Are you still with us?
For two reasons let's hope the live 1st Round Mainstay blogging intrigued you more than scared you. One, we are doing it again tomorrow ... and two, we will be doing it for EVERY round of the Mainstay Tournament and then the grand daddy of them all, the F'd Up Tournament. So if you were scared by the first go-around, then that does not bode well for you or for us here at KOA as well.
The idea was simple enough in nature. Back in 2006, we stumbled upon an empty bracket sitting in our dorm room. Still high on the fumes from March Madness, we started joking around about who would win hypothetical "match-ups." For instance, the King Kong pizza was making the rounds in '06, and we wondered if King Kong could beat Coach Bobby Knight. And right there, the F'd Up Tournament was born. We filled out the bracket with teams/players/sayings, and flipped quarters to determine the winner.
Somehow, The King of Arguments took the inaugural crown. Go HERE to view the final proceedings from that tournament. (NOTE: it took us nearly three years to finish that first tourney).
We decided to bring back the 2009 tournament for various reasons ... the big one being that we had so much fun the first go around. But we were clear we wanted it to be a bit more structured as well as having an actual "score" compared to just flipping quarters. So, we came up with some rules/guidelines, instituted the dice (the "rolling rules" can be found HERE) and away we went.
That being said, the reception we received from the 1st Round was probably a mix of intrigue and bewilderment ... which is good ... I think. The F'd Up Tournament can best be described as "structured randomness." Which is why Kevin and I are in love with this concept. Who would win if Rudy and Paul Culver went head-to-head? The F'd Up Tournament will give us that answer.
The bracket on this page is for The Mainstay Tournament, designed solely for the entries we feel are NOT BASED on a year-to-year basis. That is what the Automatic Qualifiers and At-Large Candidates are for. The Auto's and At-Large's WILL CHANGE SEVERELY from year-to-year, while the Mainstays will have a few additions and subtractions, but their core will remain the same. Some Mainstays are inside jokes, some are really good mutual friends we've known for a long time, while others range from movies, high school teachers/professors, to our favorite teams/athletes.
Kevin and I assumed (correctly) that we would have a TON of "Mainstays" and would have to have some sort of "qualification" tournament in order to cut down their number. Thus, the Mainstay Tournament was born. Out of the 128 teams, only 32 WILL ADVANCE to the F'd Up Tournament. Think of the Mainstay Tournament as a quasi-selection show and you will get the gist of this crazy idea.
Once their are 32 Mainstay's remaining, we will go ahead and finish the tournament to declare a champion. The winner will be guaranteed a Top-Two (#1 or #2) seed for the F'd Up Tournament, with the runner-up being in the #3-#4 range, and so on and so forth until all 32 Mainstays are slotted.
It is important to remember that SEEDING IS IMPORTANT FOR THE F'D UP TOURNEY. There will be spreads (not yet determined) for each match-up (1 vs 16, 7 vs 10, etc.), and the higher your seed, the better your chances of advancing. The F'd Up Tournament will be 128 members strong, meaning instead of the usual four #1 seeds, we will have eight instead.
Take a deep breath. The hard part should be over.
Okay, so with 32 spots guaranteed for the Mainstays. That still leaves us with 96 open spots. That is where At-Large Candidates and Automatic Qualifiers come in.
The F'd Up Tournament has a three-person selection committee (Kevin Hunt, Matt Barnes, and myself) to determine who gets the At-Large spots. Anything is up for grabs here. Could be a movie, an athlete, a saying, etc.
Anything that took place from Thanksgiving 2008 through Thanksgiving Eve 2009. December 2009 is for putting the bracket together and then actually "rolling" the tournament.
Possible At-Large candidates this year include: Barack Obama, The Hangover, Eric Mangini, Randy Moeller, Tom Watson, Tim Tebow, etc.
But we also need approximately 8-16 "bad" At-Large candidates. These will be given the eight #16 or #15 rankings and will have virtually zero shot at advancing due to the heavily scewed spread that will be working against them.
Possible Bad At-Large Candidates include: 0-16 Detroit Lions, Donte Stallworth, Jeremy Mayfield, Tom Watson/British Open Playoff, Romeo Crennel/Phil Savage, etc.
The number of At-Large spots available will be determined by how many Automatic Qualifiers we have.
The following is a complete list of Automatic Qualifiers (in no specific order).
1) Our Fantasy Football League Champion - Shane Kline
2) Our NFL Against The Spread Pick 'Em League Champion - Josh Florence
3-6) Four Major Golf Winners - Angel Cabrera, Lucas Glover, Stewart Cink, PGA Champion.
7-10) Four Major Tennis Winners - Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer (twice) - NOTE: in Roger's case, the more major's he wins, the higher his seeding will be for the Big Dance.
11) Heisman Trophy Winner - Sam Bradford (took place AFTER our Thanksgiving cut-off date)
12) PBA Bowler of the Year - Wes Malott (just beat out Norm Duke)
13) PBA 64 Match-Play Champion - Chris Barnes
14-15) AL and NL Cy Young Award Winners - TBD
16-17) AL and NL MVP - TBD
18) The Hart Memorial Trophy Winner - Alexander Ovechkin
19) NBA MVP - LeBron James
20) NFL MVP - Peyton Manning (another carry-over, just like the Heisman)
21) Super Bowl MVP - Santonio Holmes
22) Naismith College Basketball Player of the Year - Blake Griffin
23) NCAA Basketball Tournament Most Outstanding Player - Wayne Ellington
24) Top Grossing Movie Of The Year - would have been The Dark Knight last year. Transformers II leads thus far.
25) Song that spends the longest time #1 on Billboard's Chart - "Boom Boom Pow" has this all but locked up (12 weeks).
26-29) Top Four FHM Sexiest Women In The World - #4 Jessica Biel, #3 Scarlett Johansson, #2 Jessica Alba, #1 Megan Fox (first to repeat #1 since J-Lo did it in 2000/2001) ... NOTE: Fox will be seeded higher than Alba who will be seeded higher than Scarlett, etc.
30) Daytona 500 Winning Crew Chief - Drew Blickensderfer
31) NASCAR's Sprint To The Cup Winner - TBD.
32) Super Bowl Champions - Pittsburgh Steelers
33) World Series Champions - TBD.
34) Stanley Cup Champions - PITTSBURGH PENGUINS!!
35) NBA Champions - Los Angeles Lakers
36) NCAA Basketball Champions - North Carolina Tar Heels
37) NCAA Football Champions - Florida Gators
That's the list. With approximately 37 spots reserved for Automatic Qualifiers, it allows for 59 At-Large teams (just less than half of the field).
The three-person committee will convene in August to sort through At-Large candidates, and then again in November to go back over the At-Large and begin seeding the tournament.
In the meantime, we could always use some help. Please, any At-Large candidate you think HAS to be in here, let us know. Also, any Automatic Qualifier you think we missed ... please correct us. We are always open to new ideas. In fact, it was a new idea that got us started with this mess in the first place.
So there you have it, more than you probably wanted to know, but if you made it this far, then there might just be a slight chance you are just as hooked as we are. Let us know you are especially excited, and we might just give you an At-Large bid. Heck, maybe you might even walk away with the 2009 F'd Up Championship.
And yes, we do have a trophy (very similar to the Claret Jug), and yes, we will be engraving it just like the Stanley Cup.
Giddy-up my friends, a long and exciting journey awaits.
Until next time, "read it, roll it, hole it."
1 comment:
How did I not know about this?!?
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