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WCHA Pick 'Em 2019-2020

Re: WCHA Pick 'Em 2019-2020

The race for MacNaughton Cup will come down to these games:
Code: 
      mbenecke         MTUHuskyGold 
Fri   UAA              UA_
Sat   Minnesota State  Bemidji State
Sat   Ferris State     Lake Superior
Bonus 90               101

MTUHuskyGold wins the MacNaughton Cup with a sweep of the three games as long as the Governor’s Cup SOGs are 96 or higher. Every point given up in the picks increases the SOGs bonus requirement by an equal amount. Any other combination gives mbenecke his first MacNaughton Cup.

The Mason Cup winner will be decided by Saturday’s Mankato/Bemidji and Lake Superior/Ferris games. MavHockey14 needs at least one win and one tie to claim the Cup otherwise the hardware go to sonofcrossjcek.

Code: 
MavHockey14      sonofcrossjcek
Minnesota State  Bemidji State
Lake Superior    Ferris State

With a 26 point cushion, BGSURICK has sewn up the 36th and final playoff spot. Footballguy51 and Laker Dude can only make up a maximum of 19 points. However, the battle for the first and second alternates is still alive and well. Footballguy51 holds onto the first alternate spot with a Mav win on Friday or a Seawolf win on Saturday as long as the Governor’s Cup SOGs are not between 95-99. Laker Dude is pulling for Bemidji on Friday and the Nanooks on Saturday as long as the Governor’s Cup SOGs are outside the range of 66-74.

There are too many combinations and permutations to track down for the final two byes. Here’s the picks, you can follow along at home:

Code: 
Hatch_man  puckdude40 soulbeaver	 Stauber1  Wi.HuskiesFan
MSU        BSU        BSU         MSU       MSU
LSSU       LSSU       LSSU        FSU       LSSU
NMU        NMU        NMU         NMU       MTU
BGSU       BGSU       BGSU        BGSU      BGSU
UA_        UAA        UA_         UA_       UA_

MSU        MSU        BSU         MSU       BSU
LSSU       LSSU       FSU         LSSU      LSSU
NMU        MTU        MTU         NMU       MTU
BGSU       BGSU       BGSU        BGSU      BGSU
UA_        UA_        UA_         UA_       UAA

95         112        103         107       105
 
Re: WCHA Pick 'Em 2019-2020

Uh-oh
Talons can you please check the crossjcek/sonofcrossjcek entries please. I did not change my pics. My son did, however, a couple minutes after he originally picked. I asked if he used my name or his and he is not sure. Please double check this as I ever only enter my picks once. He wanted to change his this morning so I told him you take the last entry.
 
Re: WCHA Pick 'Em 2019-2020

crossjcek said:
Uh-oh
Talons can you please check the crossjcek/sonofcrossjcek entries please. I did not change my pics. My son did, however, a couple minutes after he originally picked. I asked if he used my name or his and he is not sure. Please double check this as I ever only enter my picks once. He wanted to change his this morning so I told him you take the last entry.
Click to expand...

Here's what's entered. Which one's which?

2/26/2020 15:39:59 crossjcek Minnesota State Lake Superior Michigan Tech Bowling Green Alaska Minnesota State Lake Superior Northern Michigan Bowling Green Alaska 104
2/28/2020 7:54:46 sonofcrossjcek Minnesota State Lake Superior Northern Michigan Bowling Green Alaska Bemidji State Ferris State Michigan Tech Bowling Green Alaska 67
2/28/2020 7:56:05 crossjcek Bemidji State Lake Superior Northern Michigan Bowling Green Alaska Minnesota State Ferris State Northern Michigan Bowling Green Alaska 78
 
Re: WCHA Pick 'Em 2019-2020

2/28/2020 7:56:05 crossjcek Bemidji State Lake Superior Northern Michigan Bowling Green Alaska Minnesota State Ferris State Northern Michigan Bowling Green Alaska 78

These picks were sonofcrossjcek's picks, not mine. It's your operation and we appreciate your work on this all year. If you see it fit to change them please do. If it needs to stay the same, under my name, so be it. He's young and is learning that it's just a game. Thank you again.
 
