DRAFTKINGS-INDOORS EDITION RECAP
Happy Tuesday, boys and girls. Today I have a DraftKings style recap of Indoors for all of those who competed in The Blog’s weekend tournament. As so many of you have been so positive about the experience, it seemed only right that I go through the numbers and pick out some important things from this weekend. If you want a more traditional take on the tennis itself check out the writers answering The Guru’s 10 Post-Indoors Questions. Also, D3AS will have his usual “Studs and Duds” take on the tournament for you at some point soon as well. As for me, I’ll be giving out a Precap about Bates’ spring break on Thursday. For now, just sit back and enjoy the Fantasy (tennis).
Highest Performers: 13 points: David Liu (Chicago), Jonathan Jemison (Emory), CJ Krimbill (Case). 11 points: Adam Krull (Trinity Tx), Paxton Deuel (Trinity Tx), Sam Geier (Kenyon). 10 points: Rafe Mosetick (Emory), Charlie Pei (Chicago), David Leung (Chicago), Daniel Levine (CMU). No huge surprises on this list. Every person that broke double digits for the weekend was priced at $8,500 (Levine) or higher. Of the 13 pointers, Jemison was the biggest wildcard. D3AS dubbed him the “The best freshman and it’s not even close”, and Jemison paid him back in full with a 13-point performance and an AS POTW nod. Levine is probably the other biggest surprise. You never really know with freshmen, but apparently the AS teams have stud #2’s.
Best Overall Bargain: Chaz Downing (CMU) 6 points at $750. Chaz notched two singles wins even though he was not listed in CMU’s original starting lineup. Only two people in our entire game picked Mr. Downing. Our winner, “CCHS’17” (aka Eileen Hillis) and “Shaq” (anonymous). CHS may have had some insider CMU knowledge, but all’s fair in Love, War, and DraftKings. Chaz’s singles win over Case was the last match of the tournament and propelled CCHS’17 to the top of the leaderboard, passing #OldManWootton, #HeinrichManeuver and #ME.
Best Doubles Specialists: Elliot Guin (Trinity Tx) 6 points at $1,625, David Omsky (Emory) 6 points at $2,625. You’ll see below that Guin was a member of the nonexistent perfect lineup, and not a single fantasy team rostered the Tigers’ #3 doubles player. Three teams took a flyer on Omsky, and all three teams (Life of Pablo, #OldManWootton, and my team) finished in the top-5. This weekend it seems that paying for the superstars and skimping on the doubles players was a good philosophy.
Best Low-Price Buys: Adrien Bouchet (Emory) 9 points at $4,250, Marko Mandic (Pomona-Pitzer) 9 points $4,500, John Carswell (Wash U) 9 points at $5,125. Adrien Bouchet was another big surprise of the weekend. Most of the writers thought that Emory would be weakest in the middle of its lineup, but the Eagles went undefeated at #3 and #4, the latter half of which was because of Bouchet. Like Bouchet, Carswell swept his three opponents, and was a bright spot in Wash U’s otherwise dismal weekend. Mandic was one of the weekend’s most popular plays, and was on 16 different rosters. I don’t know if it was because I pegged him as a good value candidate in our BUY/SELL article, but people bought into Marko and Mr. Mandic delivered for the people.
Best Mid-Price Buys: Aman Manji (Emory) 9 points at $6,250, Max Liu (Chicago) 9 points at $6,375, Andrew Harrington (Emory) 9 points at $6,750. Here we have more of a variety of players. Manji went undefeated at #3 singles for the Eagles, but didn’t play any dubs. Liu also went undefeated, but at #6 singles for Chicago, and also did not factor into the dubs. Harrington played #3 dubs and #6 singles for the Eagles. I thought he had the potential to go undefeated at both spots, making his potential 15-point value well worth the $6,750 price. Apparently a lot of people felt like I did, because Harrington was the most popular play of the entire weekend. He was owned on almost half of all rosters (22 to be exact). The Emory transfer did sweep his weekend of dubs, but went only 1-2 in singles (including a loss to Downing that was my eventual death knell).
