Bowl Pool - Omicron takes another game down edition

 I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas.  My wife and I were both sick, so we stayed at home this year, so that we wouldn’t get anyone else to come down with this pretty awful cold.  So, we missed out on a lot, but at least we spared people some misery.  Since we didn’t have many presents to open, we wound up watching all three Matrix movies back-to-back.  I think they are probably better that way, although the first one is clearly the best of the three.  We then watched the new on today.  It’s not bad, especially after catching up on where the story left off.

I also kind of watched the Camelia Bowl during the day, but it looked like that game wasn’t in doubt from mid-way through the first quarter on.  Of all the bowl games I’ve watched all or part of so far, this one was probably the least entertaining.  Tough break for all the Ball State fans out there.  So, here are the updated standings for points:

1. Klei R.: 306 (-170)

2. Hutch H.: 285 (-170)

3. Daniel E.: 266 (-176)

4. Mike W.: 257 (-160)

5. Mark A.: 252 (-212)

6. Michelle L. #1: 246 (-240)

7. Pete J. #2: 241 (-209)

8. Becky H.: 240 (-94)

9. Ben S.: 240 (-145)

10. Larry G. #2: 240 (-208)

11. Josiah T. #1: 240 (-239)

12. Josiah T. #2: 236 (-172)

13. Scott H. #2: 236 (-250)

14. Mike N.: 229 (-146)

15. Chad L.: 228 (-192)

16. Jay H. #2: 228 (-207)

17. Pete J. #1: 225 (-225)

18. Matt N.: 224 (-141)

19. Stefan K.: 218 (-128)

20. Adam O. #3: 213 (-172)

21. Adam O. #1: 212 (-197)

22. Adam O. #4: 204 (-197)

23. Michelle L. #2: 202 (-242)

24. Jason S.: 201 (-127)

25. Marc R.: 198 (-108)

26. Adam O. #2: 197 (-186)

27. Dylan B.: 196 (-185)

28. Damien R.: 194 (-224)

29. Ryan W.: 193 (-130)

30. Adam E.: 188 (-199)

31. Grant F.: 185 (-220)

31. Emily T.: 185 (-220)

33. Dylan L.: 177 (-188)

34. Brian K.: 173 (-180)

35. Brad R.: 171 (-124)

36. Cam L.: 167 (-182)

37. Weston T. (Shane): 162 (-218)

38. Brent S.: 153 (-141)

39. Scott H. #1: 151 (-244)

40. Brett W.: 148 (-196)

41. Creighton H.: 147 (-223)

42. Matt M.: 146 (-212)

43. Larry G. #1: 146 (-286)

44. Dustin B.: 144 (-109)

45. Dan D.: 137 (-87)

46. Lee K.: 135 (-162)

47. Jay H. #1: 132 (-152)

48. Amy L.: 128 (-236)

49. Ally H.: 114 (-175)

50. Doug L.: 84 (-80)

51. Tom B.: 53 (-221)

…and for net points:

1. Becky H.: 146

2. Klei R.: 136

3. Hutch H.: 115

4. Mike W.: 97

5. Ben S.: 95

6. Daniel E.: 90

6. Stefan K.: 90

6. Marc R.: 90

9. Mike N.: 83

9. Matt N.: 83

11. Jason S.: 74

12. Josiah T. #2: 64

13. Ryan W.: 63

14. Dan D.: 50

15. Brad R.: 47

16. Adam O. #3: 41

17. Mark A.: 40

18. Chad L.: 36

19. Dustin B.: 35

20. Pete J. #2: 32

20. Larry G. #2: 32

22. Jay H. #2: 21

23. Adam O. #1: 15

24. Brent S.: 12

25. Adam O. #2: 11

25. Dylan B.: 11

27. Adam O. #4: 7

28. Michelle L. #1: 6

29. Doug L.: 4

30. Josiah T. #1: 1

31. Pete J. #1: 0

32. Brian K.: -7

33. Adam E.: -11

33. Dylan L.: -11

35. Scott H. #2: -14

36. Cam L.: -15

37. Jay H. #1: -20

38. Lee K.: -27

39. Damien R.: -30

40. Grant F.: -35

40. Emily T.: -35

42. Michelle L. #2: -40

43. Brett W.: -48

44. Weston T. (Shane): -56

45. Ally H.: -61

46. Matt M.: -66

47. Creighton H.: -76

48. Scott H. #1: -93

49. Amy L.: -108

50. Larry G. #1: -140

51. Tom B.: -168

All of the previous games were a bit of a warm up.  We were supposed to be getting into a dead sprint territory now for games.  Now it feels like we are going to do well to play even half of those games.  I get that teams are waiting until as late as possible to cancel games.  Every night from here on out, I guess I just have to do a search to see if a game is actually going to take place or not.

This will also effect the probabilities later on.  Obviously, that calculation assumes that all games will be played and that there will be a winner.  There isn’t an easy way to account for if games are going to be cancelled.  I can recalculate every time, but that’s a lot of work.  For example, I typically will send something out that says, “Klei R. will be eliminated from 1^st place contention if Team X wins Bowl Y”.  However, that is assuming that someone will be getting points.  If no one is getting points for that game, that calculation is no long accurate.  It’s all a mess.  I guess we’ll just have to see how things go.

For now, there is one game tomorrow, and it features one of my alma maters:

QuickLane Bowl (11AM ESPN)

Vegas Line: Western Michigan -7

Median Pick: Nevada for 7 points.

Picks for Western Michigan: 23 (20.09 points average, 462 total points, 39^th)

Picks for Nevada: 28 (18.82 points average, 527 total points, 35^th)

Total points wagered: 989 (26^th)

Pick distribution:

So, this looks a little strange, right?  Western Michigan is favored by 7 points, but the median pick and more points are being wagered on Nevada.  I think the issue here is that the QB for Nevada thinks he is going to be drafted into the NFL, so decided not to play this game.  Unfortunately for most people, we didn’t find out about that until after the start of the bowl season.  I think that this game was more or less a pick ‘em game prior to that.

I feel like the mix of cancelled games where no one gets points, and games like this, where there is a big change in the lineups are really killing people this year.  I haven’t heard much about this, but I assume this will happen as well: teams are going to play shorthanded.  All of this is going to effect the outcomes of the games.  I think this makes a lot of the rest of the Bowl pool more or less a crapshoot.  At regular strength, Team A should beat Team B, but neither Team A or Team B is going to be at full strength, so trying to predict anything is really, really hard.

We’ll keep going as best we can.  There are 5 games scheduled for Tuesday.  I put the over/under on those games being played at 2.5.  That’s how pessimistic I am.

If the game goes off tomorrow, I’m still going to cheer for my Broncos, and try to forget about COVID for a few hours.

Good luck!!!!!