During the entire
second half of the season, for some reason it appeared to be a struggle to get
the boosters matches played. And I found that strange because overall court
usage has been particularly healthy. So people are playing… but just not their
league matches? In either case, the last couple of weeks were an improvement on
the first 7, however as you will see below, the stats are still somewhat unsightly.
The fact that Mongoose ended up on top should not be a surprise to anyone – comparatively speaking to other seasons, their stats aren’t off the charts by any means, they are simply better than the rest of the teams. Conversely, Nicker Ballers position shouldn’t be a shock either. The top six teams that are advancing to the play-offs were pretty much set weeks ago.
Biggest push of the last round came from Winky-Dinks with 47 points which was an important effort as they were chasing down Vivio’s for the coveted second spot on the standings. Their endeavors paid off as they overtook Rich Stimson’s team in the last few hours to grab that spot and be rewarded with a first-round pass in the finals.
Here are the stats for the half. They aren’t pretty…
· Overall, 60% of matches were completed. Yeah, that’s very low. Up until the start of round 9, we were sitting under 50%. We had 72.5% of matches in the first half.
· Mongoose won the half with 217 points. In 2019 second half (the last pre-Covid season) that would have been good enough for only 4th. For the first half this season – 6th.
· Mongoose not only played the most amount of matches (66%), they also has the most bonus points by a wide margin – 79. The next best? Winky-Dinks with 63.
· Two other teams also played 66% of their matches: Winky-Dinks and Butter Nutz.
· Overall, 60% of the results were 2-1. This is my favorite stat – shows the competitiveness
· Least amount of matches goes to Nicker Ballers with 50%.
· Nicker Ballers also had the least amount of bonus points – by far. Only 29. The most players that turned up for them in any given week was 5. If they picked up as many bonus points as Mongoose, they would be in the play-offs.
· Only 4 players picked up all 8 bonus points. And an amazing 14 players didn’t pick up any.
· Vivio’s had the best winning percentage with 64%. Wardogs the lowest with 29%.
· Winky-Dinks won the most 3-0 matches with 20.
· Only 8 players played all 8 matches. None of the 8 went undefeated. (We had 27 players in the first half that played all 8 matches.)
· Matt Paradiso (Winky-Dinks) picked up the most number of points for the half with 25.
· Most points picked up in any one round is 39 by Vivio’s in round 3. Least amount of points was 10 – achieved by Nicker Ballers in round 1 (!).
· All 16 matches in one round were not completed once. 15 matches were completed just once.
· Most matches completed in any one round was 79.7% in round 2. Very low.
The quarter finals
are upon us! The matches should be an interesting affair:
Vivio’s v Cadieux Café. Nothing like matching up Captains Rich Stimson and Patrick Petz for some friendly trash-talking! These 2 teams met in round 6 – one day before the start of the DAC Classic. Only 8 matches were completed, so it’s difficult to tell from only 50% of the results who the favorite should be here, but on that day, Vivio’s ruled the roost with a comprehensive 25 to 13 win. In fact, Vivio’s won 7 of those 8 matches. I guess it’s not too much of a stretch to predict that Cadieux Café will be in for a tough week.
The other quarter
final we see Foss Nation tackling Butter Nutz. Their round 5
meeting was a lot closer: 24-23 to Butter Nutz. They played 13 of those
matches and although Foss Nation won 8 of them, they strangely still lost.
Bonus points were scarce that day as it was the evening of a big snow storm
that kept all sane people at home. This one is a complete toss-up. But, as
always, I’ll chuck some pressure on somebody here anyway and forecast a victory
by a hair for… Foss Nation. (I’ve probably just doomed their chances!)