Re: WCHA Pick 'Em 2019-2020

crossjcek said:
2/28/2020 7:56:05 crossjcek Bemidji State Lake Superior Northern Michigan Bowling Green Alaska Minnesota State Ferris State Northern Michigan Bowling Green Alaska 78

These picks were sonofcrossjcek's picks, not mine. It's your operation and we appreciate your work on this all year. If you see it fit to change them please do. If it needs to stay the same, under my name, so be it. He's young and is learning that it's just a game. Thank you again.
Click to expand...

I gave it some thought. While we're all here to have some fun and not get caught up in rules/controversy, your correction post came after the games were played, it's the last week, and there are Mason Cup implications. Normally I'd switch it around but in fairness to MavHockey14 I have to let it stand.
 
Re: WCHA Pick 'Em 2019-2020

What a finish! Lots to get to. First off, congrats to Scrum Bucket for being the week 21 winner with 36 of 40 points going 9-for-10 on the picks and 9-for-10 on the bonus. There were 114 SOGs in the final round of the Governor's Cup; in addition to Scrum Bucket, Drumstix, GoNanooks, and Hockey John each picked up 9 bonus points:

Code: 
Player          Bonus
Drumstix          9
GoNanooks         9
Hockey John       9
Scrum Bucket      9
puckdude40        8
<3_Blizzard       6
MSUMaverickFan    5
GIWAN             4
Manurespreader    4
Stauber1          3
Wi.HuskiesFan     1

While MTUHuskyGold mounted a late charge, it wasn’t enough to overtake mbenecke who is the 2019-2020 MacNaughton Cup winner! Congratulations mbenecke!! Bring a copy of this post to Rev’s and receive $1.00 off any appetizer.

Now to the Mason Cup which, as it turns out, is not without some controversy. I had the race down to two players: sonofcrossjcek and MavHockey14. But I was wrong. WAAAYYYY wrong. Because by going 9-for-10 on this week’s picks, Scrum Bucket drew 3 to an inside straight and has captured the Mason Cup! I do want to give a special call out to sonofcrossjcek who made a gallant effort and hopefully will be back next year.

Congratulations to our winners and to all the participants who make this the biggest pick ‘em contest on the USCHO boards.

Final regular season standings and playoff seeding:
<img src="https://jefffrederick.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Week-21.png" alt="WCHA Pick Em Standings";">
 
Re: WCHA Pick 'Em 2019-2020

The field is set, it’s now playoff time. I want to remind our two alternates, Laker Dude and footballguy51 that submitting picks is encouraged. You’re not out of this thing just yet.

Here’s a link to the playoff rules In short, submit your picks for the first two rounds, I’ll post first round results early Saturday morning so you can see if you advance while having your morning coffee (that reference is for you Miss Thundercat). One more thing: since we are now heads up the link to the detailed picks will not be available until everyone’s picks are in.

You’ve done this for 21 weeks; you know how it works.
Rounds 1 and 2
View response summaries

<img src="https://jefffrederick.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Bracketology-21.png" alt="WCHA Pick Em Standings";">
 
Re: WCHA Pick 'Em 2019-2020

Let’s take a look at the brackets starting with Mankato (but first, the links):

Rounds 1 and 2
View response summaries

Mbenecke (1) – Bye: While it took 3 seasons for the 2018 ROY to capture his first MacNaughton Cup, (finishing runner-up last year), mbenecke did it with a performance that was utterly dominating. Mbenecke never fell lower than 3rd in the weekly rankings and held the top spot for 11 of 21 weeks. He did it with the highest bonus total of all players while posting a top-10 pick percentage of .681. Vegas has him at 3-2 to repeat.

Play-In Game - beaverhockeyfan fell 1 point short of escaping the play-in game which has to be a disappointment following last year’s strong top-10 finish. The season was a mixed bag with 7 top-ten weekly finishes (including a week 6 win) coupled with middling results the rest of the way. Pick percentage is a respectable .659 but an improvement on the 10 bonus points is a must to beat mikeeddy19 who struggled early on but is one of the hottest players down the stretch with 4 top-10 finishes the last 5 weeks of the season (including a week 19 win). MSUMaverickFan has the numbers to be outside the play-in game (.651 pick percentage, 27 bonus points) but missing a couple of weeks, including week 20, did some serious fate-sealing. Consider this contestant the sleeper in this play-in. BGSURICK, who could never seem to turn on the jets, rounds out the Mankato play-in field. Climbing to no better than 24th place in week 3, our 36th seed and last contestant to make the field comes in with a pick percentage just under .600 and only 7 bonus points. Winner gets mbenecke. Go get ‘em!

