Prior to the NCAA tournament, I was interviewed by my Sports Buff/World Fantasy Games/Rapid Draft buddy Matt Schauf about fantasy college hoops. At that time, I said it was probably my favorite fantasy sport, but that was somewhat due to the fact that I have logged the most time at it in the past few years. Now that I’ve had more time to think about it, I think I agree with myself of a few months ago, but for slightly different reasons. I think fantasy college basketball compares favorably to football, baseball and basketball with some bonuses. With all due respect to other niche fantasy sports (like hockey, college football, NASCAR, and golf) that I don’t play, I’d like to compare fantasy college basketball, my sport, to the big three.

As anyone who knows anything about fantasy sports knows, fantasy football is king. It generates the most writing, the most playing, and is most integrated with the NFL. No other sport that I can think of has embraced fantasy like the NFL and the networks commonly air “fantasy leaders” (even though they generally put passer completion percentage as one of the stats and I’ve yet to see a fantasy league with that stat.) I enjoy fantasy football for what it is, and that  is 75 percent luck. Trying to predict who will score touchdowns in any particular week is like trying to figure out who is going to hit a homer in particular game. Well, it’s not quite that bad, but fantasy football is more akin to gambling than any other fantasy sport. Yes, there are degrees of luck in every other game, but not as much as football. I think that’s one of the reasons that it is so popular. Anyone can win and because the player pool isn’t particularly deep, you don’t have to spend hours tending your garden. Fantasy college basketball’s head-to-head style of play is similar to fantasy football, but there isn’t a similar reliance on one stat so things are evened out. I should probably note that I have never won a fantasy football league (although last year I had a team that scored 200 more points than any opponent in the regular season, then pooped out in the fantasy championship. A bad beat, just like poker, another form of gambling).

Fantasy baseball is in many ways the opposite of fantasy football. Fantasy baseball teams require daily maintenance, the season is long, and the player pools (especially those in individual leagues – AL- and NL-only) are deep. Because of these reasons I think fantasy baseball fans are most likely to enjoy fantasy college basketball. There is also much more strategy to fantasy baseball than football because there are generally eight or ten statistical categories in which each player can contribute to half and most leagues aren’t head-to-head where luck is a prevailing factor. If you want to win, you’re going to have battle throughout the season. There are also many ways to form your team into a winner. I prefer big bats, middle relief, and a small starting pitching crew. Baseball is also a number lover’s dream sport because almost everything can be quantified. Fantasy baseball was the first fantasy game I played and in many ways it is the best. I have a few problems with it: a couple of minor quibbles and one major personal problem. A minor problem is that you have to balance hitting and pitching.  I also don’t like some of the statistics used, especially steals, saves, and wins. The first two stats because they are dominated by specialists who often don’t help in other categories; and wins because it is a silly statistic that has little to do with how a pitcher actually pitched. My major problem with fantasy baseball is that I don’t like to watch baseball. It’s too slow and there is way too much time for the announcers to talk mindlessly.

Part of the problem with discussing fantasy college and pro basketball is that people feel like they have to take sides. I used to prefer the NBA because I watched 75 Milwaukee Bucks games a year (and after that punishment, I still came back for more). These days I watch much more college basketball and prefer it somewhat because teams employ varied styles, which is certainly a difference from the NBA (plus, the games are shorter). It’s hard to go wrong with NBA players, however, and I like both sports very much. I even like their fantasy games almost equally. Fantasy basketball combines some of the best parts of football (somewhat relaxed schedule) and baseball (especially non head-to-head leagues). Fantasy basketball one ups baseball in that each player is rated on the same eight or nine categories, so the best players can contribute mightily in some areas and won’t hurt you in others. No single player will dominate every category. This leads to more interesting trades and a wide variety of strategies.

Finally, we have fantasy college basketball. It suffers because it is the most loosely defined, but that can also be an advantage. If you don’t like the settings of one league, you can hop to another one that is more your style – or create your own. Like fantasy football, fantasy college basketball uses head-to-head games which can lead to wackiness (an 18-seed won the Big Chief Challenge last year). Like fantasy baseball, the player pool is generally very deep, especially if you are one of those nuts like me who is in a league or two that uses the entire Division 1 (340+ teams). Like fantasy basketball, each player is rated by the same set of categories. No player will dominate rebounds and assists. Even in points leagues like fantasycollegehoops.com and the James River Gang, there are many strategies to follow to win (although being lucky doesn’t hurt here either). In all of its forms, fantasy college basketball is a deep, vibrant, and - most of all - fun game to play.

There were a couple of other differences between fantasy and real sports that I forgot to write about last week. The one that comes to mind right now (and others I’ve forgotten again) is that if you are a fantasy player, your season ends at the end of the regular season. In fact, I’d say for many fantasy players the highlight of the season is the draft (this is a big problem with salary cap type formats). Everyone is optimistic about their squad and the interaction of the draft is rarely topped during the season. This opposite from the common fan is true for almost every fantasy sport in which I’ve ever player, although I think the first year of ESPN.com fantasy basketball, they included the NBA Playoffs. In the Big Chief Challenge the past two years, I included the first weekend of the NCAA championship, but I’ve done away with that this year because it penalizes good players on lousy teams too much. We play through the conference tournaments and they reward the good players on good teams enough.

For fantasy college basketball, this reliance on the regular season is kind of a shame. The Big Dance is the one time the world’s sport spotlight shines on college basketball, yet fantasy owners are generally finished except for the brackets that they join everyone else in filling out. If fantasy college basketball is to take a next step into prominence, we need to create some sort of game that supplements bracket filling.

There are obvious problems to his scheme: the biggest among them is the limited time between Selection Sunday and the first day of play. It would be nice if there was a weekend day to schedule a draft and maybe we should petition the new president to make the Monday after Selection Sunday a holiday of some sort. Perhaps we could move Labor Day to that Monday. Or call it National Tournament Preparation Day – we need something like that just to sift through all of the data (and if you haven’t done so in previous seasons, you should really check out Blue Ribbon’s Tournament Primer – it is really thorough).

As I mentioned above, the draft is really one of the best (if not the best) parts of fantasy leagues, but there are ways to create leagues without a draft. Two years ago, I ran a NCAA tournament contest using James River League scoring (a point for points and rebounds, two points per assist and steal, three points per block) in which you could redraft your team after each pair of rounds. I think you also received bonus points if you picked a player on a lower seeded team. There wasn’t a huge demand for it, but the PFS forums (when they were alive) were a fantasy football dominated crowd. Perhaps we could set up something similar here.

If you have a good crowd of NCAA fans in your midst and can get together for a draft, you could do something like a guy named Jeffrey Young from Seattle described to me. “Our league is 15 friends who get together after the NCAA tournament bracket is set.  We draft 12 players each from the teams in the tourney and keep track of their total points scored during the tournament games.  The reigning champion is the automatic last draft choice (15th).  We pick numbers to determine draft order.  We draft 1-15 in the first round and 15-1 in the second and keep repeating until each team has 12 players.  The object is to get a player who scores a lot of points and is on a team with a chance at playing every possible game.  So, Tyler Hansbrough is a player who will most likely be chosen within the first three picks if not the first overall pick.” He noted that Melvin O’Connor from St. Joe’s a few years ago took a decidedly important role a few years ago and that the Connecticut-Georgia Tech final was even more memorable than Luke Schenscher’s hair. The whole thing sounds like a lot of fun to me.

Jeffrey was also looking for some type of service to keep track of the stats for him. I didn’t know of anything, but if anyone else does, please let me know.

All in all, I think we can make the best event on the sports calendar even better, but we need to start planning now. Who is with me?