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.

I think I have written before that one of the reasons I like fantasy sports is that I don’t have to be bothered by all of the nonsense that happens off the court/field/gridiron. While it seemed like some people were working themselves into a tizzy over steroids in baseball, I really didn’t care. I am sad that no one is going to hit 60 homers next year, but other than that I don’t want to hear about it. I am becoming decreasingly enthused about the NFL draft as well. I used to love it, but it has become a cottage industry. I don’t know any of the incoming players due to my lack of interest in college football and the draft rarely works out the way the draft wonks instantly call it. Now, I am afraid you can add one more off-the-court experience to my list of dislikes: Bracketology.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate seemingly everyone having an opinion on who should be in the Big Dance, it’s just that most people seem to do it to one up the committee. As the selection process has been demystified with the exposure to RPI, strength of schedule, good wins, and bad losses, every college basketball expert seems to think that they have to do their own bracket projection. Isn’t that what the committee is for? Isn’t the committee made up of athletic directors and commissioners with nothing personal at stake? Don’t we trust them? There is some subjectivity to the committee’s decisions because otherwise we’d have a BCS-like computer making the choices. But, does anyone really think that committee has bias against some bubble teams?

One of the items that always amused me on Selection Sunday was the post-announcement interview between Jim Nantz and Billy Packer, and the committee’s chairman. The CBS co-anchors would immediately grill the chairman with Packer being critical of giving mid-majors poorly placed seeds (St. Joe’s in 2004?) or not having Wake Forest high enough. Hopefully, the chairman was ready for this assault. The committee’s job is not easy – they have to compare apples to oranges, and leave some of the nicest fruit in the basket. One good thing is that they won’t have to worry about Packer’s criticisms this year. If Clark Kellogg – who has famously picked all of the number one seeds to make the Final Four every year – says something even remotely controversial, I will fall off my chair.

I was reminded of Packer’s favoritism toward power conference teams the other day when I read Jay Bilas’ chat recap on ESPN. Bilas suggested that the the automatic bids for conference champions be eliminated and just pick the “best” 64 teams. While there is some logic to this idea, it would spoil a great deal about what makes college basketball special – its amazing depth. This would render all of the mid- and low-major conference tournaments irrelevant (the conferences themselves would essentially be irrelevant as well). While the current 14-16 seeds have little chance of winning, isn’t a better story when Hampton beats Iowa State (the last 15 seed to win back in 2001) than when a team like last year’s Villanova (a 12-seed) beats one of their power conference brethren (Clemson). Doesn’t Cinderella’s glass slipper fit Davidson and George Mason much better? The power conference teams already have a huge advantage in terms of scheduling and opportunities to beat the best teams. Hopefully, no one will listen to Bilas’ power conference shilling and let that suggestion go where it deserves to be – the garbage heap.

I am still really looking forward to this year’s tournament (I am picking Pitt – big surprise!) and am doubly glad that I don’t have to stay up to the wee hours writing about it. I am looking forward to Selection Sunday as well, but I can wait until Greg Gumbel announces the match ups to see the bracket.

I have been playing fantasy sports for about 13 years now and I have been in all sorts of leagues. If you are like me, you remember the good ones and the not so good ones. What’s the difference? Generally, you need to have a good group of people who share an equal interest in the league. Your league-mates will throw a trade offer your way and have some bulletin board banter. Until recently, I had not been in a league in which every single team owner had as much enthusiasm as me. I say until recently because I have to admit that I have been slacking off in a number of leagues because of limited time and odd league formats. For example, I am trying fantasy hockey for the first time this year. I change my lineup daily and try to waive the injured players, but I don’t really have any idea of what I am doing. I do know that Alexander Ovechkin is good, but beyond that it’s all players with not enough vowels to me. I’ll admit I am not being a very good league mate in that one and as John Wayne said in Rio Bravo, “Just showing up doesn’t get the job done.” [I’ve actually never seen a John Wayne movie, but a handy Internet search brought that quote to me.] So, what can you do to make your league special?

Unfortunately, there is no way to do this without putting time in. Granted, we all have full schedules (or at least some of us do) and time is at a premium. Yet, if you are going to be in a fantasy league, wouldn’t you want it to be fun rather than a dull shuffling of players in and out of the lineup? So, here are some ideas for league members and commissioners to enliven their leagues:

Go on a trade frenzy: I used to do this annually in my NBA league. I had a bad run of keepers, so at some point I’d just get sick of my team and start sending out at least a trade offer per day. I didn’t really care if they were accepted, I just wanted to mix things up. One of the nice things about ESPN leagues is that they keep track of your trade offers, so my annual goal was to send out or receive 100 trade offers. I haven’t made it the past couple of years, but I generally ended up with a more interesting team than I started with (and who doesn’t if you are an active member of your league?) Your activity will help overall league cohesiveness and might provide some intriguing trade talks.