Drumstix (9) vs. Miss Thundercat (16) – A couple of rookies go head-to-head (though Miss Thundercat is a red shirt from last year). Drumstix has to feel good about the 9th place finish though the 18 bonus points leave some room for improvement. A solid last two weeks of the regular season puts the momentum on this side of the matchup though Miss Thundercat has demonstrated that she still has all nine lives available. Three weekly wins plus two second place weekly finishes show what’s possible and though the first half of the season was solid, the last month and the 8 total bonus points left a little to be desired. Is this an aberration or a trend? Gotta play the game to find out.

MavHockey14 (8) vs. geezer (17) – The most intriguing first round matchup in this bracket pits MavHockey14’s rock star .701 pick percentage against geezer’s killer 39 bonus points. One player’s strength is another’s weakness so let’s dig a little deeper into the numbers:

Code: 
                       MavHockey14   Geezer
Weekly Wins             2             1
Top 10 Weekly Finishes  9            10
Weeks in the Top 10     13            7

Conclusion: this one could go either way
 
Re: WCHA Pick 'Em 2019-2020

TalonsUpPuckDown said:
Let’s take a look at the brackets starting with Mankato (but first, the links):

Rounds 1 and 2
View response summaries

Mbenecke (1) – Bye: While it took 3 seasons for the 2018 ROY to capture his first MacNaughton Cup, (finishing runner-up last year), mbenecke did it with a performance that was utterly dominating. Mbenecke never fell lower than 3rd in the weekly rankings and held the top spot for 11 of 21 weeks. He did it with the highest bonus total of all players while posting a top-10 pick percentage of .681. Vegas has him at 3-2 to repeat.

Play-In Game - beaverhockeyfan fell 1 point short of escaping the play-in game which has to be a disappointment following last year’s strong top-10 finish. The season was a mixed bag with 7 top-ten weekly finishes (including a week 6 win) coupled with middling results the rest of the way. Pick percentage is a respectable .659 but an improvement on the 10 bonus points is a must to beat mikeeddy19 who struggled early on but is one of the hottest players down the stretch with 4 top-10 finishes the last 5 weeks of the season (including a week 19 win). MSUMaverickFan has the numbers to be outside the play-in game (.651 pick percentage, 27 bonus points) but missing a couple of weeks, including week 20, did some serious fate-sealing. Consider this contestant the sleeper in this play-in. BGSURICK, who could never seem to turn on the jets, rounds out the Mankato play-in field. Climbing to no better than 24th place in week 3, our 36th seed and last contestant to make the field comes in with a pick percentage just under .600 and only 7 bonus points. Winner gets mbenecke. Go get ‘em!

Drumstix (9) vs. Miss Thundercat (16) – A couple of rookies go head-to-head (though Miss Thundercat is a red shirt from last year). Drumstix has to feel good about the 9th place finish though the 18 bonus points leave some room for improvement. A solid last two weeks of the regular season puts the momentum on this side of the matchup though Miss Thundercat has demonstrated that she still has all nine lives available. Three weekly wins plus two second place weekly finishes show what’s possible and though the first half of the season was solid, the last month and the 8 total bonus points left a little to be desired. Is this an aberration or a trend? Gotta play the game to find out.

MavHockey14 (8) vs. geezer (17) – The most intriguing first round matchup in this bracket pits MavHockey14’s rock star .701 pick percentage against geezer’s killer 39 bonus points. One player’s strength is another’s weakness so let’s dig a little deeper into the numbers:

Code: 
                       MavHockey14   Geezer
Weekly Wins             2             1
Top 10 Weekly Finishes  9            10
Weeks in the Top 10     13            7

Conclusion: this one could go either way
Click to expand...

Ugh.... Thanks for the pick me up! LOL!
 
