play of the entire article, which should be the case when we get down to the value plays. There are a couple other options here, people you can take a flier on depending on whether or not you believe they will end up in the singles lineup, but Hiroshn played #6 singles for the Hens against Brandeis on Tuesday, in what should have been their full lineup. That said, PP has a plethora of plausible candidates ready to start the revolving door including Bicks, Stark, Bernstein and Schoenherr. There’s even a decent chance that whoever starts at 6 vs GAC will not remain there if he loses that match. If Hirsohn wins just one singles match, he will return 1.7+x his value, and if he wins a very reasonable two out of three matches his six points will be a massive return on investment; however, given the chance he doesn’t play at all take his low salary at your own peril.
TRAP VALUE PLAY: Koki Takabatake, Wash U, $3,875. Unfortunately, I think the best thing about Takabatake in this year’s tournament is his name. Koki hasn’t played much in either the doubles or the singles lineup so far this spring for the Bears, meaning it would take an injury or a Coach Follmer change of strategy to get the sophomore into the lineup. However, because the Wash U lineup has changed in recent iterations of this tournament, it could always happen again. That said, it would more likely be one of the vaunted Bear freshmen who got a shot if that were the case, somebody like McClelleand or Komis. While he does have a very appealing name, don’t let that be the only reason for him to be on your team (unless you’re D3ASW who picks a full team by name and name alone).
Avoiding whatever grinder Chicago puts in at 6 is also must. Got burnt by that the past two years.