Go heel: To borrow a phrase from wrestling, you can start talking trash and hope that you provoke a response. [A quick story about wrestling, when I was in high school, my friends and I were into the then-WWF. At one show in my senior year, we had pretty good seats – maybe ten rows from the ring – and we started rooting vociferously for the heels, which at that time included Andre the Giant. At one point, we crossed the line and became heels ourselves with our neighbors starting to shout at us. It was great. I remember one old lady yelling at me, “How would you like if Andre did that to you?” after a big punch. I responded, “if he missed me by as much as he missed up there, I wouldn’t be in any trouble.”] I generally feel a bit silly about talking trash in fantasy leagues because I think there is so much luck involved. Nevertheless, you can provoke some intense rivalries by calling out your fellow leaguemates. Maybe I’ll try this next year in the IBL.

Go overboard on stats: If there is one thing I love about the fantasycollegehoops leagues, it is all of the stats, especially the historical ones. I particularly like all of the records. I used to keep similar stats for my fantasy football league (more about than in a moment) and I started keep stats in a head-to-head baseball league. In Rick’s leagues, the stats add a layer of continuity. I found myself playing Jonathan Rodriguez a bit more than maybe I should have, just so he could break Bo McCalebb’s franchise record. And Rodriguez has another year left. Let’s hope he was just in a funk in his junior season. Any kind of stat keeping – weekly records, franchise records, unusual stats (negative performances, triple-doubles, etc.) – will add a layer of interest.

Write Recaps: As far as I am concerned, this is holy grail of fantasy intrigue, but it takes way more time than any of the others. How do I know? For many years, I wrote detailed recaps for my fantasy football league in which I would make fun of Brent Farf, the other players, myself, the Packers in general, and Brent Farf so more. In fact, I am convinced that Brent Farf is the true spelling of the recently retired quarterback’s name. I kept all kinds of detailed stats, sent out weekly locker room interviews for seemingly meaningless quotes and tried to weave weekly storylines into the recaps. It was gargantuan effort, but I have to admit I loved every minute. This past season, one of the other league members took over for me and he did a tremendous job as well. This format doesn’t work for all sports, but if you are in a head-to-head league and can even write up a few sentences per game, it really adds to the league.

I’ve meant to write about a couple of games in the past week, but time has not been on my side. I was excited about the Xavier win over Memphis because they are two of the best teams outside the power conferences and it would have led into a nice discussion of what exactly is a mid-major (neither of those teams are, Southern Illinois and Gonzaga don’t seem to be either). Despite the game remaining on my DVR and a pretty exciting endgame, I just didn’t get a chance to watch it. Once I know the final score of the game, it loses a lot of its luster for watchability. Then, last night I watched bits and pieces of the first half of the Texas-Notre Dame game, which featured a lot of fantasy eligible players and two teams willing to play at a fast pace. I meant to watch the second half after my three-year-old daughter went to sleep. Unfortunately, I went to sleep before she did and I didn’t get a chance to watch it before doing the scoring for my league. Again, it was reportedly an exciting game and leads to an interesting North Carolina-Notre Dame tilt tonight, which – again – I intend to watch. By the way, I love all of these early season intriguing games. I hope they keep coming (and I am sure they will).

With watching all of these games, I wonder if it actually helps a person do well in fantasy leagues. It seems like most people think that to do well in fantasy leagues, you have to get a read on players by watching games. I have come to think that this bit of conventional wisdom is a bunch of hogwash. How a player looks really has nothing to do with how well they produce numbers and that’s all that we the fantasy players are really concerned about.

I play in a lot of fantasy leagues (football, baseball, NBA, college basketball, and this year I’ve added a hockey team because I thought I was going to be somewhat responsible for some hockey coverage on the other site. Sadly, the sport has not captured my interested even though my team has Alexander Ovechkin who seems to be very good). I used to be an avid baseball fan and grew up with the Cubs on WGN. However, some time during their ill-fated playoff run of 2003 (the year of Bartman), the jeering Cubs fans turned me off. These days I barely watch any baseball – it’s just too slow. I still play fantasy baseball and I am fairly successful. Would watching games make me any more successful?

In other ways watching games can actually be harmful to your fantasy team. If you watch a dazzling player in an exhibition game, you can get a poor read on a player. For example, I remember watching a preseason football game about ten years ago and seeing a young receiver for the Steelers named Troy Edwards. Every time he touched the ball, it was an amazing play. When our football draft rolled around, I selected Edwards and touted the pick as a great sleeper choice (I like to pat myself on the back). Edwards did nothing. He barely played and when he did, he was unproductive. A lesson learned? Perhaps – I don’t watch preseason football anymore.

I think this lesson is especially true for college basketball leagues like Rick’s. There are simply too many players to get to know and you’d go crazy trying to watch them all. And, it really doesn’t matter if you do see the players, as long as they produce. I have had Jonathan Rodriguez on my Fantasy College Hoops team for more than two years now and I’ve yet to see him play (mainly because Campbell stinks), but one day he’ll be my franchise’s leading scorer.

I do realize that part of the allure of fantasy sports is that the players of some random game can become meaningful to you. Would I like Corperryale Harris as much if he didn’t lead my team to a Big Chief Challenge win? Probably, but having him on the Big Chief squad added that extra spice. Just like in the NCAA tournament when you pick an upset, you root extra hard for the double-digit seed to make it happen (hello, Siena!). But, along with the brackets, you need luck in any fantasy sport to win. So, when you try to justify watching that extra game for fantasy purposes to your better half, don’t tell them that I told you to.