Re: WCHA Pick 'Em 2019-2020

Up next is the Bemidji bracket (but first, the links):

Rounds 1 and 2
View response summaries

MTUHuskyGold (2) – Bye: Once past week 3, MTUHuskyGold spent the next 18 weeks no lower than 4th in the weekly standings which is an incredible achievement and an amazing turnaround from last year’s 25th place regular season finish. Two weekly wins and 10 weekly top-10 finishes along with a .684 pick percentage and a whopping 44 bonus points sounds fantastic, but having the lead through week 17 and not being able to close the deal has to sting a bit. Is redemption waiting in the wings? Stay tuned…

Play-In Game - How does the Mason Cup winner end up in a play-in game? By spotting the field 26 games. Scrum Bucket would have also challenged for the MacNaughton with entries for all 213 games. Going up against a player with a league leading .704 pick percentage and 37 bonus points has to be daunting, but klbaum1077 is no stranger to these situations. This three-year contest veteran posted a .628 pick percent and 20 bonus points and a week 1 win. manurespreader missed three weeks of picks last year and missed out on the playoffs. Not this year. Picking in all 213 games with a .620 pick percentage and 19 bonus points lead to this year’s breakthrough. On the other hand, while <3_Blizzard’s .622 pick percentage is slightly higher than historical norms, this year’s 15 bonus points is well below average. That leaves plenty of upside so don’t be surprised to see <3_Blizzard storming to an upset!

TalonsUpPuckDown (10) vs. Icd80 (15) – About all you can say (well, about all I’m gonna say) is that TUPD made it into the top ten while picking first each week (because he has to ensure all the links work – it’s called unit testing for those not in IT). The other side of the ledger sees Icd80 posting a vastly improved .662 pick percentage over the previous year but only 17 bonus points. Will this be enough of a historical performance to predict a win? Yeah, probably...

Wi.HuskiesFan (7) vs. sonofcrossjcek (18) – By far the most intriguing matchup of the entire first round sees the 2018 Jeff Sauer trophy winner Wi.HuskiesFan taking on the 2020 ROY sonfocrossjcek. I’m already counting down the days. Wi.HuskiesFan had a killer 2017-18 year but stumbled a bit last year only to come back with a vengeance this year. The secret? It’s the bonus. He’s unbeatable when his bonus picking is strong but when it isn’t…well…yeah... This year he posted 48 bonus points so watch out. But wait…his opponent, sonofcrossjcek rode a pick percentage of nearly .700 to the 18th seed while missing the first weeks’ picks. Had there not been confusion in the final week over the picks submitted we might be seeing this year’s Mason Cup winner taking on a prior Jeff Sauer winner. Just sit back, pop open a cold one, and enjoy this matchup.
 
Re: WCHA Pick 'Em 2019-2020

TalonsUpPuckDown said:
Up next is the Bemidji bracket (but first, the links):

Rounds 1 and 2
View response summaries

MTUHuskyGold (2) – Bye: Once past week 3, MTUHuskyGold spent the next 18 weeks no lower than 4th in the weekly standings which is an incredible achievement and an amazing turnaround from last year’s 25th place regular season finish. Two weekly wins and 10 weekly top-10 finishes along with a .684 pick percentage and a whopping 44 bonus points sounds fantastic, but having the lead through week 17 and not being able to close the deal has to sting a bit. Is redemption waiting in the wings? Stay tuned…

Play-In Game - How does the Mason Cup winner end up in a play-in game? By spotting the field 26 games. Scrum Bucket would have also challenged for the MacNaughton with entries for all 213 games. Going up against a player with a league leading .704 pick percentage and 37 bonus points has to be daunting, but klbaum1077 is no stranger to these situations. This three-year contest veteran posted a .628 pick percent and 20 bonus points and a week 1 win. manurespreader missed three weeks of picks last year and missed out on the playoffs. Not this year. Picking in all 213 games with a .620 pick percentage and 19 bonus points lead to this year’s breakthrough. On the other hand, while <3_Blizzard’s .622 pick percentage is slightly higher than historical norms, this year’s 15 bonus points is well below average. That leaves plenty of upside so don’t be surprised to see <3_Blizzard storming to an upset!

TalonsUpPuckDown (10) vs. Icd80 (15) – About all you can say (well, about all I’m gonna say) is that TUPD made it into the top ten while picking first each week (because he has to ensure all the links work – it’s called unit testing for those not in IT). The other side of the ledger sees Icd80 posting a vastly improved .662 pick percentage over the previous year but only 17 bonus points. Will this be enough of a historical performance to predict a win? Yeah, probably...

