Season review

The inaugural season was quite a success, as most teams in the league will return next year. But there was definitely some room for improvement in other areas. First, the entire league will transition to this homepage beginning next year. This will make everything publicly available and centralize it into one location. Also, other minor adjustments to point values will be made for next season.

But here are the Cliffs Notes on how this past year went down:

Fresh off the heels of "Mario's Miracle", the anticipation for the upcoming college basketball season was impossible to ignore. There were more than two-dozen teams with a legitimate chance to cut down the nets, and nationwide parody had risen to an all-time high. This year, the title was truly up for grabs. The same could be said for the first year of my Fantasy College Hoops league. After several weeks of advertising, it was now or never for this idea to take flight.

It was a chilly evening on November 5, 2008. Seven teams crowded into a pizzabox-laden basement in Overland Park, Kansas. There was one absentee team, and two teams drafting via instant message. After more than 2 hours of franchise-building, stat-stuffing and sleeper-searching, the first annual Fantasy College Hoops draft was complete. Here are the results from the preseason draft:

(click to enlarge)

The inaugural season was underway less than a week later. But here are the key ingredients that made the league such a success. After the box scores were complete, I provided a quick recap of the previous night's action. The league scoreboard was updated daily to give a constantly updated outlook on each matchup. In addition to daily updates, midseason all-american lists added further fuel to the trash-talking fire. Controversial Power Rankings were released on a monthly basis (similar to those on ESPN) for each team in the league. These touched on major successes and disappointments thus far. The in-depth analysis really got the competitive juices flowing. You could feel the intensity building upon itself week after week.

**Note: I will post each month's Power Rankings soon, because they are such a blast to look back on, just in case you need a good laugh.**

The postseason playoffs lived up to the hype, turning out to be one of the most exciting finishes in fantasy sports history. Playoff births were up for grabs until the very last minute. It was a photo-finish for the league title, and less than 5 fantasy points separated 1st & 3rd place in the final standings: