2023 Season Preview

 Not having a job is much more time consuming than I remember, so this post will be brief. Use it to help with your rivalry rankings, division draft, or just ignore it. As you can see, the blog design and sidebar is updated for this season. Overall winning percentage stayed relatively similar, but somehow Nick dropped from 6th to 11th after a 6-8 season due to the insane cluster around .500. As always, the fact that the top 7 teams by historical record have 5 titles, and the bottom 7 teams have 8 titles defies logic, but Alan kept that train rolling last year.

On to the more predictive stats:

Not a lot of movement here either. Levine remains head and shoulders above everyone else, Billy fell further into the abyss, and Alan won his third title despite having a lower PAA than Long. Barnard has the largest gap between his record and PAA, showing that he is truly fools gold every year. Nick and Zacherman not having a chef's coat is almost as surprising as Alan winning three times.

Division Draft Tiers:
1. Levine
2. AGD, Esco, Nick, Z, Kumpf, Marco, Weissbard (AGD and Esco have had poor showings recently, so they join the mess of teams above 0.00)
3. Gutman, Barnard, Bennett, Ajay
4. Alan, Billy (the most volatile tier possible)

And for posterity, the all-time points situation:

Fill out your Rivalry Week polls, and see you in the Windy City this weekend.

12th Annual FALAFEL Draft Location Madness - The Champion

 

Shouts to Abe Froman.

12th Annual FALAFEL Draft Location Madness - Final Four Results and Championship Voting

 

Weeks of voting gets us to the top two seeds facing off. Yawn. Which off-putting but hilarious midwestern accent will we choose? Pittsburgh is long overdue, but Chicago has the better housing and flight situation. Both have home baseball games, but the Pitt stadium is preferable given that the Cubs are not at home (ironically in Pitt). Does the casino situation have some pull even without Barnard present? Does anyone have interest in a (potential) suite for the Chicago Sky on Sunday night? Let's answer these questions in the next 48 hours.

12th Annual FALAFEL Draft Location Madness - Elite Eight Results and Final Four Voting

 

After two rounds of Madness, we're at the Final Four and it's as chalky as possible. Tampa barely surviving two rounds in a row doesn't bode well for it's matchup against the juggernaut in the Windy City, but apparently a studio tour is more appealing than it sounds? On the other side we have perpetual bridesmaid Pittsburgh against a polarizing Vegas. It's shocking that we haven't actually made it to Pitt yet, but it's equally shocking that we haven't been to Vegas since 2011 and it's never actually won this bracket (or made the Finals as far as I can remember). I'd say that the favorites are Pitt and Chicago, but I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see any finals matchup or champion.

12th Annual FALAFEL Draft Location Madness - Sweet Sixteen Results and Elite Eight Voting

We have FALAFEL history as not one, but two 6-seeds made the Elite Eight. Making it even more surprising is that one of them is where a league member lives, and the other is in Iowa. They don't call it madness for nothing!

The bottom regions have been almost entirely chalk, and other than a Tampa overtime win, the 1-seeds have not really been challenged. I maintain that Chicago and Minneapolis are on a collision course, but if this year has shown us anything, it's to expect the unexpected.