Wi.HuskiesFan (7) vs. sonofcrossjcek (18) – By far the most intriguing matchup of the entire first round sees the 2018 Jeff Sauer trophy winner Wi.HuskiesFan taking on the 2020 ROY sonfocrossjcek. I’m already counting down the days. Wi.HuskiesFan had a killer 2017-18 year but stumbled a bit last year only to come back with a vengeance this year. The secret? It’s the bonus. He’s unbeatable when his bonus picking is strong but when it isn’t…well…yeah... This year he posted 48 bonus points so watch out. But wait…his opponent, sonofcrossjcek rode a pick percentage of nearly .700 to the 18th seed while missing the first weeks’ picks. Had there not been confusion in the final week over the picks submitted we might be seeing this year’s Mason Cup winner taking on a prior Jeff Sauer winner. Just sit back, pop open a cold one, and enjoy this matchup.
Click to expand...

i suck at bonus points
 
Re: WCHA Pick 'Em 2019-2020

Week 18 did sting with Mbenecke having a near perfect week to steal my short perch at the top. However, I did claw back some and was a Bemidji St win last Saturday away from taking the regular season. Feel like I'm in the "bracket of death" with the quality of the play-in opponents. Round 2 will not be easy for me! Pick 'Em has been great fun and your previews so far are great. Thanks.
 
Stauber1 said:
So do bye seeds submit picks this week? I dont quite understand how this is all working.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. Pick all the games and bonuses. Since you have a first round bye I will only use your second round picks which will be used against the person coming out of the play-in game. So basically your first round picks are throwaway.
 
Re: WCHA Pick 'Em 2019-2020

On to the Marquette bracket (but first, the links):

Rounds 1 and 2
View response summaries

Stauber1 (3) – Bye: While it took this rookie a couple of weeks to lift off, once airborne Stauber1 never looked back. Eight top-10 finishes (and a week 7 win) lead to the highest pick percentage of the contestants with first round byes (.693) – and the 30 bonus points sure helped seal the deal.

Play-In Game - While GIWAN’s pick percentage and bonus were only slightly off of last year’s pace (.670 vs. .683 / 30 vs. 38) and the 8 top-10 weekly finishes (and a week 1 win) certainly turned some heads, missing week 8 was the difference between last year’s 5th place finish and this year’s play-in game. Another rookie making their playoff debut, NHBEAVERFAN’s 3 weekly wins was not enough to overcome some challenges in the bonus picking (8 points). When it comes to consistency, no one tops 3-year veteran John J. MacInnes whose three year totals/points percentage are 415/.626, 415/.637, and 416/.631. In preceding years this would be enough to place in the top 15. But due to the increase in professionals flocking to this year’s WCHA Pick ‘Em contest, these numbers are only good enough to land in the third play-in match. Rounding out the group is another 3-year veteran, kckrieg84 who had 5 top-10 finishes (and a week 5 win). 24 bonus points when coupled with a pick percentage of .617, wasn’t enough to overcome a missed week 14.

walktheline (11) vs. gochiefs (14) – Each week I can count on Johnny Cash tunes being securely planted in my brain thanks to rookie walktheline. Nine top-10 finishes (and a week 3 win) led to a fast start but some stumbles occurred during the middle part of the season. However, momentum is swinging this way over the past 5 weeks. gochiefs was unable to duplicate last year’s second place finish. While the bonus points were the same (28 each year), this year’s .646 pick percentage (vs. .689) was the difference.

Soulbeaver (6) vs. GoNanooks (19) – A pair of 3-year veterans find themselves head-to-head in this first round matchup. After a down year last year, Soulbeaver returned to peak form with a .657 pick percentage, a stellar 47 bonus points, and 8 top-10 finishes (and a week 17 win) while staying in the top 6 for the final 18 weeks of the season. While the pick percentage dropped a tad from last year (.632 vs. .659, GoNanooks’ bonus made up the difference (33 vs. 23). Add in the two top-5 weekly finishes in the last 5 weeks of the season and you have yourself THE marquee matchup in this bracket.
 
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