Best High-Price Buys: CJ Krimbill Case) 13 points at $9,875, David Liu (Chicago) 13 points at $9,625, Jonathan Jemison (Emory) 13 points at $8,750. Going into the weekend, I thought Krimbill and Liu should have been the two most expensive players on the board (although you can make a fairly convincing argument for Mosetick and Krull as well). Both guys won all three of their singles matches, with Liu absolutely dominating the latter half of his weekend. Both CJ and David also lost one doubles match (Case to Chicago and Chicago to Emory), netting a total of 13 points. Both players were also fairly scarcely owned, each being rostered about 10% of the time. The only other play to tally such a large point total was The Headbandit himself, Jonathan Jemison. As I said before, many people expected the freshman to succeed, but topping the scoreboard was very impressive. Jamison’s only loss came at #2 dubs against CMU in the semis. Lots of owners thought highly of the young Eagle, as he was owned on 13 different rosters, the 5th most of any player (behind Harrington, Mandic, Chas Mayer, and Konrad Kozlowski).
Most Overpriced: Nicolas Chua (Chicago) 4 points at $9,375, Jake Yasgoor (Pomona-Pitzer) 3 points at $9,000, Kiril Kirkov (CMU) 0 points at $6,625. I want to start by saying that all three of these guys are really good tennis players, they just didn’t have their best weekends, and I’m sure they would be the first to admit that. I talked about Chua in the SELL portion of our “Values” article, and he played some very close matches this weekend. He ended up having to play Deuel, Krimbill, and Mosetick, certainly three of the best 10 players in the country, and went 0-3. He won sets against Deuel and Mosetick, and did have a good dubs weekend (2/3 with an important regional win over Krimbill/Stuerke), but four total points did not help those who rostered the sophomore. Yasgoor on the other hand, wasn’t even in the dubs lineup. He had played #3 earlier this year, but was left to focus on his singles this weekend. Yasgoor beat Alla 0&0 in the 1st round, inspiring some real confidence in the junior, but he concluded his weekend with losses to Geier and Deuel (man, playing #1 ain’t easy). Kirkov played at #5 for the Tartans, and went 0-3 this weekend. Kirkov, Zheng, and Wadwani were once the most feared depth in the entire country, as the three wreaked havoc as a freshman trio just two years ago, but Kirkov fell to Mandic, Goodman, and Dong this weekend. With Downing’s emergence this weekend, it would not surprise me to see Coach Girard try a lineup consisting of Arora, Wadwani, and Downing moving forward.
DNP: Luke Tsai (Chicago) $8,250, Kunal Wadwani (CMU) $7,250, Jason Haugen (Wash U) $6,125. Tsai and Haugen were guys we warned you about in the Values article. After playing #5 last year and early on this spring, Tsai was taken out of the Maroons lineup this weekend. He did end up seeing the court at #3 dubs, but he and Michael Selin lost to Emory. Considering Max Liu’s success at #6 this weekend, Tsai might not see the lineup again for a period of time. Haugen is one of the biggest mysteries out there right now. He played #5 and #6 pretty successfully for the Bears last spring, and this year is nowhere to be found. He was actually listed as Wash U’s #9 guy this weekend, behind Kozlowski, Berman, and Vishnubholta. He also played #2 dubs with Chu (now graduated) last year, but has yet to see and dubs action this spring. Maybe he’s recovering from an injury, but it’s safe to say that Wash U could have used his help this weekend and could use it going forward as well. Wadwani was slotted to play #6 for CMU, but apparently hurt his ankle or something like that in the time leading up to the tournament. While Downing filled in admirably, the Tartans could have used a couple more wins at the bottom of the lineup, especially to avoid the Case upset.
Winning Lineup: David Liu (13 points), Jonathan Jemison (Emory) (13 points), Max Liu (Chicago) (9 points), Andrew Harrington (9 points), Kalyan Chadalavada(0 points), Chaz Downing (6 points). Total of 50 points for $35,000
Perfect Lineup: CJ Krimbill (13 points at $9.875), David Liu (13 points at $9,625), Jonathan Jemison (13 points at $8,750), Adrien Bouchet (9 points at $4,250), Elliot Guin (6 points at 1,625), and Chaz Downing (6 points at $750). Total of 70 points for $34,875.
There you have it! If any of you have any suggestions about how we could improve our game, or if you just want to know more about the results, feel free to email me at D3Northeast@gmail.com.